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Putin brings China into Middle East strategy - Al-Monitor: the Pulse of the Middle East - 0 views

www.al-monitor.com/...-consequences-middle-east.html putin china middle east syria strategy politics
shared by fcastro2 on 04 Feb 15 - No Cached
    • fcastro2
      fcastro2 on 04 Feb 15
       
      Russia & China's negotiations involving Syria
  • one of China’s main strategic regional projects was the economic region (or belt) of the 21st century Great Silk Road and the Maritime Silk Road, which intends to create a wide area of Chinese economic presence from China’s western borders to Europe
  • clearly comprises the countries of Western Asia (i.e., the Middle East)
  • ...22 more annotations...
  • Chinese leader opened the Sixth Ministerial Meeting of the China-Arab Cooperation Forum on June 5 in Beijing
  • energy cooperation; infrastructure construction and creation of favorable conditions for trade and investment; and high-tech domains of nuclear energy, the space rocket sector and new energy sources
    • fcastro2
      fcastro2 on 04 Feb 15
       
      China & Arabian cooperation
  • suggested that the creation of a free trade zone between China and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) be accelerated
  • China supports the peace process and the establishment of an independent Palestinian state within the borders of June 4, 1967, with East Jerusalem as its capital, "enjoying full sovereignty."
  • , why shouldn’t Russia and China in the current situation — given the proximity of their interests and positions — undertake joint initiatives to unblock the peace process, while initiating steps to "introduce this activity within an institutional framework?
  • , the unilateral efforts by US Secretary of State John Kerry to promote the Israeli-Palestinian peace process are not bearing fruit
  • Russia is interested in using this unprecedented convergence with China in its operations on the Middle East arena, where Moscow has in many ways already been acting in unison with Beijing
  • , the Middle East Quartet is one of few international platforms where Russia can constructively engage with the United States and the EU
  • China's growing economic cooperation with Arab countries not a cause for concern in Moscow, but it is also viewed in a very favorable light
  • will not one day replace the United States as the security guarantor for the transportation routes of these resources
  • Moscow’s and Beijing’s interests converge in the joint countering of terrorism, extremism and separatism
  • . Among the militants from radical groups fighting against government troops in Syria, there are people hailing not only from Russia and Central Asia (fewer in numbers to those coming from Arab and Islamic as well as Western countries), but also from the Uighur minority in China.
  • recently, Beijing came under harsh criticism from Ankara for its actions in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region against the Uighur population, which the Turks believe to be their next of kin
  • . Disappointed by the failure of EU accession, the Turkish leadership has even started talking about the desire to join the SCO as an observer
  • Ankara expresses its willingness to cooperate with China in the fight against terrorists and condemns the separatism coming from some groups in Xinjiang
  • There is no doubt that a comprehensive strategic partnership, in which Russia and China would act in concert along the political consensus reached by their two leaders, would in the short term
  • According to both, this convergence is neither a union nor a tournament of predators, but a very pragmatic integrationist instrument of protection and projection of interests by the two powers, including in the Middle East.
  • the Middle East was not the focus of the talks between the two leaders
  • roughly 50 agreements ushering in a period of unprecedented convergence between the two countries
  • seems to allow the two parties to seek further coordination in their actions
  • Such consensus includes Syria, despite Beijing’s lesser involvement on this issue, relative to Moscow; Iran, within the P5+1 (the five permanent UN Security Council members plus Germany) negotiations with Tehran over its nuclear program; the fight against terrorism and extremism; the creation of a weapons of mass destruction-free Middle East; the condemnation of external intervention and the strategy of "regime change" as well as the push for "color revolutions;" the policy to reach a settlement in the Middle East; and relations with the new Egyptian regime and with respect to the Sudanese issues.
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Davutoglu: Failure to support democracy led to ISIL Anadolu Agency - 0 views

