Egypt’s Economic Safety Net?

Germany Has Good Reason to Fear Hezbollah

A Weekly Political News Magazine

Will a Turkish Attack Resurrect ISIS?

A Weekly Political News Magazine

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Issue 1908- June- 10/06/2022

Hady Amr: Biden’s Envoy for Calm Between Palestinians and Israelis

Issue 1907- June- 03/06/2022 www.majalla.com

Egypt’s Economic Safety Net? www.majalla.com

Editorial Two weeks ago, our writer Dalia Ziada addressed the inclusive approach announced by the Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El Sisi which is aimed at weathering the global economic crisis resulting from the pandemic repercussions and the world standoff in Ukraine. In light of the unprecedented plan to float key national enterprises, including those run by the country’s powerful military, Ziada focuses this week on the impact of the National Services Projects Organization which is described as “the backbone of the autonomous military economic system which is the back bone of the Egyptian nation-state.” She highlights the successful role of the NSPO in assisting the civil government in managing crises, and the importance of taking careful steps while liberalizing in order not to expose the military-economic structure to risk.

The German government has banned the Lebanese Hezbollah, due to security concerns. Jassim Mohammed writes about the reasons behind Germany’s move while pointing out that Hezbollah is present in a number of European countries and uses the European continent as a base for operations and recruitment. Given that Germany is considered the largest arena in Europe for the group due to the presence of Arab communities, including the Lebanese community, German internal and external intelligence is monitoring the group’s activities, especially after the ban on the political wing of the party for more than a year, along with the ban on the military wing.

This week also prominent film critic Mohammed Rouda writes a review of Netflix’s documentary “Blood Brothers: Malcolm X & Muhammad Ali”. He describes how different the movie is from previous films that addressed the lives of both historic figures whether separately or the story that gathered them both. “What the film monitors throughout is how racism led to attempts of individual confrontations by these poles,” Rouda remarks.

Read these articles and more on our website eng.majalla.com.

As always, we welcome and value our readers’ feedback and we invite you to take the opportunity to leave your comments on our website.

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A Weekly Political News Magazine

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A Weekly Political News Magazine

38 Hidden Papers Between Muhammad Ali, Malcolm X Revealed

Issue 1908- June- 10/06/2022

46 Streets of London

32 Ethiopia’s Invisible Ethnic Cleansing

44 Let’s “Go Bike” in Cairo

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1920s in Plastic Arts at Zamalek Complex 5

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Microsoft Reinvents the Mouse for People with Disabilities

58 Take a Cue for Better Memory Recall

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Russia History Peter the Great

A woman poses next to the marble bust of Peter I (C) by sculptor Nicolas-Francois Gillet (1760s) during the exhibition Peter the Great.

Mustache of the Ruler in the State Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow, Russia, 07 June 2022. The exhibition is dedicated to the 350th anniversary of the birth of Emperor Peter I (1672-1725). /EPA

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Italy Design Week A model stands next to creations by Philipp Plain’s furniture designers, part of the Design Fair exhibition in Milan, Italy, Tuesday, June 7, 2022. /AP

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LEBANON

EGYPT Egypt has strategic wheat reserves sufficient until the end of this year, a supply ministry official told Reuters on Wednesday.

The country also has strategic reserves of sugar sufficient for 5 months, vegetable oils for 6 months and rice for more than 3 months, the official added.

A U.S. mediator will visit Beirut next week to discuss a dispute over a maritime border with Israel, Lebanese Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri said on Tuesday, according to a parliament source and local media.

U.S. envoy Amos Hochstein will visit on Sunday or Monday, Berri told a parliamentary session in Beirut.

Asked about Berri's remark, a U.S. Embassy spokesperson referred Reuters to comments on Monday by State Department spokesperson Ned Price who said there were no travel plans to announce.

Lebanon said on Monday it would invite Hochstein to Beirut to continue negotiations over the issue to prevent any escalation, after accusing Israel of encroaching on contested waters.

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Palestinian Monday a food and o of a plann cash-strap Lawyers sa detained a tents set u calling for the IsraeliA spokesm services d for comm

PALESTINE

n police made a number of arrests on as protests against soaring prices for other necessities spread a day ahead ned strike to demand action from the pped Palestinian Authority. aid at least nine people had been and police removed a number of up in the street by protesters, who are r a general strike in Hebron, a city in -occupied West Bank. man for the Palestinian security did not immediately reply to a request ment.

UAE Efforts by OPEC+ oil producers to boost output are “not encouraging,” UAE energy minister Suhail al-Mazrouei said on Wednesday, noting the group was currently 2.6 million barrels per day short of its target.

“According to last month’s report, we have seen the conformity (to output cuts) of the OPEC+ group and the conformity was more than 200%,” Mazrouei told an energy conference in Jordan.

IRAQ Eight months after national elections, Iraq still doesn’t have a government and there seems to be no clear way out of the dangerous deadlock.

Political elites are embroiled in cutthroat competition for power, even as the country faces growing challenges, including an impending food crisis resulting from severe drought and the war in Ukraine.

For ordinary Iraqis, everything is delayed. The caretaker government is unable to make crucial electricity payments or draft plans for badly needed investment ahead of the critical summer months.

Investments to upgrade water infrastructure have been paused while unemployment, water shortages and concerns over food security are drawing public anger.

IRAN Iran on Thursday dealt a near-fatal blow to chances of reviving the 2015 Iran nuclear deal as it began removing essentially all the International Atomic Energy Agency monitoring equipment installed under the deal, IAEA chief Rafael Grossi said.

Iran had warned of retaliation if the IAEA's 35-nation Board of Governors passed a resolution drafted by the United States, France, Britain, and Germany criticizing Tehran for its continued failure to explain uranium traces found at undeclared sites. The resolution was passed by a crushing majority late on Wednesday.

Iran told the agency overnight it planned to remove equipment including 27 IAEA cameras as of Thursday, which is "basically all" the extra monitoring equipment installed under the 2015 deal going beyond Iran's core obligations to the agency, Grossi told a news conference.

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A WEEK ACROS MEXICO.

U.S. Shootings in three American cities killed nine people and wounded two dozen more on Saturday night and Sunday morning, the latest outbreaks of gun violence in the wake of three mass shootings that have rattled the United States.

In Philadelphia, a confrontation between two men escalated into a gunfight that sprayed bullets into a crowded bar and restaurant district, killing three people, wounding 12, and setting off panic as people tried to flee, police said.

Mexican Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard on Tuesday accused the United States of double standards by refusing to invite Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua to the U.S.-hosted Summit of the Americas, while engaging with non-democratic governments in Southeast Asia.

"The so-called democratic clause is not applied equally in all cases, but only in some, when it is convenient," Ebrard wrote in a column published in Mexican newspaper Excelsior, pointing to Washington's relations with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and forming the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework in May. Ebrard called the U.S. decision "inconsistent, if not contradictory."

Among ASEAN's members are Myanmar, ruled by a military junta, and one-party Communist-ruled Vietnam.

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,

TUNISIA.

Tunisia's political crisis deepened o Monday as President Kais Saied ordered judges' salaries cut to take account of strike days after they began a week-long work stoppage protest at his move to dismiss doze of them.

Saied, who has progressively sough to tighten his grip on power, last w dismissed 57 judges, accusing them corruption and protecting terrorist Courtrooms were closed across the country on Monday.

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UKRAINE. CHINA.

Millions of people could starve because of Russia's blockade of Ukraine's Black Sea ports, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Thursday.

Zelenskiy said in a televised statement the world was on the brink of a "terrible food crisis", with Ukraine unable to export large amounts of wheat, corn, oil and other products that had played a "stabilising role in the global market".

"This means that, unfortunately, there may be a physical shortage of products in dozens of countries around the world. Millions of people may starve if the Russian blockade of the Black Sea continues," he said.

China sent three astronauts on Sunday on a six-month long mission to oversee a pivotal period of construction of its space station, whose final modules are due to be launched in the coming months.

The space station, when completed by the year-end, will lay a significant milestone in China's three-decades long manned space programme, first approved in 1992 and initially code-named "Project 921". It will also flag the start of permanent Chinese habitation in space.

The completion of the structure, about a fifth of the International Space Station (ISS) by mass, is a source of pride among ordinary Chinese people, and caps President Xi Jinping's 10 years as leader of the ruling Communist Party.

INDIA. India has approved Hyderabad-based drugmaker Biological E's COVID-19 vaccine as the first mix-and-match booster dose in the country, the company said on Saturday.

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Will the Egyptian Economy Benefit from Floating National Companies?

By Dalia Ziada

The Egyptian government has signaled its intention to press ahead with seismic plans to sell off huge stakes in key national enterprises, including those run by the country’s powerful military, in the country’s biggest industrial shake-up in decades.

Tentative deals with foreign investors worth more than $30 billion have already been announced in the weeks since Egypt’s Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly unveiled his plan for liberalizing the economy, under heavy criticism from socialist members of parliament.

Under the scheme, the Cairo government will shrink its involve-

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Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi speaks during the Egyptian Family Iftar banquet, taken on Tuesday 26 April, 2022.

ment in a move that will officials think will beckon the private sector to invest, injecting much needed capital, as the impact of war in Ukraine continues to bite.

With inflation at 13 percent, Egypt’s position as the world’s biggest importer of Ukrainian and Russian wheat has further contributed to rocketing food import costs, compounding the economic problems of recent years, during which time ministers have overseen significant capital flight, after investors moved so-called ‘hot money’ out of the country following periods of turmoil.

Madbouly now hopes that some of this private money will be tempted back into Egypt by the offer of lucrative industrial once-in-a-generation opportunities across the country. Officials think their macroeconomic reforms could yield foreign investments of up to $40 billion over the next four years.

Benefits of the plan are long-term in nature, but in the short-term they may also help alleviate the economic impact of Russia’s invasion, the Egyptian government having already managed to strike trade deals for basic food commodities with other countries, avoiding - to a large extent - the supply chain disruption seen elsewhere as a result of the fighting.

Yet in a state known for its addiction to the public sector, analysts think decentralizing Egypt’s macroeconomic system will be far from easy, even if its laudable aim is the modernization of the Egyptian economy.

There are signs that the shift is real, however. After years of trying and failing to run the country’s precious national assets while lacking the skills to do so, officials have not limited their floatation plans to state-owned companies.

That military-owned enterprises are also included suggests that the changes are wholesale.

PRESIDENTIAL VISION The state’s planned departure from much of the market was announced in a milestone speech following the presidential iftar in April, with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi ordering the government to start working on “listing the companies owned by the Egyptian Armed Forces on the Egyptian stock market before the end of this year.”

He said this was about fixing chronic flaws in the Egyptian economy and noted three primary aims. The first was to reduce the budget deficit and narrow the gap between the national debt and the Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

The second was to strengthen the role of the private sector, especially in industry, through incentives in the areas such as taxation, infrastructure, and facilities. The third was to expand the size of the Egyptian stock market (EGX) by listing more companies on it, with a view to attracting new investment. This is where the inclusion of military-owned companies comes in.

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Madbouly now hopes that some of this private money will be tempted back into Egypt by the offer of lucrative industrial oncein-a-generation opportunities across the country.

Contrary to popular opinion, the Egyptian president’s decision to float military-owned companies is not new, nor is it motivated solely by recent global crises such as the COVID-19 pandemic or the war in Ukraine. The first time President El-Sisi voiced the idea was in October 2019, during a visit to a military-owned medical facility, when he said “the companies of the Armed Forces ought to have an opportunity in the offerings made by the government… These companies must be listed on the stock market to give Egyptians the opportunity to acquire shares in them”.

In 2020, the Sovereign Fund of Egypt (SFE) went further, by confirming that military-owned stocks - to be listed on the EGX - would not be sold exclusively to Egyptians. Rather, the SFE said it would use economicallyviable projects of the armed forces’ largest commercial enterprise – the National Services Projects Organization (NSPO) – to attract foreign investors. Up to 100% of the trading stock would be offered.

As per an agreement signed between the SFE and the armed forces in February 2020, the sovereign fund is the guaranteed intermediary to the initial public offerings (IPOs) of the NSPO. The first of these IPOs would likely have happened by now, analysts say, had it not been for the pandemic.

