On this day: 28 September

ON THIS DAY- On this day last year we were panicking because the EGP had weakened to EGP 13.00 to USD 1 on the parallel market in anticipation of what was seen as an “imminent” devaluation. A year before we were reading President Abdel Fattah El Sisi’s op-ed in the Wall Street Journal and mourning the death of over 55 Egyptians in last year’s hajj stampede. In 1995, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and leader of the Palestine Liberation Organisation Yasser Arafat signed an agreement giving Palestinians self-rule in the West Bank. Much earlier in history, Confucius was born on this day in 551 BC. Former Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, and father of current Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, died on this day in 2000; so did Louis Pasteur in 1895 and Edwin Hubble in 1953. One of favourite quotes from Trudeau Sr., one of Canada’s greatest-ever prime ministers, seems rather apropos this morning: “There’s no place for the state in the bedrooms of the nation.”