www.aa.com.tr/...-support-democracy-led-to-isil Davutoglu Turkey democracy middle east ISIL
shared by allieggg on 10 Oct 14 - No Cached
micklethwait liked it
  • The rise of the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant is caused by the world's failure to support democracy in the Middle East,
  • " ISIL now exists because we did not properly support the democratic transition processes in 2012, not becauseISIL is so strong or the Syrian and Iraqi people are aligned to ISIL-like radical acts."
  • "We welcomed the Arab Spring when it first began to flourish as we thought the EU and the U.S. would support and finance the Middle East just as they did for the wind of democracy in the Balkans,"
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • Davutoglu said countries like Poland and Romania now enjoy democracy due to finance from the EU but, he added, "no state came up to finance democracy in the Middle East."
  • Syria faces a terrorist threat instead of  democracy is because the world abandonedSyria.
  • "Islamic communities that have a deep-rooted culture of politics have the capacity, like any other nation and religion, to both keep democracy alive and improve it,” he added. “Neither Islam nor the world of Islam can be correlated with entities like ISIL."
  • allieggg on 10 Oct 14
     
    Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu spoke at the World Economic Forum about the world's lack of assistance in the transition to democracy in the Middle East and how that ultimately facilitated the birth of ISIL. He explains how a number of EU states were able to maneuver into the democratic realm with the assistance and guidance of the EU, illuminating the idea that the Middle East should be no different. Davutoglu condemns the west for abandoning Middle Eastern states in their dire time of need. While countries around the world supported the Arab Spring, they did nothing to support or finance it to success. He says it would be wrong to correlate the birth of ISIL with Islam, explaining how Islamic communities are perfectly capable of embracing democratic systems. However, assistance in its implementation is vital.
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The U.S. Is Giving Up on Middle East Democracy-and That's a Mistake - The Atlantic - 0 views

www.theatlantic.com/...282890 middle east democracy institutions Bush Obama Congress
shared by allieggg on 29 Sep 14 - No Cached
  • democracy assistance to the region, which will drop from $459.2 million to $298.3 million
  • Today’s Middle East is a product, at least in part, of failed democratization, and one of the reasons it failed was the timid, half-hearted support of the Obama administration.
  • the significant impact Western leverage and “linkage” can have on democratic transitions.
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  • “it was an externally driven shift in the cost of suppression, not changes in domestic conditions, that contributed most centrally to the demise of authoritarianism in the 1980s and 1990s.” They find that “states’ vulnerability to Western democratization pressure… was often decisive.”
  • it is also worth noting that President Bush acknowledged the existence of a “tyranny-terror” link—the notion that the root causes of extremism and terrorism can be found in the region’s enduring lack of democracy.
  • the administration’s approach to the region is characterized almost entirely by ad-hoc crisis management and traditional counterterrorism approaches. Its one larger-scale reform initiative—a half-hearted proposal for a
  • We argue that the U.S. and its partners now need to consider a very different approach to Middle East democracy assistance.
  • Conventional democracy promotion activities tend to focus on the process and “retail” aspects of democratic politics—things like elections, political party training, get-out-the-vote (GOTV) campaigns, and civil society enhancement. While these are undoubtedly important, they are insufficient to deliver lasting reforms. Authoritarianism in the Arab world has proven time and time again—even in supposedly post-revolutionary settings such as Egypt today—that it can weather the annoyances of elections and civil society.
  • What is needed are more systematic reforms focused on fundamental institutions. These include things like constraining the military’s role in civilian domains of governance, deep reform in the security and justice sectors including law enforcement and policing, and comprehensive “renovation” of the civil service sector. These are large-scale, long-term, and expensive undertakings that far transcend the modest parameters of most U.S. democracy promotion programs.
  • we make the case for a new Multilateral Endowment for Reform (MER) that would tie significant levels of financial assistance—in the billions of dollars—to reform commitments and benchmarked implementation performance by partner nations.
  • provide a real incentive for countries to embark down a path to deeper and more enduring political reforms while retaining the ability to pull back funding if they do not deliver.
  • allieggg on 29 Sep 14
     