This great opening-up of state-owned stock has been greeted with applause by Egypt’s business owners, who have repeatedly called for a level playing field, citing their inability to compete with state-backed military-owned companies in sectors such as construction and food. Likewise, the country’s political elite has also welcomed the change, in part because it promotes the concept of “civilian control of the armed forces” – an essential step in the process of democratization.

That said, sections of the Egyptian public have greeted the news with unease. Commentators suggested that it may have stirred unwelcome memories of the controversy caused by attempts to subjugate the military economy to civilian parliamentary control in the aftermath of the Arab Spring in 2011.

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Concerns about the pace of change are also valid. Floating the armed forces’ commercial enterprises sounds like an ideal step in the right direction, but there are fears that it has the potential to do more harm than good. At risk could be the coherence of the nation state itself.

Ending or significantly weakening the military’s involvement in the economy before the building blocks of a stable democracy have been put in place may be a classic case of ‘jumping the gun’. To liberalize an economy without the infrastructure needed for that liberalization could serve only to jeopardize the political and economic foundations on which the state’s progress has been built.

BACKBONE OF THE NATION-STATE

The Egyptian economy has performed strongly since 2020, despite the pressures of the pandemic in a partial proof that the independence of the military economy is crucial to preserving the coherence of the nation-state.

The National Services Projects Organization (NSPO) supervises a group of companies that work in a wide range of sectors, from bottled water, to construction, to real estate. The NSPO has been described as the backbone of the autonomous military economic system, and the military economic system has been described as the backbone of the Egyptian nation-state.

The NSPO was founded in 1979, but it took off as a successful economic enterprise in the 1980s, when Field Marshal Abdel Halim Abu Ghazala became the minister of defense. Abu Ghazala was popular both with the military as well as with the public, in part because of his forward-thinking approach, embodied by his ambition to grow the military institutions, especially in areas such as armaments and national capacity-building.

The peace treaty signed between Egypt and Israel in 1979 allowed for billions of dollars in annual military aid to be sent to Egypt from the United States, and Abu Ghazala set about putting this to good use, growing the NSPO into the most successful project of the military economic system.

The autonomy enjoyed by the military institutions, together with the determination and discipline of the armed forces’ leadership hierarchy, kept the NSPO largely immune from the corruption that infected other areas under the Mubarak regime.

In 2012, when members of the parliament from the Muslim Brotherhood called for military-owned companies to be subjected to government supervision, they got a fierce response from the leadership of the Supreme Council of Armed Forces (SCAF).

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A general view for the site of the futuristic, iconic tower skyscraper, in the business district, which is being built by China State Construction Engineering Corp (CSCEC) in the New Administrative Capital (NAC) east of Cairo, Egypt March 2021 ,8.

(REUTERS/Mohamed Abd El Ghany)

“Factory 99” of Helwan Engineering Industries Co. in Cairo. Its chairman said sales of kitchen utensils were booming since Egypt devalued its currency in 2016, pushing up the price of imports. (REUTERS/ Stringer)

In March of that year, the assistant minister of defense for financial affairs held a press conference to highlight the risk of surrendering control of the by-now successful military economic set-up to the civilian government, especially at a time of political instability following the revolution.

“The business of the [NSPO], which operates in several sectors, has grown from £E 11 million in 1979 to £E 644 million in 1990 to £E 6.3 billion in 2011, achieving net profits of £E 7.7 billion between 1990 and 2011,” he explained. “We will fight to protect our projects and not allow anybody to destroy the efforts that we have been sincerely dedicated to exerting for thirty years… We will not allow anyone to approach the projects of the armed forces.”

Over the years, this fed into concerns about the dominance of the military in the civilian economy, with some suggesting that the system had created “a state within the state”. Yet this appears to be inaccurate, not least because many of the claims have been based on unfair comparisons made between Egypt and western states with advanced democratic systems of governance.

Similarly, and as confirmed by the assistant minister of defense for financial affairs in 2012, military-owned companies pay taxes and intervene in the public market only during times of crisis. Likewise, its share of the national economy is not all-consuming. In 2018, President El-Sisi estimated the military’s involvement in the national economy at 2-3%. In a recent interview, the prime minister estimated it to be just over 1%.

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Officials have not limited their floatation plans to state-owned companies. That military-owned enterprises are also included suggests that the changes are wholesale.

SAFETY NET IN CRISES The Egyptian economy – which comprises the government, the private sector, and the military institutions – has performed strongly since 2020, despite the pressures of the pandemic, and this would appear to offer partial proof that the independence of the military economy is crucial to preserving the coherence of the nation-state, particularly in the face of unforeseen crises.

By contrast, not only did private companies not support the government in managing the COVID crisis, they actively engaged in profiteering, including through the use of monopolies in areas such as medical and food supplies.

This led the armed forces to intervene, through the NSPO, to assist the civil government throughout the crisis and break up the monopolies in food and drugs.

Afterwards, President El-Sisi made a point of thanking the NSPO in a meeting broadcast live on national tele-

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vision, during which he said the purpose of him visiting NSPO facilities that day was to “explore the readiness of the armed forces to assist the civil government in managing the crisis, and to assure Egyptians that there were ‘parallel arrangements’ ready to satisfy people’s needs”.

Yet Egyptian armed forces’ intervention in the face of economic challenge is not new. Indeed, the NSPO is currently facilitating the provision of food supplies following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Most prominent of all, perhaps, was its intervention following the Arab Spring revolution that ousted President Mubarak in 2011.

Ending or significantly weakening the military’s involvement in the economy before the building blocks of a stable democracy have been put in place may be a classic case of ‘jumping the gun’.

In the months that followed, the Supreme Council of Armed Forces (SCAF), which led the country in the postMubarak transitional phase, had the military support the state budget to the tune of nearly £E 2.5 billion and lend the Central Bank of Egypt $1 billion to enhance its foreign reserves.

When presenting the economic reform roadmap last month, the prime minister said the state’s dominance in national projects, mostly via military-owned institutions, was still necessary to keep the economy moving in the absence of the foreign investors who withdrew in the days following the removal of the Muslim Brotherhood regime in 2013.

“From 2015-21, state-led national projects created more than five million jobs for Egyptian youth and re-empowered private sector companies by inviting them to act as contractors in these projects,” said Madbouly.

“That is not to say that these national projects are to be postponed or slowed. They remain a priority and we will continue working on them. They have proved to be of great importance to Egyptian citizens and are paving the way for the return of foreign investments.”

Far from appreciating the military’s role in enhancing Egypt’s economy, however, industrialists and some academics have blamed it for incompetency in the private sector, arguing that the armed forces’ enterprises rely on cheap labor from conscripted soldiers and avoid pay commercial taxes on sales, giving military-owned companies

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At factory 909 on the outskirts of Cairo, above, military-owned Helwan Diesel Engines Co. turns out goods including engines, generators, fuel tanks and agricultural equipment. (Reuters/ Stringer)

A construction site in Egypt’s new administrative capital. (Khaled Desouki / AFP)

a comparative advantage over private businesses.

CAREFUL STEPS FORWARD The counter argument is that military economy has always functioned as a kind of national safety net, particularly during times of political and economic turbulence.

Keeping the military economy strong by maintaining its independence is, in this sense, crucial to ensuring a smooth transition from the existing economic system to the new and desirable model of a truly open market economy.

There are other concerns, as well. For instance, the safety checks needed to ensure that foreign investment will not expose the Egyptian armed forces to strategic vulnerabilities. For reasons such as this, the Egyptian state is now beginning to look at a possible middle ground that would enable it to proceed with market liberalization without exposing the military-economic structure to risk.

Last week, the director of the Sovereign Fund of Egypt (SFE) said it was creating a sub-fund dedicated to stateowned stocks, including those of military-owned companies, to be listed on the stock market.

In April, the SFE’s president said it had completed the legal reframing of two military-owned companies - the National Company for the Sale and Distribution of Petroleum Products (Wataniya), and the National Company for Producing Natural Water (Safi) - to list on the EGX

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The National Services Projects Organization (NSPO) supervises a group of companies that work in a wide range of sectors, from bottled water, to construction, to real estate. before the summer. Both are successful and expected to be attractive to both local and foreign investors. The SFE is also working with the NSPO on the legal reframing of other companies to list on the EGX before the end of the year, as per President El-Sisi’s instructions.

The success of Wataniya and Safi listing, for the first time in the history of the Egyptian state, is essential for the success of the market liberalization plan that the government is fully determined to pursue and complete. It will also be a huge step towards untying one of the largest knots in the process of democratization. * Dalia Ziada is an Egyptian author and Director of the Liberal Democracy Institute. Her work covers military affairs, political Islamism, and geopolitics in the Middle East and North Africa. Tweets at @daliaziada.

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Germany Has Good Reason to Fear Hezbollah

Why the European heavyweight outlawed the Lebanese terror group?

By Jassim Mohamed – Bonn Hezbollah has been involved in the management and implementation of a group of criminal and terrorist operations along with internationally illegal

activities. The group retains the ability to directly and indirectly target Western interests around the world, and Germany is a “starting point” for carrying out such operations.

On April 30, 2022, the German Ministry of the In-

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terior announced the prohibition of the activities of the terrorist organization Hezbollah in Germany in accordance with paragraph 1 of Article 3, in connection with paragraph 1 of Article 15 and sentence 2 of Article 18 of the Associations Act, as Hezbollah’s activities violate the penal laws and conflict with the concepts of coexistence between peoples.

As part of German intelligence efforts to reduce the risks of Hezbollah operations, on October 15, 2021, the German police raided sites in seven German states against the Lebanese Hezbollah group.

The searches came after the Ministry of Interior announced the ban of three groups linked to the group. The authorities said the groups were suspected of collecting money for families of dead Hezbollah fighters while masquerading as “humanitarian” organizations.

Illustrative: Special police during an investigation into links to the Hezbollah terror group seen in Muenster, western Germany, April 2020 ,30. (Martin Meissner/AP)

Raising security concerns, Hezbollah is present in a number of European countries and uses the European continent as a base for operations and recruitment.

German internal intelligence reports that more than 1,050 active members are in Germany alone.

Hezbollah’s bases in Europe are also a central part of the illicit global financing network. This includes the transfer and distribution of illegal drugs, the arms trade, and the process of money laundering for other criminal organizations.

Convictions in Cyprus in 2015 showed that the Hezbollah group uses European territory to store some of its “logistical” supplies to carry out terrorist and outlaw operations.

A senior US State Department official, Nathan Sales, said on September 18, 2020, that the extremist group Hezbollah had stored chemicals that could be used to make explosives in several European countries and appealed to countries in Europe and elsewhere to impose a ban on the organization.

Sales, the Coordinator for Counterterrorism, said that Hezbollah operatives have transported ammonium nitrate from Belgium to France, Greece, Italy, Spain and Switzerland in recent years, and are suspected of still stockpiling the material throughout Europe.

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Raising security concerns, Hezbollah is present in a number of European countries and uses the European continent as a base for operations and recruitment.

The assistant director of the US Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) said that Hezbollah used the profits of its drug smuggling operations to buy luxury goods, which are smuggled into Lebanon at customs, and then reselling them.

In an interview with journalist Aref Jabo in the German city of Bonn, he told Majalla, “The German intelligence services have repeatedly revealed that Hezbollah is involved in money laundering and drug trafficking in Germany and it has extensive business networks that transfer funds using companies as fronts.

He added that Hezbollah mostly transfers funds to its branches in Lebanon through close businessmen, and recycles those funds in banks and accounts belonging to party members and supporters.

Germany is considered the largest arena in Europe for the group due to the presence of Arab communities, including the Lebanese community.

He added that German internal and external intelligence, of course, is monitoring these activities, especially after the ban on the political wing of the party for more than a year, along with the ban on the military wing.

A German decision to ban the group comes insofar as its activities do not comply with the German constitution and laws. Jabo also said, however, that the European Union and the European Commission had previously designated it a terrorist organization since 2013.

He added that security and intelligence cooperation to follow up on Hezbollah’s activities is not

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limited to national agencies, but also involves Europol and Western countries friendly to Germany, most notably the United States and Israel, to combat Hezbollah’s criminal and terrorist activities.

International Networks for Money Transfer, Laundering Hezbollah also receives financial support from some diaspora and, along with unregulated banks, exchange and cash companies, networks in South America, has funneled money from supporters of Hezbollah to support its operations in Lebanon, Syria, and elsewhere.

