Egypt

Johannesburg (Special to Informed Comment) – Egyptian foreign policy under the tutelage of Egyptian president Abdul Fattah El-Sisi has seen the country lose much of its independence in an attempt to secure gulf aid and in the service of combating the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood. In addition, the country’s myriad domestic challenges has seen its influence […]

Books

An Egyptian woman writer who dared: the Nawal El Saadawi I knew

The Conversation

By Omnia Amin | – Throughout the Middle East and beyond, the name Nawal El Saadawi is not one that can be received with indifference. During her lifetime and even after her passing on 21 March 2021, the Egyptian author, physician and activist evokes intense feelings that range from love and respect to hatred and […]

Egypt

Suez canal: what the ‘ditch’ meant to the British empire in the 19th century

The Conversation

By Jonathan Parry | – The week-long blockage of the Suez canal by the Ever Given container ship has reminded us that the canal, though immensely important to the world’s commerce, is also very vulnerable. Since its completion in 1869, it has symbolised global interconnectedness. But it has also demonstrated how fears, rivalries and bottlenecks […]

Egypt

Egypt’s Sisi threatens ‘Instability that no one Can Imagine”: Will the Next Mideast War be over Water?

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The closure of the Suez Canal for a week by the Ultra Large Container Ship, the Ever Given, signaled the importance to world commerce and energy supplies of the canal, through which some 12 percent of world trade passes. Another danger to that world artery, which connects the Indian Ocean […]

Egypt

How the Imperial past set the Stage for Nile Dam Conflicts between Egypt, Sudan and Ethiopia

The Conversation

By Mahemud Tekuya | – Ever since construction began a decade ago, there’s been serious contention between Ethiopia, Egypt and Sudan over the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), a huge project straddling the Blue Nile in Ethiopia. For Ethiopia, the project is meant to offer a solution to its severe power problem, providing electricity access […]

Egypt

Nawal El Saadawi: Egypt’s grand novelist, physician and global activist

The Conversation

By Adele Newson-Horst | – Egyptian novelist, physician, sociologist and global activist Nawal El Saadawi died on 21 March 2021 at the age of 89. The author of more than 50 books, she told me in one of our many interviews, in 2007, that she self-identified as an African from Egypt, not from the Middle […]

Authoritarianism

Did Egypt’s Military Dictatorship lead to the Suez Canal Ship-Blocking Crisis?

Middle East Monitor

By Ibrahim Al-Tahir | – ( Middle East Monitor) – The world is closely following the details of the Suez Canal obstruction, a canal through which 12 per cent of international shipping trade passes. The obstruction was caused by a colossal ship that ran aground and the failure of the attempts to dislodge it. A […]

Cold War

Why the Suez Canal, now blocked, is so Important to the Global Economy and World History

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The super-super tanker Ever Given is stuck kitty-corner in the Suez Canal, having apparently run up on a sand bar. It is blocking dozens of other ships from going through the canal. The ship, one of the largest in the world, is a quarter of a mile long and can […]

Arab Spring

Failures of Democracy in America and the Arab Spring

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Today is ten years since Egyptian youth gathered in Tahrir Square in downtown Cairo demanding the resignation of Egypt’s brutal and corrupt Interior Minister, Habib Adly. Even those who called for the rally were surprised by the thousands of youth and workers that showed up, on Egypt’s Police Day, and […]