Former National Security Agency contractor turned whistleblower Edward Snowden was quietly vindicated on Tuesday when the US Senate passed a bill to end the government’s bulk collection of phone records. The USA Freedom Act passed with 67-32 votes in the Senate after previously clearing the House of Representatives, and is the most significant overhaul to surveillance policy since 1978. The NSA will stop collecting meta data and calling records from December. Not everyone was happy with halting the surveillance programme. Republican majority leader Mitch McConnell, who fought to extend the Patriot Act (which legalised the majority of NSA activity and…

Even if the Arab spring has sorely disappointed, dictators, even benevolent ones, are not the answer MANY people argue that it would have been better if the Arab spring had never happened. Think of the mayhem that would have been avoided in Egypt and Syria, not to mention Libya, Yemen and Bahrain, where the angry and the aggrieved have created chaos in the name of democracy. How foolish of Western governments, especially in America and Britain, to betray allies like Hosni Mubarak and to pander to the Muslim Brotherhood and assorted narrow-minded Islamists. Thank heavens that Egypt is back in…

At the start of 2016, the U.N. will launch a new set of Sustainable Development Goals, or SDGs, to drive development efforts around the globe. But one question still needs some thought: How will we finance these new goals? Even more questions lie within this broader question on finance. Which countries need more resources? What types of resources are needed most? Where does international finance, both public and private, currently flow? Where does it not? Answers to all of these require reliable and easy-to-understand data on all international financial flows. When governments convene in July in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia to agree…

Nicolas Hénin a beau être plus jeune que moi, c’est un journaliste « à l’ancienne ». Là où d’autres s’épuisent dans une vaine traque du « scoop », lui s’immerge des semaines, voire des mois, sur son terrain, dont il apprend la langue et maîtrise les codes. Il cite soigneusement ses sources, préférablement arabes, au moins arabisantes, avant d’avancer faits et interprétations. Surtout, là où d’anciens otages ont visé le succès de librairie en révélant…

تشهد الساحة السياسية المصرية، الآن، نحو سبعة تحالفات انتخابية، قامت و انهار بعضها في ساعات و أيام ميلاده الأولى، و سنعرض لها تفصيلاً. أبدأ اليوم بالتحالف الأكثر إثارة للجدل، و الأقل حظاً الآن، و هو "تحالف موسى- موافي" سابقاً، موسى المؤتمر حالياً. كالعادة، الدولة، و أجهزتها، و رجال هذه الأجهزة، سرعان ما يتخلون عن عمرو موسى، ذاك النجم "المستفز" لهم، منذ كان وزيراً للخارجية 1991 – 2001، لطموحه، و حضوره، و أمور أخرى، و هو ما يفسر انسحاب رجل المخابرات، مراد موافي، من تحالف موسى، و رجل الأمن أحمد جمال الدين. و على الرغم من الدور الذي لعبه عمرو موسى،…