Hezbollah financiers and sympathizers take advantage of free trade zones and weakly regulated countries as environments to establish importexport companies and carry out complex moneylaundering schemes based on the trade of money to China, the United States, and elsewhere.

Hezbollah established companies in several free trade zones, including the tri-border area of Argentina, Brazil, and Paraguay, the Iquique region in Chile, and the free trade zone in Panama.

HEZBOLLAH BLACKLISTED AS TERRORIST GROUP

Some countries have blacklisted Hezbollah as a terrorist organization, including the United States, and the United Kingdom since 2019. But the European Union has designated Hezbollah’s military wing only, not the political wing.

The group has been responsible for a number of This comes even though a growing number of major terrorist acts in the European Union since EU member states, including Austria, the Czech the 1980s. In 2012, the Hezbollah group in Bur- Republic, Estonia, Germany, the Netherlands gas, Bulgaria, carried out a terrorist operation and Lithuania, have opted to put the entire group that claimed the lives of six civilians. It was this on the terrorism list. tragic event that forced Europe to recognize Hezbollah’s military wing as a terrorist organization. Members of the European Parliament, national European parliaments, Congress and the US Senate said in a statement that the EU should ban the entire Islamic political party and the armed group Hezbollah as a terrorist organization, Politico reported on July 17, 2020.

“Hezbollah operatives have transported ammonium nitrate from Belgium to France, Greece, Italy, Spain and Switzerland in recent years, and are suspected of still stockpiling the material throughout Europe.”

The statement, which was sent to the heads of EU institutions - Ursula von der Leyen of the Commission, Charles Michel of the Council.

David Sassoli, as well as the bloc’s head of foreign affairs Josep Borrell, denounced the group as “the deadliest group,” saying its “violent and anti-Semitic ideology is poisoning.”

The declaration, signed by 236 legislators from

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Journalist Aref Jabo

German special police leave the El-Irschad (Al-Iraschad e.V.) center in Berlin, Germany, April ,30 2020, after Germany has banned Iran-backed Hezbollah on its soil and designated it a terrorist organization.

REUTERS

both sides of the Atlantic, said that the European Union’s ban on the so-called military wing of Hezbollah was not enough, and that the distinction between political and military weapons was “wrong.”

HEZBOLLAH RETREATS AND LOSES GERMANY AS SAFE HAVEN Germany, unlike many European countries, does not impose any restrictions and prohibitive standards, or control forms of funding and communication between various religious institutions, groups and political parties, which allows the exercise of political and propaganda activities.

But in recent years, this policy has begun to change little by little. There have been campaigns against centers linked to Hezbollah, after it was designated a terrorist organization.

Despite the efforts of German intelligence and investigations, the composition of the Hezbollah group in Germany is still unclear, as the party does not have a hierarchical or partisan organization and the party relies on interfaces through which it operates.

It is assumed that Germany’s decision to ban Hezbollah will have an effect on encouraging other European countries to join Germany, as

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Hezbollah mostly transfers funds to its branches in Lebanon through close businessmen, and recycles those funds in banks and accounts belonging to party members and supporters. well as Britain, to put the political wing on the terrorist list as well.

The legal status of Hezbollah puts its supporters and party members under surveillance and legal accountability. This means that Germany will witness a significant decline in the group’s operations and activities. Today, Hezbollah has lost Germany as a haven and logistical space to carry out its operations in Europe and abroad.

The recent decision to ban the activities of the entire movement on German soil and designate Hezbollah with all its wings as a terrorist organization, will reduce Hezbollah’s activities in Germany and Europe and could also have an impact on its sources of funding inside Lebanon.

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Will a Turkish Attack Resurrect ISIS?

Turkey is also hostile to Kurds, expert tells Majalla

By Jiwan Soz – Qamishli Despite the United States’ rejection and Russia’s hesitation, Turkey continues to threaten an imminent military attack on new Syrian areas controlled by the “Syrian Democratic Forces “SDF”. The Turkish army and the Syrian armed groups that support it have continued to target populated areas in the Aleppo, Raqqa, and Hasaka countryside.

Despite the fact that the “Syrian Democratic

Forces,” (abbreviated “SDF”) are supported by the US, which leads the international coalition fighting ISIS in Syria and Iraq and had repeatedly expressed its willingness to engage in dialogue with Turkey, Ankara’s threats, which have previously launched four military operations on Syrian territory and taken control of three predominantly Kurdish regions, remain in place to this day.

The SDF lost the areas of Tal Abyad and Ras al-Ain / Serê Kaniye in mid-October

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2019 after the Turkish army took control of them, and it previously lost the Afrin region in northwestern Syria in March 2018 after a similar Turkish attack.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s threats to launch an imminent attack on Syrian areas under the control of the “SDF” coincide with a decline in the popularity of ruling “Justice and Development” party (or AKP), as well as a decline in the Turkish currency against foreign currencies and unprecedented levels of inflation and unemployment since 1998.

The Turkish threats issued several times in recent days, as well as the Turkish army’s targeting of populated areas, have resulted in the displacement of civilians from villages and towns near the Syrian-Turkish border.

Syrian Kurds demonstrate, June 10, 2021, in the northeastern Syrian city of Qamishli against the Turkish offensive on Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) areas in northern Iraq/AFP.

Despite the fact that the SDF are supported by the US and repeatedly expressed its willingness to engage in dialogue with Turkey, Ankara’s threats, remain in place. against Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) fighters in Iraqi Kurdistan. These are all signs of Turkish escalation against the Kurds, but Ankara has a habit of threatening the SDF whenever its internal situation deteriorates.

- Can Turkish threats result in a large-scale military attack?

The statements made by Erdogan and other Nawaf Khalil, director of Kurdisches Stu- Turkish officials already warn of an immidienzentrum in Germany, believes that the nent attack, but so far Washington, Mosreasons for a possible Turkish attack are cow and the United Nations have warned “internal” and are linked to problems that of the repercussions of such an attack on Turkey has been dealing with for years, the region, and although Ankara is fightwarning of security and humanitarian con- ing (SDF) under the pretext of terrorism, it sequences if Turkey launches a military is the only country that classifies the Syrian Democratic Forces as terrorist forces, attack on the SDF. although Turkey deals with organizations “When the internal situation in Turkey classified as terrorist groups such as Alworsens, the government, as usual, re- Qaeda and the Guardians of Religion Orsorts to threatening the Syrian Democratic ganization, in addition to its dubious relations with ISIS. Therefore, it is clear that Forces,” he added.

Here is the full text of the interview that Turkish politicians are trying to blackmail Al-Majalla conducted by phone with Washington and its relations with the SDF to obtain approval for the upcoming miliKhalil: tary operation.

- What are Turkey’s internal reasons for - How does Ankara persuade the West to launching a new attack on the “SDF”?

Financial inflation and a decline in the val- give it permission to launch a new attack ue of the Turkish lira against foreign cur- on the “SDF”? rencies are occurring within Turkey, in ad- Ankara accused Sweden and Finland of dition to a decline in Erdogan’s popularity, supporting Kurdish fighters when they as evidenced by research centers and polls applied to join NATO last month. This close to him, such as the company (Arida is just one example of Turkish provocaSurvey). So far, it has received strikes in tion. Ankara demanded that Sweden exaddition to a Turkish military operation tradite a Kurdish writer named Mehmet

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Emin Bilgin, who died several years ago and was a PKK critic. It also demanded that Sweden extradite Amina Kakabaweh, a female member of parliament who was elected by the Swedish people but is originally from Iran and does not have Turkish citizenship. As a result, we can say that Turkey is hostile to Kurds in general, not just the PKK. - What impact will a possible Turkish attack have on the SDF’s fight against terrorism?

Tal Abyad crossing, for example, was open with Turkey until the last moment when ISIS controlled that town before the Turkish army took control later. As a result, any Turkish attack will have serious security consequences, especially given the presence of prisons where the (SDF) is holding thousands of (ISIS) fighters. Furthermore, the camps that house thousands of ISIS fighters’ wives and widows pose a significant security risk, and ISIS may return to them if the female jihadists manage to escape.

The Turkish military has been fighting the PKK insurgency for decades/AFP.

The SDF areas are at war with ISIS, and the Syrian regime closes border crossings with its areas from time to time, and border crossings with Turkey have been closed since the SDF liberated them, though the

These are all signs of Turkish escalation against the Kurds, but Ankara has a habit of threatening the SDF whenever its domestic situation deteriorates.

Nawaf Khalil, director of Kurdisches Studienzentrum.

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pinion

Relation Between Man and Animals: Hideous Cowardice

By Abdelkader Zaoui

Human beings like to believe that they are the Earth’s finest and wisest living creatures, and also the most beneficial to the universe because they are the creature most capable of investing and developing. Therefore, they tend to display a great degree of resentment against any deterioration that could hit their surroundings, especially the climatic changes that are taking place, and the massive rise in the global temperature that has negative repercussions on the environment and man’s living conditions.

Amidst the ecstatic illusions of sophistication and distinction, man deliberately forgets that his narcissism, primitive instincts, and greed for arrogance and domination are the main factors for the outbreak of wars and conflicts and the resulting destruction, displacement and victims. They are also the main cause of the deterioration of the environment, climate change, depletion of natural resources, and the disasters and outbreaks of pandemics and incurable diseases that threaten the very survival of humankind on Earth.

Man takes pride in sin. He dignifies himself to bear the tragedies that hits his species. Man’s selfishness pushes him to search for other reasons but himself to justify disasters. He decides to blame it on animals and does not hesitate from time to time to even accuse the vegetation cover, to hold anyone but himself the responsibility of 28

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any human atrocity. Nonetheless, he realizes deep down that his accusations are not true, but he does not care if what he claims is a mere slander against other living beings. He is confident that they are unable to stand for themselves, and no one can hear their moans but their Creator.

AIDS spread at the beginning of the 1980s. Man forcibly turned a blind eye to the real causes behind its spread, which he knows is a remnant of the spread of homosexuality without any moral or religious oversight, and without taking primary medical precautions. However, his love for himself prevents him from looking in the mirror, so he does not hesitate to point fingers at others. There was nothing better to blame in this case than chimpanzees. This poor animal is only guilty of having a natural behavior somewhat similar to that of humans, but it will not be able to refute the accusations fabricated against it.

There are many types of influenza.

There is the severe, the moderate and the mild. As people had ignored the causes of its spread, its types have mutated as a result of the growth of urban housing and the exponential growth of cement forests regardless of the standards for healthy recreational and sports facilities and of the need for green spaces that give clean air and provide a healthy environment. Man, once again blamed animals and even

began to master the accusations against these creatures and started inspecting differences among different types of flu. He attributed some to birds, others to swine, and even to horses. No one knows which animals will be blamed in the future. Man’s selfishness is deeply rooted, and he does not lack the imagination to cast his villainy on other innocent living creatures.

An unfamiliar virus took man by surprise, forcing him to imprison himself, isolate himself from others, and freeze all his activity. Suddenly he found himself weak, paralyzed, but the inherent laziness in him was still there, as he was contempt with considering the virus a novelty and calling it Corona.

As always, man was unable to trace back the source of this virus. People started exchanging accusations among themselves about the virus’ origin.

There were many speculations about its source, is it natural or lab-made? And if it was manufactured, in which laboratories? Man feared that his skirmishes would turn into disputes, so his usual stupidity and shallow thinking could only attribute the cause of this germ to the smallest and laziest bird, the bat.

By such an assumption, he missed out that this bird only moves at night, and therefore the times of its contact with humans are limited, and the probability of it transmitting the infection is almost non-existent.

Man’s defamation of animals does not seem to stop. The pox is back, and man does not seem to think twice about obliterating the real reasons for this return, which is in unnatural sexual practices.

Man, therefore falsely and shamelessly claims that monkeys in general stand behind the epidemic. In fact, he went even further in his accusations, so he rushed to attribute one of the epidemic’s mutants to tomatoes, disregarding

all the facts about the health and nutritional benefits of tomatoes.

Are there any more hideous way of thinking and behavior than these?

This is a case of hideous cowardice perpetuated by human selfish practices.