    This article begins by illuminating the regional democracy assistance cuts that are dropping from $459.2 million to $298.3 million It explains that the Bush Administration began the quest for democracy in the Middle East, and the Obama administration has only continued in his footsteps. The author presents the viewpoint that the U.S. approach to Arab democratization has been in the form of "ad-hoc crisis management" rather than "large scale reform initiatives." Promoting democracy in the form of democratic politics are insufficient, elections and political parties have consistently proved to weather away and fester further civil strife. Consequently, the article proposes a new approach to the region conflict. This approach calls for "systematic reforms" focusing on basic institutions such as the civil service sector, justice and law enforcement, and the military's role in governance. The idea is that addressing these lacking departments in the arab world will eventually pave the way to a smoother democratic transition. 
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Wasta, Work and Corruption in Transnational Business | CONNECTED in CAIRO - 0 views

connectedincairo.com/...tion-in-transnational-business middle east watsa corruption Business Egypt Family
shared by allieggg on 05 Oct 14 - No Cached
micklethwait liked it
  • Girgis worked for a company that insisted as part of their global corporate culture that there be no “corruption.” Six years after opening its office in Egypt, they continued to be plagued by behaviors they understood to be “corrupt.”
  • I explained that wasta referred to a network of informal loans and favors traded by Arab men in order to move up in the world.
  • Encouraged by my open, neutral tone, Girgis opened up further. “My father mortgaged family lands to pay for my college,” Girgis said. “I owe him everything. If he asks me to find a job for his brother’s son, how can I say no?”
  • ...6 more annotations...
  • families are economic units.
  • “You can send me anywhere else in the world and I’ll run the office by the book,” Girgis told his supervisor. “But I can’t do that here.”
  • any Egyptian man they hired to run the office would be equally suspended in webs of wasta obligations
  • “investment and return” frame I created for understanding, emphasizing the economic parallels between Arab families and running a business
  • , I’ve known several Egyptian businessmen who thought wasta was an improvement on Western models of hiring.
  • Net result: greater loyalty, less likelihood of theft, less likelihood of negotiating for new jobs behind your back and leaving you in the lurch, etc, he claimed.
  • allieggg on 05 Oct 14
     
    This article is from the point of view of an anthropologist who was brought in as a cultural consultant to mediate an issue of "watsa" for a corporation in the Middle East. The company prides itself on its lack of internal corruption, and in turn hired a man named Girgis who grew up in the Middle East but lived and received an education in the US. In Girgis's first year he hired one of his cousins, which the supervisors saw as corrupt hiring practice. The author, and hired consultant, explained to the company supervisors that watsa was an "investment and return" framework in Arab culture, and that there are economic parallels between Arab families and businesses, families existing as economic units. Girgis conveyed that anywhere else in the world he would run the office by the book, but in the Arab world he must also adhere to social norms. The result of watsa through Arab eyes leads to greater loyalty, and less likelihood for deception and theft. The article basically introduces the idea that while in the Western world this may be seen as corruption, it is an embedded part of culture in the Middle East. 
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The risk of pushing border changes in the Middle East - MURAT YETKİN - 0 views

www.hurriyetdailynews.com/hanges-in-the-middle-east.aspx border changes the middle east war ISIS syria
shared by mcooka on 28 Mar 16 - No Cached
  • They were drawn mostly as “lines in the sand” through two world wars. Starting from the collapse of the
  • Ten years later, the Syrian civil war has resulted in the potential for two separate and hostile border changes.
  • If Syria and Iraq end up officially failing, disintegrating and imploding, there will be four countries with a new political, economic and military potential to expand: Iran, Saudi Arabia (at odds with Iran), Israel and Turkey
  • mcooka on 28 Mar 16
     
    This article explores the border changes in the middle east. Specifically, Syria border changes which are still being effected from the two World Wars. There could be a large implosion in the Middle East from the ineffectiveness of the borders.
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BBC News - Egypt 'has key role' in fight against Islamic State - Kerry - 0 views

www.bbc.com/...world-middle-east-29186686 egypt IS kerry sinai
shared by kevinobkirchner on 28 Sep 14 - No Cached
  • kevinobkirchner on 28 Sep 14
     
