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Sunday, March 1, 2026
Saturday, February 28, 2026
Friday, February 27, 2026
[Salon] The growing Saudi-Emirati rift - ArabDigest.org Guest Post
The growing Saudi-Emirati rift
Summary: Riyadh and Abu Dhabi may not yet be at daggers drawn but tensions between the two are increasing as the UAE flexes its muscles in Africa and together with Israel challenges Saudi Arabia’s stake in the Red Sea.
We thank a regional contributor for today’s newsletter.
Amid the crowded field of conflicts across the Middle East, the growing divergence between Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates has drawn comparatively little attention. While it has not turned violent, this strategic drift between two cash-rich Gulf monarchies could carry far-reaching consequences from Yemen to the Horn of Africa to the Red Sea. Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MbS) has increasingly sought to bolster regional governments and prioritise stability, while Abu Dhabi, under UAE President Mohammed bin Zayed (MbZ), has continued to take risks, cultivating local partners to maximise access to resources and influence. At stake is not merely tactical disagreement but rather two competing modes of regional power projection.
The fault line first became visible in Yemen. Both countries entered the war in 2015 with the stated aim of restoring the internationally recognised government and rolling back Huthi gains, which were seen as a dangerous extension of Iranian influence in the Arabian Peninsula. But as the war dragged on, Saudi Arabia, bearing the brunt, shifted toward deescalation and a frozen conflict aimed at securing its border and extracting itself from a costly war. Conversely, the UAE developed relationships with southern separatists, embedding itself in port infrastructure and maritime networks along Yemen’s coast and in the strategically important islands of Socotra in order to project power into eastern Africa.
In late December, this fracture turned into an earthquake. Saudi Arabia reportedly struck a weapons shipment linked to UAE-backed factions amid accusations that the UAE was empowering southern separatists to seize territory, thus threatening Saudi security. The UAE was compelled to withdraw its remaining forces from Yemen.
Saudi Arabia and the UAE are increasingly at odds as they pursue competing strategies for regional power, with Riyadh prioritising economic stability and de-escalation while Abu Dhabi utilises subnational actors to expand its maritime and commercial influence
For MbS, the logic is economic. Several giga project timelines have been delayed or scaled back as with low oil prices his Vision 2030 faces fiscal and implementation constraints. Regional stability is required to attract investment and tourism. The crown prince has sought to deescalate tensions with Iran, enhance relations with Türkiye and focus on economic growth. His decision to push the Emiratis out of Yemen, and since work to neutralise their influence across the region, is recognition that MbZ’s expansionist foreign policy seriously disrupts those efforts.
The UAE has taken a different path. Its foreign policy relies on cultivating networks of subnational actors and establishing and developing commercial footholds. From southern Yemen to Somaliland and Sudan, Abu Dhabi has demonstrated a willingness to gamble in pursuit of access to trade and political leverage. This approach has expanded Emirati influence but it has also generated instability and insecurity.
Nowhere is this seen more than in Sudan, where a conflict in its third year has led to famine and the world's largest displacement crisis. Multiple investigations and UN findings have alleged that the UAE has armed the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in its fight against the Sudanese Armed Forces. UN reporting came out last week that has linked the RSF to mass atrocities, including “hallmarks of genocide” in Darfur. Prolonged chaos in Sudan is bad for business in the eyes of Riyadh, seeing instability along the Red Sea corridor as threatening plans for trade and coastal tourism and port developments. In November, on a trip to the United States, to the chagrin of the Emiratis MbS requested that President Trump intervene in the ongoing war in Sudan.
Another diplomatic row came in late December when Israel became the first UN member state to recognise the independence of Somaliland, a breakaway region from Somalia, in return for joining the Abraham Accords. Earlier this week Israel formally welcomed the appointment of Mohamed Haji as Somaliland’s ambassador causing further unease in Riyadh.This controversy connects to Emirati port investments and their close security relationship with Israel, along with their multilayered relationships with both Somalia’s federal government and its semi-autonomous regions. Convinced that the Emiratis had helped facilitate Israel’s recognition of Somaliland, Mogadishu moved to end its long-standing partnership with the UAE, announcing the cancellation of all port management and security cooperation agreements. As far as Riyadh is concerned, the episode reinforced concerns that Emirati activism could further destabilise already fragile states and create new flashpoints. This concern is intertwined with the potential of an Emirati-Israeli foothold near Bab el-Mandeb, a strategic chokehold between the Arabian Peninsula and the Horn of Africa.