The worst thing is that international organizations that are supposed to be credible and enjoy scientific and intellectual integrity publish reports that reinforce this hideousness. The most recent example is the World Health Organization, which instead of inviting people to discipline their behavior, rationalize their desires and whims and curb them, when necessary, issued a general warning of the consequences of what it falsely claims to be the escalating frequency of transmission of various forms of infection from animals to humans. By doing so, it caused frenzy by hinting at the possibility of the emergence of a new virus that humanity will not be able to contain.

Man refuses to stop his defamation and accusation against animals, thanks to his contempt, vulgarity, and slander.

The so-called politicians that are more of parasites across the world do not hesitate to compare each other to animals in an effort to camouflage the failure of their policies and mismanagement of public affairs and their failure to perform their duties. One describes the other as a wolf and the other responds by likening him to a donkey, and a third one shamelessly describes his opponents as dogs. Meanwhile, none of them enjoy the guidance prowess of the wolf that could not tamed in the circus, nor the loyalty of the dog, not to mention the strength and endurance of the donkey.

It seems that the modern man is in need of rereading Ibn al-Muqaffa’ so that his growing arrogance and greed do not kill him.

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Man’s selfishness pushes him to search for other reasons but himself to justify disasters. He decides to blame it on animals, to hold anyone but himself the responsibility of any human atrocity .

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Ethiopia’s Invisible Ethnic Cleansing International Bodies Need to Stop the Abuses in Tigray

By Kenneth Roth For more than a year and a half, a largely invisible campaign of ethnic cleansing has played out in Ethiopia’s northern region of Tigray. Older people, women, and children have been loaded onto trucks and forced out of their villages and hometowns. Men have been herded into overcrowded detention sites, where many have died of disease, starvation, or torture. In total, several hundred thousand Tigrayans have been forcibly uproot-

ed because of their ethnicity.

These crimes are an outgrowth of a war that began in November 2020, pitting Ethiopian federal forces and their allies, including troops from Eritrea and the neighboring Ethiopian region of Amhara, against forces linked to the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), which once led Ethiopia’s coalition government. Early in the conflict, Amhara security forces and officials gained control of Western Tigray, a long-contested area of the region, where with the acquiescence and possible participation of

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Members of the Tigray diaspora in North America protest about their conflict with Ethiopia, near the State Department in Washington on Wednesday, Dec. ,22 2021. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File)

Ethiopia’s federal military, they have carried out a brutal campaign of ethnic cleansing against Tigrayan communities.

Many of these abuses have been hidden from view. Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s government has imposed communication restrictions throughout Tigray and obstructed the efforts of independent investigators, journalists, and humanitarian workers, making it difficult to verify accounts from the region. In the first half of 2021, chilling reports of rapes, killings, and mass displacement nonetheless trickled out, prompting U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken to condemn the ethnic cleansing and call on Ethiopian and Amhara troops to withdraw.

Ethiopian authorities, however, have since sealed off Tigray almost entirely, severing telecommunications and even banking services.

But as investigators for Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have shown, the atrocities have continued.

For over ten months after Blinken’s condemnation of the ethnic cleansing, Amhara regional officials and security forces carried out a systematic campaign of war crimes and crimes against humanity, including murder, unlawful imprisonment and torture, forced displacement, sexual violence, possible extermination, and other inhumane acts.

The United States and other countries have pressed for a cessation of hostilities and sought to negotiate humanitarian access to Tigray, but they have largely ignored the horrors in the west of the region. They can no longer afford to look away.

Amhara security forces, with the acquiescence and possible participation of Ethiopia’s federal military, have carried out a brutal campaign of ethnic cleansing against Tigrayan communities.

lages while Amhara Special Forces—paramilitary forces accountable to the Amhara regional government—and allied Amhara militias carried out extrajudicial executions in towns across the area. Tens of thousands of Tigrayans were forced to flee. Amid the offensive, Tigrayan militiamen and other residents killed scores of Amhara residents and seasonal laborers in the town of Mai Kadra. In subsequent days, Amhara forces and Ethiopian federal troops targeted Tigrayans in a wave of revenge killings, arbitrary detentions, and eventual expulsions.

In the months that followed, the new Amhara administrators, Amhara Special Forces and allied militias, and Eritrean troops pillaged Tigrayan crops and livestock and looted and occupied Tigrayan homes. These forces also subjected Tigrayan women and girls to sexual violence, including gang rape and sexual slavery. A shop owner from the town of Dansha reported that she was raped by “GO OUT OR WE WILL KILL YOU” half a dozen Amhara militiamen and recalled her attackers saying, “You Tigrayans should disappear from the Western Tigray is a fertile area of northwestern Ethiopia land west of Tekeze”—a river that marks the boundary that borders Sudan and Eritrea. In the early 1990s, Ethio- between Western Tigray and the rest of the region. “You pia’s previous government, led by the TPLF, incorporated are evil, and we are purifying your blood.” the zone into the newly formed regional state of Tigray, The authorities and forces in Western Tigray went to great setting the stage for decades-long disputes over bounda- lengths to coerce Tigrayans to leave. They refused to isries, self-government, and identity. Some ethnic Amharas sue new identification cards to Tigrayans, restricted their viewed these changes as an annexation, believing that the movement and access to humanitarian assistance, and territory should have become part of the Amhara regional sought to intimidate them. “Every night they keep saying, state. At various times, Amharas in Western Tigray sought ‘Tigrayans, go out [or] we will kill you. Go out. Go out to gain greater recognition and representation in govern- of the area,’” recalled a 45-year-old woman who eventument, unsuccessfully petitioning regional and federal of- ally fled to Sudan. In several towns, signs were displayed ficials and staging protests that were violently suppressed. ordering Tigrayans to leave, and local administrators The outbreak of war in 2020 brought these longstand- discussed in public meetings their plans to remove Tiging grievances to the fore. Officials from Amhara, whose rayans. Pamphlets appeared giving Tigrayans 24-hour or forces fought alongside Ethiopian federal troops, estab- 72-hour ultimatums to leave or be killed. lished administrative control over Western Tigray. Soon, Amhara forces also killed many Tigrayans in custody. war crimes and ethnic cleansing were underway. Ethio- In a single day in January 2021, Amhara Special Forces pian federal forces indiscriminately shelled towns and vil- rounded up and massacred about 60 Tigrayan men on the banks of the Tekeze River in reprisal for the Amhara

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forces’ battlefield losses. By March 2021, hundreds of thousands of Tigrayans, reeling from months of abuse and in dire need of humanitarian assistance, had been forcibly removed from the area or coerced into leaving.

Then in late 2021, Amhara forces carried out yet another wave of forced expulsions and killings in Western Tigray.

Remaining Tigrayans were rounded up and held in detention sites. According to the United Nations, 29,000 people—some of them taken directly from detention—were forcibly transferred to other parts of Tigray in November alone. There, they faced the brunt of an effective siege imposed by the federal government, which, despite promising a humanitarian truce, continues to restrict aid and basic services in the region.

The United States and other countries have pressed for a cessation of hostilities and sought to negotiate humanitarian access to Tigray, but they have largely ignored the horrors in the west of the region.

DEATH IN PRISON For the Tigrayans who remain incarcerated in Western Tigray, the horror has continued. Since January 2022, Amhara security forces have held hundreds, possibly thousands, of Tigrayans in overcrowded facilities, where detainees have been killed, tortured, and denied adequate food and medical care. Some have starved to death.

In the town of Humera, where Amhara militias—at times assisted by Ethiopian federal troops and Amhara Special Forces—oversee a network of formal and informal detention sites, former prisoners recall horrific living conditions. “The guards would wait three, four, five days and then take [the bodies] and throw them into the valley,” said one man who was detained in a warehouse known as Enda Yetbarek in Humera. “They would wait for the bodies to smell and swell up. . . . [They] would even make the prisoners” dispose of the bodies. At another prison, called Bet Hintset, a detainee who escaped described a similar experience: “On the last day I was there, about four people died, and they picked about 12 of us to help get the bodies out there and put them on a tractor that was waiting outside.”

This treatment of Tigrayan detainees may amount to extermination, a crime against humanity that is defined in the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court as the “intentional infliction of conditions of life, inter alia the deprivation of access to food and medicine, calculated to bring about the destruction of part of a population.”

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Refugees who fled the conflict in Ethiopia’s Tigray region ride a bus going to the Village 8 temporary shelter, near the Sudan-Ethiopia border, in Hamdayet, eastern Sudan on Dec. 2020 ,1. (AP Photo/ Nariman El-Mofty, File)

Internally displaced women from the internally displaced persons (IDP) camp of Guyah, 100 kms of Semera, Afar region, Ethiopia wait to have their children screened by health personnel on May 2022 ,17. (Photo by Michele Spatari / AFP)

By denying prisoners needed medical care and adequate food—and barring relatives and neighbors from bringing them food—Amhara authorities are acting with more than callous disregard for the lives of their charges; they may well intend to cause their deaths.

TOWARD JUSTICE To halt these crimes and end the suffering of detained and displaced Tigrayans, Ethiopia’s federal and regional authorities should immediately allow international aid agencies to access these detention facilities and operate unhindered throughout Tigray. This means reining in abusive security forces, as well as suspending and holding accountable those implicated in crimes.

None of this will happen without international action, however. Both the African Union’s Peace and Security Council and the UN Security Council have failed to act to address the crisis in Ethiopia, once again calling into question their ability to protect vulnerable populations and prevent mass atrocities. These international bodies must include Ethiopia on their formal agendas, press for immediate access to detention facilities in Western Tigray, and insist on sustained and unimpeded access by humanitarian organizations. As part of any agreement between Ethiopia’s warring parties, they should support the deployment of an AU-led international peacekeeping force to Western Tigray with a mandate to protect civilians and monitor human rights.

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As the veil lifts on the atrocities in Western Tigray, the Ethiopian government and international bodies need to stop the abuses and put an end to impunity.

The United States, the European Union, and regional powers should also call for credible independent investigations into the abuses in Western Tigray. The International Commission of Human Rights Experts on Ethiopia, mandated by the UN Human Rights Council, and the Commission of Inquiry established by the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights should make it a priority to document human rights abuses in Western Tigray and press for credible justice and redress for serious crimes. As the veil lifts on the atrocities in Western Tigray, the Ethiopian government and international bodies need to stop the abuses and put an end to impunity.

At stake is the survival of thousands of detained Tigrayans and hundreds of thousands more who either live in fear or have fled their homes and live under near-siege conditions.

This article was originally published by Foreign Affairs.

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Putin’s Patience

Is Russia Betting on the West’s Fatigue of War?

By Mohammad Ali Salih – Washington

Third, “No Fatigue for President Biden, Yet,” wrote Olivier Knox, a columnist with the Washington Post.”

Last week, many American analysts and the Ukrainian President, Volodymyr Zelensky, seemed to agree on one thing: Russia is betting on the West’s war fatigue.

A front-page headline in the Washington Post: “Putin Bets on Fatigue in the West;” Newsweek: “Ukraine Fatigue is on the Rise;” Yahoo News: “War Fatigue Undermining West‘s Support for Ukraine;” and, the New York Times asked: “Will the West Stay United Behind Ukraine?”

Meanwhile, Ukraine’s President Zelensky seemed to agree. In statements to Ukrainska Pravda,” he warned that “Putin’s dragging out the war is causing some countries to become tired of the fighting.”

He added that “Everyone really wants to push us little by little towards some result that is definitely undesirable for us. We have not been asked yet, but there are other parties that have their own interests.”

Following are excerpts from three Americans’ opinions, extracted from their tweets, websites and statements to the media: First, “Ukraine fatigue is on the Rise,” said Mark Davis, host of the Mark Davis Radio Show and author of a book, “Upside Down: How the Left Turned Right into Wrong.”

Second, “Europe at a loss,” said Lionel Laurent, a columnist with Bloomberg, covering Europe.

MARK DAVIS: “MORE FATIGUE”

“The West and the EU have the advantage in terms of resources and human capital. But that comes with a need to protect the most vulnerable in society”

“You can feel it in the reduced appetite for hourly updates on troop movements. You can see it in emerging doubts about the heavy sums of American money cobbled together on the fly, with little scrutiny. And you can sense it in a growing mood that we are in for a long struggle of uncertain results …

These are the early stages of Ukraine fatigue, and it has ramifications for America, Europe and the world.

Our once-rapt attention to Russia’s invasion now feels more like a passing daily interest, as news reports continue to offer images of the latest Putin atrocity or the most recent act of spirited Ukrainian resistance.

