US President Joe Biden intends to nominate Iraqi-born career diplomat Herro Mustafa Garg as the next ambassador to Egypt.
Ms Mustafa Garg is a Middle East expert whose previous briefs covered Iraq, Lebanon and Afghanistan.
If confirmed, she will succeed Jonathan Cohen as head of the large US diplomatic mission in Cairo. Mr Cohen left the Egyptian capital in August 2022 and the embassy has since been run by the charge d’affaires, Daniel Rubinstein.
Born in Iraq's Erbil, Ms Mustafa Garg became the first American ambassador of Kurdish descent when she was appointed to run the embassy in Bulgaria by former president Donald Trump in 2019.
Her family fled the regime of Saddam Hussein and spent two years living in refugee camps in Iran until they were sponsored to come to the US.
Ms Mustafa Garg graduated from Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service and has a master's from Princeton University. She speaks nine languages, including Arabic and Kurdish.
“My family story is an example of the American dream,” Ms Mustafa Garg said in an interview with The America for Bulgaria Foundation.
“I strove to make the most of opportunities available to me, and the United States is a country that rewards hard work. I truly love America, I believe that other countries benefit from the partnership with the United States, and that belief underpins all the work I do as a diplomat.”
If confirmed in the post in Cairo, Ms Mustafa Garg will be serving in a country bound to the US by a large web of economic, military and counterterrorism ties and which is viewed by Washington as a strategic partner.
Egypt has also been among the world’s largest recipients of US aid since it signed a peace treaty with Israel in 1979. It is currently receiving $1.3 billion in military aid. The two nations closely co-ordinate their counterterrorism efforts and regularly hold joint war games.
US military aircraft routinely fly through Egypt’s airspace and its warships are given priority when they sail through the Suez Canal.
However, Ms Mustafa Garg could also inherit some thorny issues when she takes up the post.
Last September, the Biden administration withheld 130 million in foreign military aid citing Egypt's failure to fulfil human rights conditions and then a month later Senators blocked a further $75 million over the same matter.
Egypt too has previously urged greater US involvement in mediating a legally binding agreement with Ethiopia as it builds the Grand Renaissance Dam that Cairo fears could impact its vital supply of water.
Ms Mustafa Garg's prior posts include ambassador to Bulgaria from 2019 to 2023 and top positions at the US embassies in Lisbon and New Delhi.
Before serving in Lisbon and New Delhi, Ms Mustafa Garg worked for the US Vice President’s office on issues related to the Middle East and South and Central Asia.
She was also Mr Biden's senior advisor on the Middle East from 2009 to 2011 while he was vice president to Barack Obama.
“Her other Washington assignments include Deputy Director of the Afghanistan Office, Adviser on the Middle East in the Office of the Under Secretary for Political Affairs, Director for Iran, Israeli-Palestinian Affairs, and Jordan at the National Security Council, as well as National Security Council Director for Iraq and Afghanistan,” the White House announced in its statement on her possible nomination.
Ms Mustafa Garg has also served as lead US Civilian Co-ordinator in Mosul, Iraq, as Consular Officer in Beirut, Lebanon and as Political Officer in Athens, Greece.
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UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
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Real estate tokenisation project
Dubai launched the pilot phase of its real estate tokenisation project last month.
The initiative focuses on converting real estate assets into digital tokens recorded on blockchain technology and helps in streamlining the process of buying, selling and investing, the Dubai Land Department said.
Dubai’s real estate tokenisation market is projected to reach Dh60 billion ($16.33 billion) by 2033, representing 7 per cent of the emirate’s total property transactions, according to the DLD.
Will the pound fall to parity with the dollar?
The idea of pound parity now seems less far-fetched as the risk grows that Britain may split away from the European Union without a deal.
Rupert Harrison, a fund manager at BlackRock, sees the risk of it falling to trade level with the dollar on a no-deal Brexit. The view echoes Morgan Stanley’s recent forecast that the currency can plunge toward $1 (Dh3.67) on such an outcome. That isn’t the majority view yet – a Bloomberg survey this month estimated the pound will slide to $1.10 should the UK exit the bloc without an agreement.
New Prime Minister Boris Johnson has repeatedly said that Britain will leave the EU on the October 31 deadline with or without an agreement, fuelling concern the nation is headed for a disorderly departure and fanning pessimism toward the pound. Sterling has fallen more than 7 per cent in the past three months, the worst performance among major developed-market currencies.
“The pound is at a much lower level now but I still think a no-deal exit would lead to significant volatility and we could be testing parity on a really bad outcome,” said Mr Harrison, who manages more than $10 billion in assets at BlackRock. “We will see this game of chicken continue through August and that’s likely negative for sterling,” he said about the deadlocked Brexit talks.
The pound fell 0.8 per cent to $1.2033 on Friday, its weakest closing level since the 1980s, after a report on the second quarter showed the UK economy shrank for the first time in six years. The data means it is likely the Bank of England will cut interest rates, according to Mizuho Bank.
The BOE said in November that the currency could fall even below $1 in an analysis on possible worst-case Brexit scenarios. Options-based calculations showed around a 6.4 per cent chance of pound-dollar parity in the next one year, markedly higher than 0.2 per cent in early March when prospects of a no-deal outcome were seemingly off the table.
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Gender pay parity on track in the UAE
The UAE has a good record on gender pay parity, according to Mercer's Total Remuneration Study.
"In some of the lower levels of jobs women tend to be paid more than men, primarily because men are employed in blue collar jobs and women tend to be employed in white collar jobs which pay better," said Ted Raffoul, career products leader, Mena at Mercer. "I am yet to see a company in the UAE – particularly when you are looking at a blue chip multinationals or some of the bigger local companies – that actively discriminates when it comes to gender on pay."
Mr Raffoul said most gender issues are actually due to the cultural class, as the population is dominated by Asian and Arab cultures where men are generally expected to work and earn whereas women are meant to start a family.
"For that reason, we see a different gender gap. There are less women in senior roles because women tend to focus less on this but that’s not due to any companies having a policy penalising women for any reasons – it’s a cultural thing," he said.
As a result, Mr Raffoul said many companies in the UAE are coming up with benefit package programmes to help working mothers and the career development of women in general.