Amid these regional dynamics, Saudi Arabia has partnered closer ties with Türkiye, Egypt and other countries to try to counterbalance the UAE’s assertiveness. Riyadh has deepened defence coordination with Pakistan and Türkiye. President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan each visited Ethiopia this month to persuade the government not to recognise Somaliland. The visits came amid reports alleging Emirati financing of an RSF-linked facility in Ethiopia, the first direct evidence of Addis Ababa’s involvement in Sudan’s ever expanding war.
As a new Middle East takes shape, one now marked by growing Saudi-Emirati competition, Washington has so far avoided direct mediation. President Trump appears more interested on deciding whether to start yet another war with Iran which will only further exacerbate the situation. He appears reluctant to engage in the intra-Gulf dispute, choosing to prioritise economic ties with Riyadh and Abu Dhabi as he seeks to secure investments into the American economy as well as into his own family businesses. Yet Trump’s fence-sitting carries serious risks.
In the past two months the competition between MbS and MbZ - two assertive cash-flush royals each with ambitions to secure regional hegemony - has become increasingly bitter. If left unmanaged, these tensions will only grow and further exacerbate proxy dynamics in Sudan, Yemen, Somalia and other fragile states, with the potential to disrupt and reshape the political landscape of the Red Sea and beyond.
Thursday, February 26, 2026
[Salon] The military tightens its grip on Egypt’s economy - ArabDigest.org Guest Post
The military tightens its grip on Egypt’s economy
Summary: from statistics to bread to electricity and the Cairo Stadium President Sisi continues down the path of strengthening the generals’ hold on the economy whilst sharply escalating fines for avoiding mandatory conscription unless you happen to have US$5000.
We thank Hossam el-Hamalawy for today’s newsletter, an edited version of his 3Arabawy Egypt Security Sector Report. Hossam is a journalist and scholar-activist, currently based in Germany. He was involved in the Egyptian labour movement and was one of the organisers of the 2011 revolution. Follow his writings on Substack and X.
The military grip on statistics
Last week’s appointment of Maj. Gen. Akram al-Gohary, as acting head of the Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics (CAPMAS), once again highlights how one of the state’s most politically sensitive civilian institutions remains firmly under military management.
Founded in 1964, all CAPMAS directors have been army generals. The agency is not a neutral technical body. It produces inflation figures, labour statistics, census data, trade numbers and poverty indicators—the metrics shaping economic policy, IMF negotiations and public narratives. Control over CAPMAS, therefore, means control over how social and economic reality is officially measured. For instance, the agency simply stopped publishing its annual report on poverty rates in 2020 since the numbers contradicted the constructed reality of the regime’s propaganda.
Gohary’s career reflects this logic. A 1991 Military Technical College graduate, before moving into CAPMAS leadership, he served as director of the Armed Forces’ Administration of Information Systems which, since 2021, fell under the umbrella of the upgraded Military Intelligence Authority structure. His predecessor, Maj. Gen. Khairat Barakat was a career infantry officer who previously headed the Armed Forces’ Administration of Officers Affairs and the Administration of Military Records.
Equally telling is President Sisi’s reliance on “acting” appointments. Gohary was named for a one-year renewable term under a presidential decree published in the Official Gazette. Barakat himself was first appointed on 14 February 2018 and remained in place through seven consecutive annual renewals, a mechanism that keeps institutional heads permanently dependent on presidential favour.
Air Force in Charge of Bread Now
Bread subsidy costs surged despite falling global wheat prices after the state handed control of imports to the Air Force-run Future of Egypt Project for Sustainable Development, dismantling a decades-old civilian procurement system based on open tenders, reports Saheeh Masr.
Under a November 2024 presidential directive, wheat purchasing shifted from competitive international auctions to direct contracts and intermediary deals. Within a year, bread subsidies jumped by more than LE26 billion (approx. US$540 million) in the 2025/2026 budget, even as global wheat prices fell by nearly 13.6 percent.
Critics say the military body has been paying around US$30 per ton above world averages. Official figures show it sold wheat to the state for between US$225 and US$275 per ton, while global prices dropped to about US$177 by late 2025. Between March and December 2025, the agency imported roughly 3.5 million tons of wheat.
Meanwhile, the regime has paired coordinated digital propaganda with on-the-ground political theatre to defend the agency from criticism. Networks of inauthentic accounts on X pushed synchronised hashtags praising the agency as Egypt’s “food basket,” a pattern consistent with managed influence operations rather than organic debate.
