Attiya Ahmad

Despite the fact that Japan was one of the first countries in the world to recognize Israel as an independent nation, and despite the fact that relations between the two peoples have been generally amicable, the business linkages that would have been mutually beneficial have been very slow to develop. Only quite recently has there been a change in the wind that promises much more positive economic interaction between Israel and Japan as we enter the second half of this second decade of the new millennium.

Although power cuts are hardly new in Egypt, no Egyptian government has tackled the problem seriously and transparently. After the January 25, 2011 uprising, Egyptians had less patience with the failures of state services and demanded change.

On August 9, 2014, the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt began another chapter in its besieged political life.  The highest administrative court in Egypt, the Supreme Administrative Court, dissolved the Freedom and Justice Party (FJP), the political arm of the Muslim Brotherhood.  The Court also liquidated all of the FJP’s assets in an effort to quash any further political ambitions and activities that the Brotherhood might have in Egypt.  The ruling—a calculated move conducted prior to upcoming parliamentary elections, scheduled for later this year—was an attempt

Within four months of the military’s ouster of Mohamed Morsi, one of the icons of liberalism serving in the new cabinet, Ziad Bahaa-Eldin, admitted to CNN that those who called for political reconciliation, like himself, were alienated by the political mood, where the very concept of reconciliation has become “a dirty word” in Egypt.

Last week, President Obama said that he has no strategy yet to confront the Islamic State (IS) in Syria.  He was attempting to counter speculation about American bombing of IS targets there.  It had been rumored that the President wanted to decide on a war plan by the end of the week.[1] 

As the United States struggles to mobilize a coalition of allies including Turkey behind potential military action against the Islamic State (formerly known as ISIS) in Syria, Turkey’s Iraq and Syria policies remain captive to ISIS and the 49 Turkish hostages it holds. Turkey might be key to the U.S. effort to confront ISIS, and it is in a very tough spot.

The August 26 permanent cease-fire crafted by Egypt between Israel and Hamas and Islamic Jihad forces in the Gaza Strip offers the best opportunity in years to take Palestinians off the “diet” imposed on them by Israel after Hamas ousted Fatah security forces from Gaza in June 2007.

No sooner had that confrontation ended than Israel expanded an already draconian economic “siege” on the enclave of 1.8 million. It closed Gaza’s border with Israel—its only functioning trade link to the outside world—to all commercial activity.

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Read the full article on CNN.

American airstrikes might be needed in Syria, but that would not be the most important tactic for success, nor would more material aid to the rebels be sufficient to contain the Islamic State over the long term. As in Iraq, there has to be a political angle as well.

Several weeks ago an Islamist and jihadist alliance led by Ansar al-Sharia–a group with ties to Islamic State (formerly ISIS)–took control of Benghazi and declared an “Islamic Emirate.” A few days ago, an Islamist alliance took control of Tripoli’s main airport. These developments have come as a shock to the Egyptian government, which considers an Islamic state on Egypt’s 720-mile long western border an immediate threat to Egypt’s national security. This helps explain Egypt’s alleged role in recent airstrikes inside Libya coordinated with the United Arab Emirates.

This article was first published on Foreign Affairs.

As the world’s attention was riveted on the lightening conquests of the Islamic State in Iraq, Yemen’s al-Huthi movement made an equally stunning but largely unnoticed military advance on Amran Governorate and captured the provincial capital, Amran, in July. The fall of Amran has extraordinary political significance: The al-Huthi advance dislodged the al-Ahmar family’s grip on the leadership of the Hashid tribal confederation, a central political pillar of the Yemeni Republic since 1962, and threatens the survival of the Islah Party itself.

The outlines of a US strategy to roll back ISIS, or the ‘Islamic State’ as it styles itself, in Iraq have become relatively clear, even if success is uncertain.

Alexandria, like Cairo, is a mismanaged city with little to offer by way of basic services, much less cultural activities. But unlike Egypt’s insular, desert capital, it is a Mediterranean city, cooler, less polluted or crowded than Cairo (with just six million inhabitants), no longer a cosmopolitan hub but open to the world in material and other ways. There are signs here of a trend toward “social transformation”—a focus on the immediate surroundings, the city itself, to explore and expand its possibilities.

A recent statement from the imprisoned leader of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, Abdullah Ocalan, hails a new era for Turkey’s Kurds. In a statement from his cell on the prison island of Imrali in the Sea of Marmara, Ocalan said that Turkey was now on the verge of “historic developments” after last week’s presidential elections and declared that through a major democratic negotiation, the 30-year war was coming to an end.