It’s not that we have lost our overall wish for Putin to be thwarted in his designs to absorb Ukraine back into Mother Russia; but as the weeks pass, as inspiring as the Ukrainian resistance has been, more Americans are starting to wonder about the cost and duration of our involvement …

This should be a proper environment for principled debate, but that’s been made difficult by hot takes from both sides seeking to insult opponents.

Skeptics slam Ukraine aid supporters as ‘endless war’-supporting neocons or opportunistic Democratic hawks looking to give Joe Biden one issue on which he might be able to claim success.

Meanwhile, casting doubt, or even asking questions, about expensive American immersion into this crisis can draw accusations of siding with Putin …

Where does it end?

It’s a fair question, and there is no clear answer …”

LIONEL LAURENT: “EUROPE AT A LOSS” “The momentum behind Western sanctions against Vladimir Putin is flagging. Even as the European Union toasts its toughest restrictions yet against the Russian war machine — including a

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Mark Davis

Lionel Laurent

partial ban on oil imports — concessions are mounting, from exempting pipeline crude to removing Putin’s favorite cleric from the sanctions list …

Hungary’s Viktor Orban, an admirer of Putin, is clearly playing a big role in splintering the united front …

The cost of hitting Putin where it hurts — energy — is preying on many leaders’ minds at a time of high inflation and economic slowdown …

Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas is keen to keep tightening the screws on Moscow. But she acknowledges everything will get more ‘difficult’ in the future…

Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo said it was time for a different approach — or a ‘pause.’

A ‘YouGov’ survey found European public opinion somewhat conflicted: More than 30% of respondents in seven countries, including Spain and Italy, advocated investing in trade and diplomacy with Russia, rather than defense and security …

Without light at the end of the economic tunnel, the public mood might turn. If this war drags on and becomes a test of morale.

The West and the EU have the advantage in terms of resources and human capital. But that comes with a need to protect the most vulnerable in society...

The ‘financial weapon’ is an imperfect tool that is prone to patchy enforcement and unintended consequences. The unprecedented scale of sanctions against Putin’s inner circle, as well as Russia’s financial system, airlines and trade, will contribute to an estimated 10% decline in Russian gross domestic product this year.

But it has not deterred Putin …”

OLIVIER KNOX: “BIDEN’S FATIGUE NOT YET” “One of the most remarkable aspects of President Biden’s unequivocal invitation for Sweden and Finland to join NATO is that the Senate ratification vote eventually required to make it happen will be both immensely consequential and probably almost entirely bereft of suspense …

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Olivier Knox

“As the weeks pass, more Americans are starting to wonder about the cost and duration of our involvement” ‘They have the full, total, complete backing of the United States,’ Biden said in the Rose Garden, Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson of Sweden and President Sauli Niinistö of Finland at his side. ‘Finland and Sweden make NATO stronger,’ he added …

For a nation thought to be tired of war and suspicious of new foreign entanglements, most U.S. leaders and voters seem broadly comfortable with deepening American involvement in Ukraine, with vast bipartisan majorities in Congress siding with the Biden administration.

‘Let me be clear,’ Biden declared in the Rose Garden, ‘new members joining NATO is not a threat to any nation. It never has been. NATO’s purpose is to defend against aggression. That’s its purpose: to defend.’

But, perhaps mindful of U.S. worries about NATO allies freeloading off American defense spending, he pitched Sweden and Finland more as friends indeed than friends in need. He highlighted their ‘strong democratic institutions, strong militaries, and strong and transparent economies, and a strong moral sense of what is right.’

Barring a seismic shift, lawmakers will sign off, committing in effect to spill American blood and spend American treasure if either Stockholm or Helsinki invokes the Article 5 mutual-defense provision that designates an attack on one alliance member as an attack on all of them.

But it’s a sign of the geopolitical realignment Russian President Vladimir Putin ushered in with the war he unleashed …”

A Weekly Political News Magazine

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Hady Amr: Biden’s Envoy for Calm Between Palestinians and Israelis

www.majalla.com

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Hidden Papers Between Muhammad Ali, Malcolm X Revealed “Blood Brothers:” A Satirical Title for an Expired Alliance

By Mohammed Rouda - Hollywood There are many entertainment films that Netflix produces and broadcasts, but there are also serious productions that other film companies may not release for fear of commercial failure. “The Irishman” by Martin Scorsese in 2019 is an example of such films in the fiction cinema genre, and “Blood Brothers: Malcolm X & Muhammad Ali” (2022/21) is an example from the documentary or nonfiction genres.

Each of Malcolm X and Muhammad Ali deserves a separate movie and Hollywood did not postpone that. In 1992, Spike Lee set out to make his biographical film «Malcolm X» starring Denzel Washington. After that, he made the movie “Ali” (2001), which also falls under the biographical genre, with William Smith playing the role of the world’s most famous boxer There is also a large number of documentaries that based their narratives on data collected during the lifetimes of both men from activities and events until MalcolmX was assassinated or Muhammad Ali decided to quit boxing, content with

his achievements.

However, no movie comes close to “Blood Brothers: Malcolm X & Muhammad Ali” except for a movie about a night when four African-Americans gathered in a hotel and discussed the issue of Muhammad Clay›s conversion from Christianity to Islam. The movie is called “One

Night in Miami,” which took the director Regina King one-year work in 2020.

ONE NIGHT IN MIAMI “One Night in Miami” is a drama about four real-life personalities who get together on a night meant to celebrate

Malcom & Muhammad

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and re-live a friendship that once linked them - the boxer Muhammad Ali (when he was still known as Cassius Clay) and the political advocate Malcolm X, who was about to separate from the preacher Elijah Muhammad and the «Nation of Islam» group. There was also the singer Sam Cooke at the peak of his success, and the actor Jim Brown who was starting to think seriously about retiring from football and dedicating his future for acting. They meet to celebrate Muhammad Ali›s last victory in the boxing ring and his coronation, and the events take place in 1964.

The meeting site is a hotel apartment rented by Malcolm. The meeting takes place after a brief introduction to the situation of each of these characters before their meeting. The introduction leads directly to researching the relationship that links each of them and at the same time links it to the tense political situation during a year that witnessed the height of racist issues in the country and after the assassination of the preacher Martin Luther King and two years before the assassination of Malcolm X himself.

Clay had still not converted to Islam at the invitation of Malcolm X, and much of the dialogue between this quartet stems from Muhammad Ali›s intention to convert and racism in the United States. Malcolm was pushing forward an anti-racism policy, criticizing the status quo by which an American is condemned by the color of his skin, while the authorities were defending the institution as it is. The pivotal confrontation is between him and singer Sam Cooke. Malcolm X believes Cooke sold himself through his emotional songs to perpetuate the status quo, as his songs are devoid of any form of criticism or resistance. In his defense, Cooke argues that art comes first and that, as a producer, he helps many black people.

The dispute grows here before leaving a positive impact on everyone. They will not meet again altogether, but Sam Cooke will later compose his famous song “I

Elyassa Shabazz

Was Born by the River” to reflect Mal- many characters, including Muhammad colm X›s call to him to direct his songs to Ali›s daughter, his brother Abdul Rahbecome purposeful. man, and Malcolm X›s daughter Elisa Shabazz). There is also a small part with FRIENDSHIP BEFORE ENMITY black and white animation, all of which seek to reveal what most of us did not “Brothers of Blood: Malcolm X and Mu- know about that period and the friendhammad Ali,” however, is completely ship and enmity it beheld. At the begindifferent from any of these three previous ning of the film, there is an implication films or others. Its subject is multi-lay- that we will be watching a work about the ered and walks viewers through the most two characters and how Muhammad Ali important milestones that affected the converted to Islam with the encouragepersonality of the preacher Malcolm and ment and patronage of Malcolm X. The the boxer Muhammad, in addition to the plot, however, thickens and unexpected severe racial situation in the sixties and surprises appear (not a surprise for those the conflict between the Muslim wing who read Randy Roberts and Johnny following the preacher Elijah Muham- Smith’s “Blood Brothers: The Fatal mad and those who followed Malcolm X. Friendship between Muhammad Ali and For a start, the film (colored and uses Malcolm X) and accounts and personal mostly black and white documents) com- convictions start to overlap, which leads bines documentaries and interviews (with to a great divergence between the two.

Muhammad Ali was the focus of the attention of each of Elijah Muhammad (who headed the “Nation of Islam”) and Malcolm X, who in the early sixties was one of Elijah’s closest students and the media spokesperson for the organization.

But there was a dispute between the two over the intensity of the call that Malcolm X adopted against white racism, demanding the segregation of the predominantly

Malcolm here grows into a tragic image of a fighter against racism.

From the beginning, he was resisting authority.

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One Night in Miami

black states from those with a white majority.

On the other hand, Elijah Muhammad focused his call on building an organization that calls for Islam without politicizing it, run by him, and he was highly glorified and even considered a “messenger” (as he said in at least one of his speeches).

As Malcolm left Elijah’s cloak, tension sparked between the two and reinforced Malcom’s quest to recruit Muhammad Ali to demonstrate his ability to create his own organization that would have big names.

However, Muhammad Ali was about to join the “Nation of Islam” despite the great friendship with Malcolm X. His motive was initially unclear (not even convincing at any later time), based on the fact that it was Malcolm who invited the boxer to convert to Islam, and then on the grounds that they exchanged family visits.

It all ended when Muhammad Ali decided to join the Nation of Islam, pay tribute to Elijah Muhammad and attack Malcolm X on every possible occasion.

On one of those occasions, he said:

“Whoever disobeys the teachings of Elijah Muhammad must be put to death.”

The scene appears in the last half hour of the film when the facts urge us to distance ourselves from Muhammad Ali in favor of Malcolm X. The film does not explain any reasons beyond what we see, and that is Elijah Muhammad›s success in luring Muhammad Ali in, which turned into an attack against Malcolm X›s stances against racism.

dividual heading a group of people like himself calling for an end to racism, albeit in violent forms, in the face of increasing violence by white supremacists (the film uses scenes of the hangings of black people in public squares and mentions other traumatic events). Regardless of the size of this group, the appeal here was political in contrast to Elijah Muhammad›s teachings, which are comparatively less extreme. Nonetheless, the media and most Americans considered them equally extremist.

Malcolm here grows into a tragic image IN AFRICA of a fighter against racism. From the beThe reality is that Malcolm X was an in- ginning he was the individual resisting authority in the face of the organization that knew how to operate within the larger organization (the United States). One might not agree with Malcolm›s call to avenge the killing of blacks by killing whites but would understand his motives since he lost his father after white people beat him and then dragged him to the railroad where the train passed over him and turned him into a lifeless lump of meat. This is presented as evidence of the rampant white racism (here the film uses

The film is good in terms of historical research as it ticks all the boxes, transitioning smoothly between different situations and dates.

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Malcom X

model images) during the sixties (before and after).

Malcolm was aware that the prospects for his advocacy were primarily political and sought to meet with African leaders, among them Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser, to underline his role at that crucial stage of his life.

Malcolm›s tour of the African continent took place at the same time with Muhammad Ali’s tour there. The first was looking for political support and the other for outreach to his African audience. The two met without a date in a capital, but Muhammad Clay refused to shake hands with Malcolm X, who returned to the United States with a new outlook, less violent than before but without concessions. The film accuses Elijah Muhammad of hiring killers to assassinate Malcolm X, which actually took place on February 21, 1965, when Malcom was at the age of 39.

The more the film goes on in its historical research, the more it incites the feeling of the enormity of Malcolm›s loss

and the great mistake that Muhammad Clay committed due to his ferocity in his unjustified attack on his old friend. In the end, according to Elisa Shabazz (Malcolm X›s daughter), Muhammad Ali told her he was sorry for what he had done to her father.

The film is good in terms of historical research as it ticks all the boxes, transitioning smoothly between different situations and dates. What the film monitors throughout is how racism led to attempts of individual confrontations by these poles (in addition to the Christian missionary Martin Luther King,

The more the film goes on in its historical research, the more it incites the feeling of the enormity of Malcolm’s loss and the great mistake that Clay committed.

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who called for peaceful confrontations).