Simultaneously the military organised tightly choreographed field tours for parliamentarians and regime-linked media figures showcasing curated “success stories.” Addressing his guests Air Force Col. Bahaa el-Ghannam, the Future of Egypt’s director, said that the agency is prepared to float its subsidiaries on the Egyptian Exchange, pursuing initial public offerings (IPOs), once they meet listing requirements.
Established in 2022 under the Egyptian Air Force, the utterly untransparent Future of Egypt Authority for Sustainable Development (Mustaqbal Misr) is the new centerpiece of President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi’s national development strategy and has rapidly evolved from a land reclamation project into a massive conglomerate with a diverse business portfolio
Youth and Sports Ministry Hands Cairo Stadium Project to Army Engineers
In his very first move as Minister of Youth and Sports, the new appointee, Gohar Nabil, is already pressing ahead with Sisi’s favourite playbook: monetising public assets under military supervision.
The ministry has announced a massive “investment project” at Cairo Stadium featuring a commercial mall and parking complex built inside the historic sports facility. The project will be managed by a private company but overseen by the Armed Forces’ Engineering Authority with promised total inflows over 25 years of more than LE25 billion according to the cabinet’s statement.
Powering the Generals: SE and Egypt’s Military Business Empire
Schneider Electric (SE) began operating in Egypt in 1987, later investing roughly €300 million over 35 years and building major assets, including its Badr factory, a distribution centre in 10th of Ramadan City, and engineering hubs. Before the military’s economic expansion after 2013 SE was already embedded in strategic state infrastructure.
In 2016, the company announced it would build four control centres for Egypt’s national energy grid, a core sovereign system. It later participated in digitising electricity distribution infrastructure, including the South Sinai Control Center in Sharm el-Sheikh inaugurated under the Ministry of Electricity.
These grid and control systems fall within sectors that, after 2013, increasingly came under the oversight of military and security institutions.
The first clearly documented institutional partnership with Egypt’s military economic apparatus appears in September 2015, when SE signed cooperation protocols with factories under the Ministry of Military Production. In 2016, cooperation extended to the Arab Organization for Industrialization to localise renewable energy manufacturing.
By the early 2020s, SE’s systems were integrated into mega project infrastructure, including the New Delta wastewater treatment plant administered by the Air Force.
In 2022, the company supplied electrical equipment and automation systems for the El Hammam wastewater treatment plant within the New Delta agricultural expansion—which falls under the control of the Air Force-run Future of Egypt Project—and was officially carried out by the Armed Forces’ Engineering Authority. The same year, Schneider provided technology for desalination facilities in the El Galala development zone, a project also supervised by the Armed Forces’ Engineering Authority.
SE, moreover, embedded itself inside Sisi’s New Administrative Capital. It delivered smart-building systems for major commercial developments such as PARAGON and infrastructure for Knowledge City.
Recently, SE joined a strategic partnership for the IL Monte Galala Towers and Marina, a LE50 billion prime real estate development overseen by the military. The industrial partnership deepened further last week when SE signed a protocol to assemble data-centre units inside factories of the Arab Organization for Industrialization, one of the main pillars of the military-economic complex
Conscription Is Mandatory Except for Those Who Can Pay
Parliament last week approved sweeping amendments to the Military and National Service Law, sharply escalating penalties for draft evasion and skipping reserve duty. Under the new rules, those who evade compulsory service after the age of 30 now face prison and fines ranging from LE20,000 to LE100,000, up from the previous LE3,000 to LE10,000. Reservists who fail to report when summoned risk jail time and fines between LE10,000 and LE20,000, replacing the earlier LE1,000 to LE3,000 range.
Lawmakers presented the measures as a defence of national duty and respect for military sacrifice. Curiously, this renewed love for patriotic obligation follows several government initiatives inviting Egyptians abroad to settle their conscription status with a convenient bank transfer of 5,000 US dollars or euros. Service to the nation remains sacred unless you can wire hard currency fast enough.
Wednesday, February 25, 2026
Fr. Bob's Reflection for the First Sunday in Lent - Guest Post
In 1976, author Doug Alderson wrote a remarkable article for Campus Life Magazine, describing a 2,000-mile hike he made along the Appalachian Trail. Stretching from Georgia to Maine, the trail passes through New York – and even through the grounds here at Graymoor.
Doug set out on his journey just after graduating from high school, carrying more than a backpack. He was burdened with unanswered questions: Was there a God? Did life have a purpose? And what was his place in it all?
