ካየሁት፣ ከሰማሁት፣ ካነበብኩት

Three months after the first case of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, the world registered (at the time of writing) more than 2.6 million cases, more than 180,000 deaths, and no fewer than 700,000 recoveries. The  World Health Organization  (WHO), leading and coordinating the global effort, supporting countries to prevent, detect, and respond to the pandemic, is heavily criticized in its handling of the pandemic at the beginning of the outbreak. There is no clear end in sight. Multilateralism is needed more than ever to avert the global health crisis. Many express concerns that contemporary multilateralism is too weak to tackle the global pandemic. The geopolitical context within which contemporary multilateralism operates makes global cooperation daunting, and the COVID-19 pandemic makes it more difficult. At first glance, it appears that states themselves are self-isolating and further damaging the remaining fabric of multilateralism. However, the crisis might play a constructive...

The Nile River is a lifeline to close to three hundred million inhabitants from which half of them lives under the poverty line. Underdevelopment hinders the Nile River from playing a leading role in poverty eradication attempts across the Basin. Riparian states seem resolute to deliver on the Sustainable Development Goals by democratizing the Nile River, and it seems inevitable. Colonizing the Nile Ensuring the continuous flow of the Nile River has been the guiding national security objective of successive administrations in Egypt, be it the Ottoman, the British, or successive Egyptian presidents, often at all but ill-advised costs. Whoever ruled Egypt followed a legal, political, or diplomatic endeavours to pursue the national security objective. Waters of the Nile should reach the land of the pharaohs disregarding the needs of millions of people living in the entire river basin. Countries beyond the Lake Nasser, most of them under the British colonial rule, were forced to ...

Blue Nile Fall Dynamics revolving the Nile River is always exciting. Especially with new leaders, new processes, and new plays - phrases like "new beginnings" dominate the Ethio-Egypt relations. It is one thing to be optimistic, but I think we need to take this narrative rather suspiciously. As one newspaper puts it, the change in Egyptian policy towards the Nile River is the result of social, economic, diplomatic and psychological crisis in Egypt. Here, there are two points worth scrutiny; whether Egyptian policy towards the Nile River has changed and whether the overall turmoil in Egypt induces this policy change. To dissect these points and their alleged relation, one has to check their truth value. Accordingly, there is an overall crisis, but it is difficult to prove the change in Egypt's policy on the Nile River, let alone establishing a causal relationship between the utter turmoil in Egypt and the change in Egypt's policy on the Nile. Therefore, an ...

#Itsmydam One can boldly argue that Egypt’s foreign policy orientation towards the Nile has always been proactive. Given the determinants of foreign policy – ranging from the composition of foreign policy decision-making units to the contemporary balance of power configuration at the global or regional level – one can easily find as many variables as one wishes to justify or defend the vigorous foreign policy orientation of the Republic. Accordingly, Egypt has intensified diplomatic warfare against the Great Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), aiming at neutralising many of Ethiopia’s perceived allies and resurrecting the age-old fault lines to direct considerable pressure on Ethiopia. Egyptian foreign policy orientation emanates from the perception that the Nile River stretches beyond their geographic boundary. Considering that 85pc of their population resides across the basin, the Nile River constitutes the cognitive behaviour of Egyptian foreign policymakers. Generally...