Creating new perspectives since 2009
Items by Osama Gaweesh
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Save us: A plea ignored by governments
What is it that drives Egyptians to migrate across the sea? “Young people need to live and eat, or else they’ll leave you and flee across the sea,” President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi said last week, summarising the principal reason behind the increasing illegal migration. A significant decline in services,...
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Dear Western media, praising racists brings neither democracy nor stability
The Syrians will go A phrase widely spread on billboards in Turkish cities ahead of the second round of the presidential elections, in which Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is competing against opposition candidate Kemal Kilicdaroglu. The Turkish opposition have chosen such a racist slogan to secure a victory...
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Sisi and Bashar Al-Assad and transitioning from one embrace to another
Embraces are fleeting, and a person may move from one embrace to another for whatever reason. This is not a phrase to promote a brothel and wasn’t said by a prostitute as she went from the embrace of one to another. It was actually said in the speech by...
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Sisi is in danger and the Army is in the dock
Since the collapse of the economic situation in Egypt on the morning of the eleventh of this January and the dollar has exceeded the level of thirty pounds, the Western press is only talking about one main suspect: the Egyptian Army. In the new agreement concluded by Egypt and...
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Mohamed Aboul Gheit: Story of hope, talent and freedom of journalism
Last Monday came with shocking news for most Egyptian journalists and activists: Mohamed Aboul Gheit passed away. The 34 years old writer, investigative journalist and symbolic figure of the 25 January Revolution in 2011 had suffered for about two years from virulent stomach cancer. Aboul Gheit was born in...
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Egypt under Sisi provides immunity for the army and a whip for the people
In the Central Hospital of Quesna, Egypt, last Thursday, a crime took place on film, the antihero of which was an Egyptian army officer and his family. His victims were defenceless nurses, one of whom lost her unborn baby after being kicked and hit by the officer, his sister...
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Egypt has 60,000 prisoners like Alaa Abdelfattah
Egyptian activist and blogger Alaa Abdelfattah wrote a book with the title You have not been defeated yet. He is being held in prison by the Egyptian regime for sharing a post on Facebook documenting the death of another political detainee in Egypt. As I write, it is four...
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‘Egypt is fine!’
Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi has fascinated us with his astonishing skill in lying and claiming the opposite of what the country has experienced since he seized power in the July 2013 coup. The man lectured us recently on his great achievements, which would not have happened without what he described...
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The Egyptian economy is a time bomb waiting to explode
Egyptian Finance Minister Mohamed Maait has told Bloomberg said that his country will not get a new loan from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) until after one or two months. The current alternative for Egypt is to resort to countries such as China and Japan to get a “soft...
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Sisi's five mistakes brought the Egyptian economy to the current impasse
Monday, the Central Bank of Egypt decided, in a special meeting, to raise the overnight interest rates for deposits, lending and primary operations with 100 points (1 per cent) to record 9.25 per cent, 10.25 per cent and 9.75 per cent, respectively. As the Bank expressed its belief in...
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After devaluation of the pound: the spectre of poverty threatens Egyptians
The Central Bank of Egypt decided, in an extraordinary meeting held on Monday, to raise the interest rate by 1 per cent to 9.25 per cent on deposits and 10.25 per cent on lending. It also allowed – indirectly – to depreciate the pound’s value against the dollar, to...
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Will the Gulf continue to support Egypt out of its economic crisis?
One week ago, Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi went to Saudi Arabia where he met King Salman Bin Abdel Aziz and his son, de facto ruler Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman. The unscheduled visit came at a critical time, with Egypt in the throes of an economic crisis, inflationary prices and...
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Egypt’s countdown to a new bread uprising
While the international economy was groaning under the effect of the pandemic and a global GDP shrinkage of 3.60 per cent, Egypt celebrated a world-record growth rate above three per cent both in 2020 and 2021. The Egyptian government received the expected praise from the Washington-based financial temples, which...
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Egypt's limited options towards the Ukrainian crisis
On Wednesday, Egypt voted for the UN General Assembly denouncement of the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the demand for Russia to immediately stop using violence against Ukraine. The Egyptian decision to denounce the Russian action was not easy, as Egypt took a week by staying neutral, but external...
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Russian-Ukrainian war: How does it affect Egypt?
Parallel to the Russian declaration of war on Ukraine, Egypt held its breath, fearing the harmful effects of the war on Egypt on various levels. Egypt is the biggest wheat importer worldwide, as wheat bread is considered the main food commodity for most Egyptians, especially the poor. In addition,...
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Enforced Disappearances: a police-state tool for wiping out opponents in Egypt
More than three years have elapsed since the Egyptian politician and former parliamentarian, Mostafa Alnajjar disappeared. Alnajjar is a dentist and the former Head of the Justice Party. He travelled to the southern Egyptian governorate of Aswan on 27 September 2018. Since then, his whereabouts and fate remain unknown. On...
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Violence against women is endemic in Egypt; it must be challenged and stopped
The Observatory of Crimes of Violence against Women in Egypt, affiliated with the Edraak Foundation for Development and Equality, recorded 813 cases against women and girls during 2021, compared with 415 such violent crimes in 2020. This is just the tip of the iceberg, as has been reported by...
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Even consciences are inspected when Sisi chooses his employees
Two days ago, Brigadier General Khaled Al-Husseini, the spokesman for Egypt’s new administrative capital, announced that the transfer of employees to the government district in the new capital would be completed by the middle of this year. The regime frequently insisted that only 40,000 government employees, out of a...
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Rayan Oram’s death brought us all to life
Just a few minutes lapsed between the news that Rayan Oram had been rescued from the dark Moroccan well into which he had fallen, and the news that he had died. It was a short but extremely heavy time. For five days, along with millions of other people I...
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Arms deals: Al-Sisi's key to circumventing criticism of repression
Last Tuesday, the US government approved a $2.5 billion arms sale to Egypt, despite US President Joe Biden’s pledge not to be lenient with President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi’s regime over its poor human rights record. The US approval comes days after an Egyptian resident in the United States was...
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The signs suggest that another uprising looms in Egypt
Many human rights organisations, political activists and reports point out unambiguously that the people of Egypt have lived under a brutal police state since the 2013 military coup. From Human Rights Watch to the Arab Centre in Washington DC, it has been made crystal clear that Egypt has become...
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A power bequest in Egypt needed Sisi Junior to make a pilgrimage to Tel Aviv
In November 2004, the Kefaya (Enough) movement was formed by Egyptian thinkers, activists and politicians, including George Ishak and Professor Abdel Wahab Al-Messiry. It was a broad political umbrella for persons and entities against the grooming of Gamal Mubarak, the son of the then President Mohamed Hosni Mubarak, to...
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Leave, Sisi!
It was a week full of “Leave, Sisi!” What does Abdel Fattah el-Sisi want from the Egyptian people when he comes out with his lack of charisma, promising everyone that he would leave his position if the people ask him to do so? It has occurred before, currently happening,...
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Sisi's new elite: contractors, ex-militaries and businessmen who support him
Over the past few days, the arrest of the renowned Egyptian businessman, Mohamed Al-Amin, has been trending on social media. The media mogul who founded CBC network in 2011, which turned rapidly into one of the most prominent TV network in Egypt, is charged with human trafficking and sexual...