“Blood Brotherhood” has no special agendas. It lays before us in a wonderful synthesis by Paul Carothers and Jeremy Seaver, and more than suitable music

by Thomas Brink, are facts preoccupied with masterful artistic direction and with realistic historical content that establishes a whole new knowledge of that convergence and divergence between the two most important African-American figures of the twentieth century, or between two of the most important. The film does not seek publicity, rhetoric, and favoring one person over another.

This preference comes naturally and according to the viewers› conviction, separately. * Mohammed Rouda is Asia World Film Festival consultant, programmer, and script writer. He wrote books on cinema. He’s also a member of: Fipresci (International Federation of Film Critics), London Film Circle MPAA (the media section, Hollywood), and Hollywood Foreign Press Association.

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NEW MOVIES

By Mohammed Rouda

[A weekly roundup of screenings at movie theatres around the world] WATCHER ★★★

◆ Genre: Thriller [US] ◆ Showing worldwide

◆ Final judgement: Worth watching.

A man is watching Julia (Maika Monroe) from his lair facing the house she recently moved into. A serial killer is terrorizing the city. Are they the same person? Chloe Okuno takes a serious job on a subject that differs sufficiently from the norm in such subjects, first in terms of the events taking place in the Romanian capital Bucharest and secondly, by focusing on the potential victim and her unstable world being in a new social setting. ◆ Final judgement: Good for genre enthusiasts.

Fares ★★

◆ Genre: Action [Egyptian] ◆ Showing in Saudi Arabia, UAE.

I’M CHARLIE WALKER ★★

◆ Genre: Factual Drama [US] ◆ Limited Screenings The end is good, and the result is not what it would have been if director Patrick Gilles had assigned the writing to someone else. This is the story of Charlie Walker, who set off with his three trucks to help clean up the coast of San Francisco, and the events take place in the mid-seventies when two oil trucks collided and caused an environmental disaster. The film provides background about the racist treatment of Charlie being black, but the problem is that the film did not provide details for fear of lawsuits, which made it look more like a fairy tale.

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This is an unhelpful replay on the part of the filmmakers (director Raouf Abdel Aziz) for the films of the sixties in which we saw the same plot: a strong young man (Ahmed Zaher here) confronts the teacher (then) and the businessman (here) with introducing corruption, money and a popular environment. Hussein Fahmy is still more handsome in order to convince the viewer that he is that human beast who practices individual terrorism and brutality against his en10/06/22

emies. Explosions, chases, hand-to-hand combat and a rap song too. ◆ Final judgement: For fans of Egyptian films.

BUTTERFLY VISION ★★★

◆ Genre: Drama [Ukraine] ◆ Showing worldwide

Director Hirokazu Koreeda continues to examine the situations that speak of families unable to provide for their children. In his previous movie, Shoplifters, he talked about a family who invests their children in pickpocketing and shoplifting to secure food. In this film, there is a priest who keeps the children left by their mother at the door of the church to sell to families without children. A captivating and welladdressed theme of a tale that departs from here to address one mother’s desire to get her child back. ◆ Final judgement: For those seeking quality films

THE BLACK PHONE ★★

◆ Genre: Horror [US] ◆ Showing worldwide

While the film does not hide its anti-Russian sentiment, it also does not hide its criticism of Ukrainian society itself.

The events take place in the year 2014 during the Donbas War. The film’s heroine, Lilia (Rita Burkovska), is held captive in a Russian prison, where she is raped. After returning to Ukraine, she is not accepted by the society around her.

The film had its world premiere in the “Un Certain Regard” competition during the latest Cannes Film Festival, where it sparked special interest as it was a Ukrainian film being shown while the Russian-Ukrainian war was raging. The director deals with her heroine and character knowledgeably. ◆ Final judgement: for the genre enthusiasts and the serious.

BROKER ★★★★

The number of young children kidnapped in the United ◆ Genre: Social Drama [South Korea] ◆ Showing States, according to official sources, exceeds 1,400 children each year. This needs a movie, but not this movie. The story worldwide here is nothing more than the story of a boy who is kidnapped by a young kidnapper and locked in an underground room, and the boy (Jeremy Davies) must find a way to escape. Writing by Joe King, son of famous writer Stephen King, directing by Scott Derrickson with a role by Ethan Hawke, it sounds like a trap for an actor who deserves better work. ◆ Final judgement: For genre enthusiasts only.

Ratings: ★ Weak or average | ★★: Mediocre with merits| . ★★★: Good | ★★★★: Excellent | ★★★★★: A masterpiece 43

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Let’s “Go Bike” in Cairo Egypt Launches First Bicycle Sharing Project

By Salwa Samir The Egyptian capital celebrates launching the country’s first bike sharing system which will be in force in July. Dubbed as “Cairo Bike,” this national venture aims to encourage people to use bicycles to reduce harmful emissions in the densely populated governorate, whose population reached 21 million this year.Bike sharing system is the technology of placing bikes at stations across the city that enables its residents and passengers to rent bikes from place A and then leave the bike in place B. It is a proven system to encourage the use of nonmotorized transportation.

The project is installing 500 bikes at 45 stops in two phases.

The first phase will start in July with 250 bikes. The next phase will be implemented by the end of this year.It came in line with Egypt’s preparations to host the UN Conference of Parties on Climate Change (COP27), which will be held at the Red Sea’s Sharm El-Sheikh this November.The Cairo Bike project is implemented by Cairo Governorate in copartnership with the United Nations Human Settlements Program (UN-HABITAT), Swiss non-profit Drosos Foundation, which has been active in Egypt since 2005, the US Institute for Transport and Development Policy (ITDP) and other local entities.

Mohamed Samy, founder of Go Bike, a partner in the project, told Majalla that the project is the first of its kind in Egypt and in the Middle East. It was a result of long years and stages of study and the selection of locations in cooperation with the above-mentioned partners.

He added that the project includes 45 stations divided into two phases, the first, during which 250 bicycles are used, and then the same amount in the second phase due at the end of the year.

Samy went on to say that there may be other stages which will cover more districts, but it depends on the funding. “Through the data and information we will obtain after this trial run, improvements will be made in the later stages,” he added.

According to Samy, the system enables anyone to ride a bike from one station to another through a smart application available on iPhone and Android phones with a prepaid card system.

The bikes are fitted with a GPS in order to track the bike and prevent its theft, and the system can calculate the time and distance traveled by the bike.

“Bicycle stations work alongside solar energy to achieve sustainability as it is an eco-friendly project. They are also equipped with air internet to support mobile application services and electronic payment services for the cost of cycling.

«In cooperation with the Interior Ministry, the stations will be monitored by cameras to reduce theft, damage and loss of bikes.”

THE BEGINNING Samy, also an engineer, said about his Go Bike initiative that its story began in 2011. When he was working in Cyprus and many European countries, he noticed most people depended on bicycles whether for shopping, or going to school or to a job.

“I am encouraged to revive this culture again among Egyptians who used it in the golden old age before the number of inhabitants boomed. We see this in our 1950s and 60s blackand-white films that Egyptian streets are empty except for female and male bikers and some cars,” he recalled.

When he came back, he told his friends about the idea of encouraging people to use bikes again. But their feedback frustrated him for a while.

“Some of my friends were not convinced, claiming that the Egyptian streets have no space even for pedestrians. And they wondered, ‘Can cyclists find a way?’” he said.Samy insisted on fulfilling his dream, and after six months he formed a group who believed in his vision. The team toured streets to spread the idea. They invited people to join them on Friday events

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Cairo Governor Khaled Abdel-Aal and Ahmed El Dorghamy, Basic Services and Climate Change Program Officer at UNHabitat during a visit to the first bicycle stop in Cairo. (Photo courtesy of Mohamed Samy)

when they roamed streets and visited antiquities places in Cairo agreed beforehand on their Facebook page. People joined them either with their own bikes or hired from them at affordable prices. The number of people increased over time.

“According to people’s feedback, we established a cycling academy in Heliopolis in 2013, in which there are female and male trainers, as some women prefer to be trained by a woman.

“We share with them advice about the suitable bicycle for them according to their age, weight, the purpose of using it and the road they use the bike in,” Samy added.

He pointed out that the initial stage of the current bike sharing system was begun in 2017, when he launched a project called Sekketak Khadra (Your Road is Green) in cooperation between Cairo Governorate, United Nations Human Settlements Program (UN Habitat), and funded by the Danish Embassy in Cairo.

The project aimed at upgrading the infrastructure for bicycles and so we installed racks in front of shopping malls, schools and metro stations,” he said.

“Before this project, people parked their bikes by tying them to lamp posts or to trees, which was not safe,” he added, pointing out that Sekketak Khadra was an important step to spread the culture of riding bikes with the help of the state represented by the Cairo Governorate.

Bike sharing system is a proven system to encourage the use of non-motorized transportation. segments of the Nile Corniche called Mamsha Ahl Masr (The Walk of the People of Egypt). It enables people to gain better access to the waterfront, recreational open spaces, and provides an accessible getaway from high levels of pollution in the air.

Egypt also has been working on a project to develop Khedivial Cairo (downtown Cairo) to restore it to its previous magnificent era as one of the most important and largest heritage cities in the world. Dubbed as “Paris of the East,” downtown Cairo was established by Khedive Ismail in 1863 and was influenced by French architecture. The development process includes allocating a number of streets for pedestrians only.

UPGRADING INFRASTRUCTURE

Since taking power in 2014, President Abdel Fattah El Sisi has appeared cycling on many occasions. He encouraged Egyptians to ride bicycles, exercise and walk more. He also sponsored the initiative of «Your Bike Your Health» which is carried out by the Ministry of Youth and Sports to provide bikes at reduced prices.

Egypt is witnessing improvement of roads such as the current project of establishing promenades on several

“These efforts make Egypt right on track in protecting the environment and promoting eco-friendly projects,” he said.

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pinion

Streets of London Someone’s life can take a sudden turn, an abrupt change in someone’s life can have a devastating impact on their future. When a life event overtakes and gets out of control and forces someone to lose their home and pushes them into homelessness, it puts them on a dangerous and very lonely path.

By Luisa Markides

It is estimated that about 2% of the world’s population is homeless. This corresponds to nearly 154 million people living in the streets around the world .

for women and 46 for men. They are nine times more likely to commit suicide. There are many different reasons forcing people into the devastation of homelessness. This includes social causes (unable to pay for housing), poverty, unemployment, or personal circumstances (such as poor mental or physical health problems, relationship breakups, losing a job), or the intake of substances such as drugs or alcohol abuse.

It is estimated that about 2% of the world’s population is homeless. This corresponds to nearly 154 million people living in the streets around the world, temporary accom- Some become homeless when they leave modations, refugee camps or other sites, of- prison, care, or the army as they have nowhere to go to. Tragically, women become ten in very dangerous circumstances. homeless after escaping a violent or abuThe legal definition of homelessness in the sive relationship.

United Kingdom is that “a household has no home in the UK or anywhere else in the Rough sleeping decreased in London. In world available and reasonable to occupy,” autumn of 2021, there were an estimated (cited by Gov.uk). This includes rough 640 people sleeping rough on a single night sleeping, people living in garages, sheds, in London, compared to 710 people during hostels, and sofa surfing. Everyone who has the same period in the previous year, (according to statistics from Gov.com). The no fixed address is considered homeless. capital is the most affected city in the UnitAccording to Shelter, the National Cam- ed Kingdom. paign for Homeless People, someone is legally homeless when they have been Statistics show that overall homelessness evicted from their home, have been asked has decreased over the past 6 years. While to leave by friends or family, must leave in 2018 there were approximately 4680 due to domestic abuse or violence, cannot rough sleepers around England, in 2021 stay in their housing due to flood or fire, there were 2440. and are sleeping rough on the streets or live somewhere that is not reasonable for them This was also due to the government’s initiative to offer hotel accommodation during to stay. the pandemic.

Rough sleeping is the most visible and dangerous of all types of homelessness. They However, there might be a further increase are 17 times more exposed to violence and in homelessness in the United Kingdom by abuse. According to the homeless char- 2024. It has been predicted that due to the ity Crisis, the average age of death is 42 increase of energy cost, the overall rise of

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living costs and the end of the pandemic benefits, the number of homeless people could surge by one third.

Being a mother myself, I find it one of the saddest realities. Walking around the streets of London you come across so many homeless people. Some of them have been sleeping rough in the same areas for a prolonged period, some for years. Some are very young which makes my heart ache. Their eyes look tired and empty, with hopeless prospects, are surrounded by only a few blankets and keeping their entire life belongings wrapped up in only a few plastic bags. Their loneliness contrasts with the colorful life of others passing in front of them.