In the article, he wrote, “There had to be more to life than money, TV, parties and getting high.” His hike became more than a physical challenge; it was a search for inner peace – a journey to discover who he truly was.
The journey proved far more difficult than he had imagined. The trail often became steep and dangerous. Rain fell day after day. His clothes were constantly soaked, his feet blistered and wet, and at night his body ached and shivered from the cold. Yet, despite the hardship, Doug pressed on.
Those long hours alone on the trail gave him time not only to think, but to grow. With no one around to influence him, he came to know himself more deeply.
Five months later, Doug returned home, a changed person. He joked that even his dog looked at him strangely – as if to say, “Where have you been? You look different.”
He was different. Doug had found what he was searching for. He discovered that God exists, that life has meaning and that he himself had a purpose. Reflecting on his experience, he wrote, “I was my own person. I liked what I saw in myself.”
Doug Alderson stands in a long tradition of people who stepped away from the noise of life to reflect on its meaning. Moses did it. The Old Testament Prophets did it. John the Baptist did it. And in today’s Gospel, Jesus does it as well.
In the wilderness, during 40 days of solitude, Jesus encounters three great temptations. We might think of this moment as a preview of the Gospel – revealing just enough to help us understand who Jesus is and what He came to do.
The temptation story first reveals Jesus’ humanity. He faces the same inner struggle we all face: the battle between good and evil. Yet there is something strikingly different about His response. Jesus never even considers giving in to Satan’s false promises. Not once.
In fact, the devil himself acknowledges that Jesus is no ordinary man when he says, “If you are the Son of God.”
At the same time, this scripture passage reveals Jesus’ mission. It points us back to the first reading, when Adam and Eve are tempted by the devil and give in. From that moment on, humanity became enslaved to sin.
But Jesus comes to undo that damage. Where Adam and Eve failed, Jesus remains faithful. He comes to free us from slavery and to restore what was lost.
As we begin the season of Lent, this Gospel is especially fitting. It reminds us that Jesus has already won the battle. At the end of these 40 days, we will celebrate His victory over sin and death.
And if we unite ourselves with Christ – through prayer, fasting and trust in God – that victory becomes ours as well.
Yours in Christ,
Fr. Robert Warren, S.A.
Spiritual Director
Tuesday, February 24, 2026
Monday, February 23, 2026
Sunday, February 22, 2026
Saturday, February 21, 2026
Friday, February 20, 2026
Thursday, February 19, 2026
Wednesday, February 18, 2026
Fr. Bob's Reflection for the Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time - Guest Post
Many of us are familiar with the legendary track and field athlete, Jesse Owens, who won four gold medals for the United States at the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin. Far fewer people, however, know the name Luz Long.
Luz Long was Germany’s top long jumper at those same Games and one of Adolf Hitler’s favorite athletes. During the Olympic trials, Long broke the long jump record and stood as the clear favorite to win.
When Jesse Owens stepped onto the field to qualify, Hitler abruptly left the stadium – a pointed snub toward an athlete he considered inferior. Owens fouled on his first attempt and fell short on his second. One more failure would mean elimination.
Then, just before his final jump, Owens felt a hand on his shoulder. It was Luz Long.
Long quietly suggested that Owens draw a line in the sand a few inches before the takeoff board, giving him a safer launch point. Owens followed the advice – and it worked. He qualified by more than a foot.
In the days that followed, Owens and Long formed an unlikely friendship, staying up late into the night, talking about life and the troubling state of the world. When the long jump finals arrived, Owens defeated Long for the gold medal. Yet it was Long who lifted Owens’ arm in victory as the two took a lap around the track together, arm in arm – while Hitler glared in disapproval.
Ordinary athletes do not help their rivals. But Luz Long was not ordinary. He found joy in another’s success, even when it cost him personally.
That spirit brings us to today’s Gospel. Matthew’s Gospel was written primarily for Jewish converts to Christianity, many of whom struggled to understand how Jesus’ teachings related to the Law of Moses and the words of the Old Testament prophets. Jesus addresses that concern directly. He makes it clear that He has not come to abolish the Law, but to fulfill it.
Think of it this way: adulthood does not destroy childhood; it completes it.
Jesus then deepens the Law with striking examples. Moses taught that adultery was wrong. Jesus goes further, teaching that even entertaining the thought of adultery can lead us down the same path. If we stop planting the seeds of sin, the sin itself cannot take root.
There is a scene in the famous play, “Peter Pan,” where the children ask Peter how he can fly. He answers, “Just think wonderful, beautiful thoughts.” Those thoughts lift him off the ground and into the sky.