    US Secretary of State John Kerry is on a tour of the Middle East rallying support for the fight against the IS. Egypt is part of a 10 state Middle Eastern coalition dedicated to eradicating the IS. Kerry said Egypt has a, "Key role," in defeating the IS due to their success in dealing with Sinai jihadists, he also acknowledged that Egypt is the cultural and intellectual capitol of the Middle East implying that they can resist IS's influence.
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68% of human trafficking victims in Middle East, Africa: UNODC | Cairo Post - 0 views

thecairopost.youm7.com/...ms-in-middle-east-africa-unodc human-trafficking criminal networks Middle East victims forced labor
shared by ccfuentez on 17 Feb 16 - No Cached
  • The Middle East and Africa region hosted the highest percentage of victims of human trafficking with 68 percent
  • Human trafficking is the act of trading humans, within one country or trans-nationally, by means of kidnapping, use of force, deception or other forms of coercion for different purposes including; sexual slavery, forced labor, extraction of human organs and forced marriage.
  • ccfuentez on 17 Feb 16
     
    The amount of human trafficking victims in the Middle East is 68%. Of the amount of people who are victims, one in four of them is a child. A reason for people falling victim to human trafficking is extreme poverty, entrenched inequality, and a lack of education and opportunity.
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http://english.alarabiya.net/en/views/news/middle-east/2014/04/20/Arab-women-in-media-w... - 0 views

english.alarabiya.net/...a-why-alternatives-matter.html #youtube #media #middleeast #womeninmedia
shared by hwilson3 on 29 Mar 16 - No Cached
  • hwilson3 on 29 Mar 16
     
    This article looks at negative stereotypes and consequences of improper representation of women in media in the Middle East. It also focuses on alternative media such as Youtube, and how sometimes platforms like this can be a more beneficial platform for women in media.
  • hwilson3 on 29 Mar 16
     
    This article looks at negative stereotypes and consequences of improper representation of women in media in the Middle East. It also focuses on alternative media such as Youtube, and how sometimes platforms like this can be a more beneficial platform for women in media.
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Middle East Christians - more visible than ever before - Mission Network News - 0 views

www.mnnonline.org/...-more-visible-than-ever-before Middle East Christians
shared by natphan on 28 Jan 16 - No Cached
  • natphan on 28 Jan 16
     
    Article says Christians created a network that will help them reach out to Middle Eastern Christians. Often, Middle East Christians are unwelcome and sometimes persecuted.
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The New Arab Cold War - 0 views

www.foreignpolicy.com/...r_saudi_arabia_uae_libya_syria leadership proxy wars polarization US Saudi Qatar Turkey UAE politics war
shared by allieggg on 19 Nov 14 - No Cached
  • It stretches from Iraq to Lebanon and reaches into North Africa, taking lives in the Sinai Peninsula, Egypt's Western Desert, and now Libya
  • this violence is the result of a nasty fight between regional powers over who will lead the Middle East
  • The recent Egyptian and Emirati airstrikes on Libyan Islamist militias is just one manifestation of this fight for leadership among Turkey, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). All these countries have waded into conflicts in Iraq, Syria, Egypt, Bahrain, and now Libya in order to establish themselves as regional leaders.
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  • Turkish government has become a leading advocate of regime change in Syria. Unwilling to intervene in the Syrian civil war and unable to coax the United States to do so, Ankara turned a blind eye to extremist groups that used Turkish territory to take up the fight against Assad.
  • Barack Obama's attempt to disentangle the United States from the Middle East's many conflicts has only intensified these rivalries. From a particular perspective, Iraq's chaos, Syria's civil war, Libya's accelerating disintegration, and Hosni Mubarak's fall all represent failures of American leadership.
  • Yet these regional contenders for power have rarely achieved their goals. Instead, they have fueled violence, political conflict, and polarization, deepening the endemic problems in the countries they have sought to influence. 
  • Yet the war of words between Ankara and Cairo since then and the support that the Turkish government has extended to the Muslim Brotherhood
  • has only contributed to the political polarization and instability in Egypt
  • Qatar has been less circumspect than others in its support for groups fighting in Syria and Iraq, both offering official funding to Islamist groups in Syria and allowing private contributions to groups including al-Nusra Front, al Qaeda's Syrian affiliate.
  • These conflicts have less to do with Iran and the Sunni-Shiite divide than widely believed. Rather, they represent a fracturing of Washington's Sunni allies in the Middle East. Left to their own devices, the proxy wars the Saudis, Emiratis, Qataris, and Turks are waging among themselves will continue to cause mayhem
  • allieggg on 19 Nov 14
     