Only a few people would notice their presence and they simply sit there day after day without much interaction and without love. What I believe is very touching is that homelessness could potentially affect all of us if we would find ourselves in a vulnerable circumstance. It

is down to us, how we react, find a strategy to cope with certain situations with the resources we have…and how blessed we are to have the right people in our lives when we find ourselves in difficulties.

No one should face homelessness alone. There is help from the government available if someone is facing real difficulties.

I won’t forget, when as a little girl, my mother would sometimes sing as a lullaby the song “Streets of London” by Ralph McTell to me “…Have you seen the old Girl, who walks the streets of London, Dirt in her hair, And her clothes in rage? She’s no time for talking, She just keeps right on walking, Carrying her home in two carrier bags…” Little I have known or understood the meaning behind those lyrics, how incredibly lucky I was, to grow up in a loving and safe home… - to have a home!

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Homeless. Photo: Garry Knight/flickr

No one should face homelessness alone. There is help from the government available if someone is facing real difficulties .

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1920s in Plastic Arts at Zamalek Complex ‘The Twenties are Golden Key to Egypt’s Plastic Art’ – Ehab Al-Labban to Majalla

By Dalia Assem A unique exhibition of its kind, hosted by the Complex of Arts at Aisha Fahmy Palace in Zamalek, includes masterpieces of Egyptian plastic art that are invaluable and whose artistic

value is increasing day by day as well so that international auction houses such as Christie’s and Sotheby’s compete for them.

Egyptian Art in the Twenties of the Last Century represents a panorama of the time period between 1920 and 1929; that rich era in which

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The exhibition comes as part of the celebration of that era which was rich in creativity. The Complex of Arts at Aisha Fahmy Palace in Zamalek. (Supplied)

the features of the call for Egyptian nationalism were formed through the space of paintings and the details of sculptural works.

The exhibition includes paintings by 20 male and female artists, including the pioneer of contemporary Egyptian painting Mahmoud Said and the famous sculptor Mahmoud Mokhtar, and it will continue until the beginning of next August.

Majalla met with plastic artist Ehab Al-Labban, director of the Complex of Arts in Zamalek overlooking the Nile, who spoke about the importance and value of the exhibition.

“The exhibition comes as part of the celebration of that era which was rich in creativity.

The exhibits were organized by the Egyptian Ministry of Culture and was inaugurated by Minister of Culture Enas Abdel Dayem.”

He added that the exhibition represents a reference for researchers and scholars for this golden period of the history of Egyptian plastic art, collected in one place to shed light on the cultural and artistic radiation that characterized this era.

“This, I believe, represents a golden key to modern Egyptian plastic art.”

The exhibitions of the Complex of Arts are characterized by a comprehensive educational trend that highlights the strengths of the various streams of Egyptian plastic art, with the aim of introducing new generations to the stages of development of this art and the strengths that distinguish it.

The exhibition is a journey through time during the period of artistic glow in the early twentieth century, at which time Egypt witnessed the fame of art stars in various fields, whether in plastic art, theatre, cinema or literature.

The works take you to the Alexandrian cultural climate that shaped Mahmoud Saeed’s conscience and was linked to the presence of various foreign communities, while Mokhtar’s works highlight a brilliance in drawing inspiration from the pharaonic heritage in the details of the sculptures and the embodiment of agriculture as an expression of the Egyptian identity.

In general, the works highlight a trend of liberation from academic rules and ideals of plastic art, so that each artist creates their own mark and rhythm, whether in sculpture or photography.

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The works highlight a trend of liberation from academic rules in plastic art so that each artist creates their own mark and rhythm, whether in sculpture or photography.

Al-Labban added, continuing his talk about the exhibition: “In 1908, when the College of Fine Arts was established, features and a curriculum for modern Egyptian art began with techniques taken from European art.

“In opening up to the world, it establishes a different approach in the production of culture and an actual societal movement formed by intellectuals and all aspects of Egyptian culture in which a wave of change took place.

“The research on what was produced during this period was contributed by artists of Armenian, Levantine and Turkish origins. There were also well-known artists in the masses and there were other unknown artists known only on the academic artistic level, including Ali Al-Ahwany, George Sabbagh, Ahmed Sabry, Shaaban Zaki and Mohamed Hassan.”

Al-Labban noted, “The exhibition highlights the base on which the pioneer artists relied and opened the way for many generations after them. Mahmoud Saeed, Mahmoud Mokhtar, Ragheb Ayad and Youssef Kamel laid the first building block for the so-called modern Egyptian art, as they had perseverance and diligence to pave the way, at this time as well.

“The Fine Arts Society was established, and it was a period of renaissance in which creativity mingled with a popular sense of movement motivated by Egyptian nationalism.”

He continued, “The twenties is the real period that allowed the establishment of a focal point for plastic art with an Arab identity after a period of European influence that followed the period of Orientalism.”

He added that this came as “the Orientalist paintings focused on the nature of life as well

Egyptian Art in the Twenties of the Last Century represents a panorama of the time period between 1920 and 1929. The Complex of Arts at Aisha Fahmy Palace in Zamalek. (Supplied)

as the habits and lifestyle of the Egyptians, which were the focus of research for Orientalists. These are the artworks that recorded details of life and became a reference for the lives of Egyptians in the fields of cinema and television”.

He went on saying “That era, with all the cultural and social movement, created a solid cultural milieu that expanded and developed until we had a base of artists, each with their own color and personality. It started from Cairo and Alexandria and expanded and branched out to include Egyptian cities.”

Regarding the presence of vibrant and modern works by female artists who are not well-known outside the academic domain, Al-Labban said: “The most important works on display are the paintings of Amy El-Nimr and Suzanne Adly.

We wanted to shed light on the presence of in-

fluential and active female artists in Egyptian society.”

“Our duty is to carefully search for the important collection by researching everything that was produced in this period and presenting it in a systematic context that is able to attract the viewers’ eye and stir their feelings and mind.”

The director of the Complex of Arts explained: “We used the Egyptian museums to organize this exhibition, including the Museum of Mod-

More than 100 years since its production, the exhibits of elegant oil paintings surround the walls of the Aisha Fahmy Palace with all its splendor.

Statue of Returning from the River by Mahmoud Mokhtar. (Supplied)

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Head of the Bride of the Nile by artist Mahmoud Mukhtar from the collections of the Museum of Egyptian Modern Art, Cairo, Egypt. Credit: Salma Adham

ern Art, Mahmoud Mokhtar Museum, Mohamed Nagy Museum, Mahmoud Said Museum, and a group of individuals’ holdings, to collect the features of that era.

“The preparation for the exhibition took several months, as a panoramic study of all the works produced in the 1920s and some of the works were restored by a skilled and specialized team at the Complex of Arts.”

Al-Labban confirmed, “All these works will

Napping by artist Mahmoud Mukhtar from the collections of the Museum Egy tian Modern Art, Cairo, Egypt. Credit: Salma Adham

Egyptian Art in the 1920s represents a panorama of rich era in which the features of the call for Egyptian nationalism were formed in paintings and sculpture. be documented with information and details of their production in a detailed catalog that also includes the format and coordination of the display that we offer in the Complex of Arts, which matches the latest international methods of display with the simplest capabilities.”

The exhibition provides a unique experience as it gathers unparalleled masterpieces from the treasures of Egyptian plastic art, which guarantees an enjoyable tour with a high-class artistic presentation scenario, which is designed by artist Al-Labban and implemented very carefully and accurately.

More than 100 years since its production, the exhibits of elegant oil paintings surround the walls of the Aisha Fahmy Palace or the Complex of Arts with all its splendor, while another artistic dialogue revolves between sculpture, photography and painting.

A portrait of the artist Mahmoud Said with his brush. (Supplied)

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Hady Amr: Biden’s Envoy for Calm Between Palestinians and Israelis

By Majalla Illustration by Jeannette Khouri A Lebanese-born politician and expert has the task of defusing tension and stopping the escalation of fighting in the Palestinian territories.

It is Hady Amr, the US Assistant Secretary of State for Israel-Palestinian Affairs, who arrived in the region on Friday in search of a calm that the White House wants.

Hady Amr was appointed to his position in January 2021, with the inauguration of US President Joe Biden’s administration.

The Lebanese-American diplomat, born in 1967, graduated from Tufts University with a BA in Economics and Princeton University’s School of Public and International Affairs with an MA in Economics and International Affairs.

During former US President Barack Obama’s administration, he was in charge of the Palestinian-Israeli negotiations. He is the Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Palestinian and Israeli Affairs at the moment.

Amr was a fellow at the Brookings In-

stitution and the founding director of the Brookings Doha Center in Qatar from 2006 to 2010. He was also a Senior Advisor in the Office of Policy at the Department of Homeland Security in 2010. He worked as the Deputy Assistant Regional Director for the Middle East at the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) from 2010 to 2013, where he assisted in the coordination of numerous assistance programs throughout the region.

From 2014 to 2017, he was the United States’ Deputy Special Envoy for Israeli-Palestinian Negotiations, working on a team led by Secretary of State John Kerry and focusing on economic issues.

In the summer of 2013, he joined the negotiating team.

Amr was named a volunteer member of Joe Biden’s presidential transition Agency Review Team in November 2020 to support transition efforts related to the United States Department of State.

Amr is the author of Brookings publications such as “The Need to Communicate: How to Improve US Public Diplomacy with the Islamic World” and “The

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Opportunity of the Obama Era: How Civil Society Can Help Bridge Divides Between the US and a Diverse Muslim World.”

Newsweek, The Washington Post, The International Herald Tribune, and The Daily Star have also published his work. He wrote several reports for the United Nations, including “The State of the Arab Child.”

Amr has repeatedly urged negotiations with Hamas in recent years. Amr co-wrote an article declaring that the Trump administration’s proposed peace deal should be scrapped in favor of focusing on a deal with Hamas. The article delves into the policies that Amr may pursue as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Israel-Palestine.

“By laying out the terms of a threeway Hamas-Israel-PA/PLO deal now, and building an international consensus around it, the United States could create a pathway toward resolution,” the article argued. That would potentially not only restart Obama’s attempt to impose a plan on Israel, but would do so not only on behalf of the PLO but also of Hamas.

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echnology

Microsoft Reinvents the Mouse for People with Disabilities New Wireless Button Design Will Let Anyone Make Microsoft’s Hardware Their Own

By Mark Wilson The mouse looks tiny. It’s a small square, reminiscent of one of those novelty mice sold to people who refuse to use the trackpad on their computer. It has two buttons and a scroll wheel, and when Microsoft claims that this new mouse has been designed alongside people with disabilities, I’m skeptical.

And then Gabi Michel, director of accessible accessories at Microsoft, demonstrates how this tiny mouse has been designed to slide perfectly into its “tail”—a large ergonomic grip that your hand can grasp almost like a ball, switching from left- to right-handed configurations with a simple squeeze.

Then she pops it out and slides it into a different tail (this one with large finger indentations for people

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with tremors) and then another (with a longer and even more pronounced set of finger indentations).

“No two people are going to be the same,” Michel says. “Everyone needs a different solution.”

The mouse is part of Microsoft’s new Adaptive Accessories line, a kit of tools meant to provide an easier mouse and keyboard experience for people with disabilities—on a PC or phone. The entire kit consists of three main components: the mouse, a button that has programmable pressure sensors underneath, and a hub to connect them all. The hub can connect the mouse, a keyboard, plus any other assistive devices one might have, whether they’re made by Microsoft or not (wirelessly via Bluetooth or through the hub’s many ports). Everything will be available later this year for an as-yet-undisclosed price.

While small, the accessories signal that Microsoft plans to enable accessibility not by building any one perfect design, but by designing platforms for easy user customization.

A BRIEF HISTORY OF MICROSOFT’S INCLUSIVE DESIGN STRATEGY Credit: Microsoft/TNS

The mouse is part of Microsoft’s new Adaptive Accessories line, a kit of tools meant to provide an easier mouse and keyboard experience for people with disabilities—on a PC or phone.

As important as the Xbox and Surface are to Microsoft, they pale in comparison to the gargantuan industry of PCs—340 million new PCs shipped in 2021 alone. And 1.3 billion smartphones shipped over that time, for which these products also work.