In many ways, the Christian life works the same way. Wonderful, beautiful thoughts lead to wonderful, beautiful actions – and can send us to Heaven.
And that brings us back to Jesse Owens and Luz Long. Long responded to Owens in the way Christ calls us to respond – because He chose to be different. Jesus never asks His followers to be merely ordinary. He calls us to something greater.
Jesus does not invite us to ask, “How far can I go before I sin?” Instead, He invites us to ask, “How much more can I do, because I love?”
The key to living the Gospel is learning to shape our hearts and minds with what is good, true and beautiful. Only then can we live as Jesus lived: loving in ways the world often considers impossible.
And so, the message of today’s Gospel is clear: live your ordinary life in extraordinary ways, just as Christ Himself did.
Yours in Christ,
Fr. Robert Warren, S.A.
Spiritual Director
Why does the Church put ashes on us, anyway? | The Catholic Company®
Why does the Church put ashes on us, anyway? | The Catholic Company®
The Catechism reminds us that penance is ordered toward joy and freedom, not despair (CCC 1439). So ashes are not the end of the story. They are the beginning.
Cross
Jesus Carrys the cross
Feb 18, 2026
By Get Fed
Ash Wednesday is one of the most recognizable days in the Church year. Churches are full. Foreheads are marked. The words are familiar. Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.
But from the Church’s own teaching, Ash Wednesday is far more than a reminder of mortality or the start of giving things up. It is a liturgical doorway into conversion.
In Scripture, ashes are never merely symbolic. They are an outward sign of an interior posture. Throughout the Old Testament, ashes accompany repentance, mourning, and humility before God. Job sits in ashes as he confronts his frailty. The people of Nineveh cover themselves in ashes as they turn back to God. Daniel prays in ashes as he intercedes for his people.
Jesus Himself assumes this meaning when He says, “If the mighty works done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes” (Matthew 11:21).
So when the Church places ashes on our heads, she is not performing a ritual for its own sake. She is teaching the body how to pray repentance before the lips ever speak.
The Catechism explains that conversion is not first about external works, but about the heart turning back to God. Interior repentance is “a radical reorientation of our whole life” (CCC 1431). Ashes are meant to express that reorientation visibly.
What many Catholics do not realize is that Ash Wednesday is deeply connected to baptism.
The Catechism teaches that penance is a continual conversion after baptism, not a replacement for it (CCC 1427). Lent exists because the baptized still need ongoing purification and renewal.
The ashes remind us that we have already died once. In baptism, we were buried with Christ and raised to new life. Ash Wednesday recalls that baptismal death so that we may live more fully the life we received.
This is why the Church’s call on Ash Wednesday is not merely “stop sinning,” but “return to the Lord.” Joel’s words are proclaimed every year: “Rend your hearts, not your garments” (Joel 2:13).
Ash Wednesday is about reclaiming baptismal identity, not earning forgiveness through effort.
The Church allows two formulas when ashes are imposed.
Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return, drawn from Genesis 3:19.
Repent, and believe in the Gospel, drawn from Mark 1:15.
One reminds us of our mortality. The other reminds us of our mission.
Together, they reveal a truth we often overlook. Ash Wednesday is not meant to leave us discouraged. It is meant to place our fragile lives squarely within the hope of the Gospel.
The Catechism teaches that hope anchors the Christian life even in repentance. God’s mercy always precedes our effort (CCC 1428). Ash Wednesday is not God scolding humanity. It is God inviting humanity back.
So why does the Church begin Lent this way?
Ash Wednesday is intentionally stark. There is no music. No Gloria. No Alleluia. The liturgy is stripped down so that nothing distracts from the truth being proclaimed.
But the Church is also deeply realistic. She knows that human hearts need physical reminders. The Catechism says sacramental signs “prepare us to receive grace” and help sanctify the circumstances of life (CCC 1677). Ashes function in this same pedagogical way.
They tell the truth about who we are and who God is.
We are fragile. God is all-powerful. We need saving. Christ has already come to save.
Perhaps the most surprising truth about Ash Wednesday is that it is not pessimistic. It is hopeful. The Church does not place ashes on the unredeemed. She places them on those who belong to Christ.
Ash Wednesday proclaims that death does not have the final word, because it is marked on people who are already destined for resurrection. The ashes will be washed away. Easter will come.
The Catechism reminds us that penance is ordered toward joy and freedom, not despair (CCC 1439). So ashes are not the end of the story. They are the beginning.
Tuesday, February 17, 2026
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