So it is safe to look at the new Adaptive Accessories line as a codification of Microsoft’s strategy.

“We don’t want people to adapt to the device; we want the device to adapt to the person,” Michel says.

Nowhere is that idea more evident than in the new Microsoft Adaptive Button. Like the mouse, it’s a The project is landmark in that it’s the first assistive small square, and it features eight pressure sensors hardware that Microsoft has designed for the core on top. With the twist of a hand, you can swap difPC user, but it’s hardly Microsoft’s first foray into ferent button designs. That means you can put one building assistive devices. You can trace the linebig button on top of the mouse, or you can put a age of this hardware all the way back to Microsoft’s joystick on top of it. The default mode is an eightinvestment in inclusive design in 2016, when Kat direction pad that looks straight off an Xbox Elite Holmes and the late August de los Reyes helped piocontroller. neer a new approach to design, in which designers created products alongside prospective users.

That recognizability is by design, so that when most people look at the button, they’ll understand what Then in 2019, the company released the Xbox Adapit’s capable of. Pressing it gives someone the abiltive Controller, a supersized game pad for people ity to move a cursor with precision in any direction. who lack fine motor control. (Microsoft later teamed And yet, each of those directional buttons is also with Logitech on a series of chunky buttons to add programmable, so users can customize them to do to this controller.) Last year, Microsoft released a anything from a simple keystroke to complex macseries of simple stickers to make its Surface comros. puter easier for anyone, regardless of ability, to use.

Microsoft even constructed a new Inclusive Tech “I have a macro that lets me send an email with one Lab, where people with various disabilities offer press,” Michel says. “It opens excel, I dictate, then feedback and ideas to Microsoft’s designers. The it sends the email.” company notes that 1 billion people around the world are living with a disability, and that almost Despite the button’s capacity to support eight direceveryone will encounter times of disability in their tions, Microsoft suggests some people might want lives. just two buttons. So designers created a button that

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looks something like a big pill of ibuprofen, with a line splitting the middle of the circle, turning one button into two. Why two buttons when you could have eight?

“It is definitely something that has come from the input from the community,” Michel says. “One of the people who was in our beta group is someone who struggles with using a scroll wheel. So what she’s doing is, she takes the dual button, flips it vertically, and uses it as a scroll wheel [using the buttons for up and down].”

Microsoft is listening to feedback from its users and trying to think of every possible need. That comes

Because people with disabilities have even more specific needs, Microsoft is providing CAD files for anyone to design and 3D print their own add-ons for their mouse and button controller.

down to the core ergonomics of its devices. They’re relatively small, and require the ability to press tiny indentations and twist in a specific motion to handle them. That small size was another intentional decision based on community feedback. Namely, everyone travels, and people with disabilities are often lugging around extra equipment to do so.

As for installation, Michel says, “We have a group of beta participants using it who are setting it up on their own,” though she mentions that in some cases users will need assistance from an ally.

I imagine assistance will be especially important for many users when they need to recharge these devices. Because instead of using capacitive contact charging, like we see on Apple’s Magsafe charger for iPhone, the hub, mouse, and buttons must be plugged into a tiny USB-C port for more power.

Knowing that I routinely struggle with these ports as an able-bodied person, I’m cautious of how the wider community will react.

WHAT’S NEW? IT’S CUSTOMIZABLE

BY DESIGN Consumer demand to customize mice and keyboards is hardly limited to people with disabilities. We all customize our work setups. “I guarantee you my

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Credit: Microsoft/TNS

Credit: Microsoft/TNS

mouse and keyboard setup is different from yours,” Michel says. “The mouse [that’s] comfortable to my hand, even a traditional hand, is probably different than yours.”

Because people with disabilities have even more specific needs, Microsoft is providing CAD files for anyone to design and 3D print their own add-ons for their mouse and button controller. That may sound like Microsoft is punting the problem to someone else, but it isn’t. Microsoft is offering many printable options that it has already designed via the 3Dprinting company Shapeways, and everything blue you’ve seen in this story has been 3D printed.

Microsoft insists that 3D printing was not selected for its cost savings. Yet it’s easy to understand the benefit of Microsoft leaving some of its own official accessories to be produced on demand: They might not be purchased in such vast numbers that it makes sense for the company to produce costly injection molds and manage the inventory to sell them. But that’s precisely what one-off prints are good for.

Enabling one-off prints is also a taste of how Microsoft is willing to quell its own IP protection for a greater good. Traditionally, the company has been strict about who can make official Xbox accessories—only offering the option to license its wireless

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Microsoft even constructed a new Inclusive Tech Lab, where people with various disabilities offer feedback and ideas to Microsoft’s designers. controller technology in 2016. But supporting modification rather than stopping it is the natural consequence of Microsoft standing by its inclusive ethos.

It’s also part of a larger trend in which tech companies are (slowly, hesitantly) ceding control to ensure loyal, long-term customers, much as we’ve seen Apple allow consumers to repair more of its products.

“We embraced it, and we embraced knowing it’s not one-size-fits-all,” Michel says. “It has to be onesize-fits-one if you want to truly remove the barrier and empower every person, which is our company mission.”

This article was originally published by Fast Company.

H

ealth

Take a Cue for Better Memory Recall

Give Your Brain Cues If You Struggle to Remember Names, Details, or Words

By Matthew Solan We all have those so-called senior moments. You know a person, but try as you might, can’t recall his or her name. Or, during a conversation, you know what you mean to say but can’t find the right word to express your thought. Or you can’t remember something you recently learned.

This tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon, called “blocking,” is related to diminished memory recall. “Everyone has these issues at some point, but it isn’t cause for concern unless it becomes a frequent occurrence or affects quality of life,” says Lydia Cho, a psychologist and neuropsychologist with Harvard-affiliated McLean Hospital.

BRAIN CHANGES The ability to easily recall information tends to weaken as the brain ages. “The brain changes and declines just like any other body part,” says Cho. The average brain’s weight and volume shrink about 5% per decade after age 40; the shrinkage speeds up after age 70. Over time, the number of neurotransmitters -- the messenger molecules that carry signals between brain cells -- decrease in number and become less effective. “All of this can slow your brain’s processing speed,” says Cho. Drops in levels of hormones, such as androgens (which give men

their manly characteristics) and serotonin, also can affect memory.

Yet another contributor to poor recall is a simple lack of memory practice. “You may depend a lot on your spouse to fill in the blanks, so there is no need to work to recall the information you need,” says Cho. This doesn’t mean you can’t improve your recall abilities. Certain conditions and habits -- like stress, depression, an unhealthy diet, insomnia, lack of exercise, and prolonged isolation -- can contribute to blocking. “All of these are linked with decreased memory, and addressing them first can support overall brain function, increase hormone levels, and improve recall,” says Cho.

GIVING HINTS When situations arise where you struggle to retrieve information, try cueing, a method that gives your brain “hints” about what you want to recall, like a director whispering lines to an actor on stage. Here are three cueing strategies you can try.

Create associations. When you learn something new, immediately relate it to something you already know. A strong association can increase the brain’s ability to recall it later. For example, when meeting someone, try connecting the name to something personal, like the individual’s appearance, job, background, hobby, or spouse.

You also can remember names by making associations with initials.

For instance, if you meet someone named Larry Anderson, you might link the initials L.A. to the abbreviation for Los Angeles, with

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Credit: (Pexels/ Pavel )Danilyuk

which you are already familiar. Or come up with a catchy rhyme for the name.

Association also works for more complex information, like a sequence of numbers. Instead of trying to remember the number 221035, break it into sections and link each to a memory cue.

For instance, 22 could remind you of the book Catch-22, and 10 might be your house number, while 35 was your age when your oldest child was born.

Look, snap, connect. This technique is about paying attention in the moment of learning something new and then using visualization to solidify the memory. “Look” refers to focusing on what you want to remember. “Snap” means taking a mental snapshot related to the information. “Connect” involves linking the image and the information.

For instance, suppose you need to remember you parked in section 3B of a parking garage. First, focus on the main information -- section 3B (the “look”). Next, create a mental image -- say, three bumblebees (the “snap”). Then, link the image to the information by imagining the bees buzzing around your car (the “connect”). When you later think, “where did I park my car?” your brain will likely call up the picture, and you will remember 3B. Retrieving words and memories. When you’re searching for the right word or memory during a conversation, pausing gives your brain extra time to send the necessary signals. “This also can help

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The ability to easily recall information tends to weaken as the brain ages. “The brain changes and declines just like any other body part.” your brain focus only on obtaining that information,” says Cho. Another conversation strategy is to go in the opposite direction: skip over the mental barrier and keep talking. As you continue to speak, you give your brain time to find the information. “Another option is to begin describing the word or information you are searching for, which can help your brain locate the message you want to convey,” says Cho. When you can’t find the right word while speaking, try to use a word with a similar meaning. For instance, if you want to describe something as “superb” but hit a mental roadblock, instead of forcing it, aim for a familiar term that still gets your point across, like “terrific,” “amazing,” or “wonderful.”

This article was originally published by Harvard Health.

o

pinion

Islam and the Question of Free Speech

By Saif Al-Abri

It seems the mockery of Islam is done for the sake of pleasure or provocation and not for an actual moral cause .

Free speech is often seen as the pillar of enlightenment, modernity and necessary for a healthy, democratic society; it is seen as what keeps power in check. The freedom to express with no constraint no matter the sensitivity of the topic. And in this supposed clash between the west and the east, between ‘rational’ and ‘irrational’, civil and barbarity, free speech is seen on the side of the west.

But like all common narratives that sprout a black and white distinction, it is often based on unfounded generalizations and prejudices.

The articles will inspect Islam and western free speech.

Several cases are used to demonstrate the ‘hatred’ of Muslims to free speech. Firstly, Theo Van Gogh, who deliberately offended several religions in a highly erotic and sadistic fashion, was killed by a Muslim. Another is the cartoons illustrated by Kåre Bluitgen depicting the prophet Muhammed. Also, Charlie Hebdo and its provocative cartoons of the prophets and several other religious symbols. They also recite Jytte Klausen›s study ‘“a number of victims associated with demonstrations against the Danish cartoons,” which stated there were 800 injured and 250-240 dead due to violence caused by the cartoons.

Let’s start with the numbers. An analysis conducted by Anne Norton, liberal thinker and a professor of political science at the University of Pennsylvania, states that Jytte Klausen›s studies “count +48–241 deaths over a four-month period, of which 7–205 come from a single five-day period in Nigeria” and counts 800 injured “of which +485 come from Nigeria”. Relative to death occurrence in Nigeria, this isn’t an odd number. Anne Norton states that such a cluster of death has occurred several times in the past. The second-largest amount of fatalities is in Libya, in which the link to the cartoon is weak; Anne Norton argues firstly that most killings occurred

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between Libyan Muslims and Libyan Muslims, and secondly, that the riots against the Italian embassy were against a previous repressive colonizer who’s wearing of an offensive shirt provoked it. Anne Norton›s analysis concludes that most violence mainly occurred in areas where violence is common, not due to some west vs east false narrative. Furthermore, this pail against deaths in anti-imperial sentiment protests.

The other point is that the publication of such offensive provocative cartoons and films is seen as a way to affirm free speech, the pillars of enlightening; they claim they are doing it for a higher cause. As such, it is colored with slogans of courageousness. But let me ask you something wouldn’t attacking the common consensus be a better strategy. Doesn’t it seem that making fun of Athan, headscarves, of “a minority group with little political, subject to discrimination and continuing slights” is missing the point? Is it speech they were defending when Christian Vanneste was heavily fined for stating that ‘homosexual behavior endangers the survival of humanity?’

Where any mention or historical criticism of the Holocaust is severely criticized, any distinction between antisemitism and Zionism is silenced.

It seems the mockery of Islam is done for the sake of pleasure or provocation and not for an actual moral cause; if it›s free speech they are after, then making a mockery of what everyone agrees on is the most effective method.

The justification for mockery of religions, especially in modern times, disguised as protection of freedom of speech, is, as the NYTimes labelled it, “juvenile”. The inconsistency of western moral claims is very natural. There are only two options for the West: either to uphold freedom of speech on everything, no matter how vulgar, racist, or anti-Semitic it is, or censor things that incite hatred and violence.