    This article basically states that since the US's withdrawal from Middle Eastern affairs, regional actors were left to fight over who will lead the region's future. The fight is baiscally a run off between Turkey, Qatar, Saudi, and the UAE, each country doing their part intervening in conflicts aiding their supported side. Rather than achieving goals, these proxy wars have fueled the violence, chaos, and polarization deepening the problems they originally sought to mend. While the US has succeeded in abstaining from Mid East affairs, the question now is whether or not they should continue this resignation or step in to urge for order and peace. 

Shaima Sabbagh killing sparks protest - 0 views

started by sgriffi2 on 09 Apr 15 no follow-up yet
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UK forces plan three new bases in Middle East to fight Isis - Telegraph - 1 views

www.telegraph.co.uk/...Middle-East-to-fight-Isis.html bases middle east forces ISIS Iraq
shared by allieggg on 10 Sep 14 - No Cached
  • Briana S on 10 Sep 14
     
    Plans to set up new military bases in the Middle East are being considered as part of a strategy to tackle extremism, it emerged last night. The United Arab Emirates (UAE), Oman and Bahrain are all being looked at as part of the Government's attempts to contain the terror threat from the wider region, according to The Times. The United Kingdom is severely interested in stopping ISIS.
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Ankara explosion: At least 18 killed and 45 injured after 'car bomb' hits centre of Tur... - 0 views

www.independent.co.uk/...-turkish-capital-a6879556.html Turkey Antara bombing PKK
shared by atownen on 17 Feb 16 - No Cached
  • atownen on 17 Feb 16
     
    According the Independent, a middle east news center, reported today an explosion in Ankara with at least 18 killed and 45 injured; a car bomb hit Turkey's capital. Turkish officials assume that the Kurdish Worker's Party is responsible; possibly due to an unsuccessful peace negotiations between Turkey and the PKK.
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The kingdom is king | The Economist - 0 views

www.economist.com/...-higher-education-kingdom-king arab egypt college education
shared by mcooka on 31 Mar 16 - No Cached
  • But Saudi Arabia is gaining an unlikely reputation for learning in the Middle East. Earlier this year it gained three of the top four spots in an annual ranking of Arab universities by Times Higher Education (THE), a British weekly magazine. Topping the chart was King Abdulaziz University in the western city of Jeddah, which was founded only in 1967.
  • The kingdom rarely pulls things off as well as, let alone better than, its more savvy fellow Gulf states.
  • ut by world standards, Arab universities do not offer students a very good deal. King Abdulaziz only just made it into the global top 300. Teaching in the Arab world tends to emphasise rote learning rather than developing analytical skills.
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • who are assigned to subjects according not to their own choice, but to their school grades. Medicine, engineering and political science require high results. Low-scorers are concentrated in arts, business and education courses.
  • The very wealthy send their sons and daughters abroad. Many never come back, contributing to a brain drain in the Arab world.
  • mcooka on 31 Mar 16
     
    In Egypt there is a university which has been promoted as the ebst school in the Middle East. Except, it is very limited. It does not offer a reason to develop analytical skills, so often their students do poorly in the job world. in Egypt students are assigned a major and classes based off of their grades, they do not get to pursue what they want. 
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BBC News - Battle for Iraq and Syria in maps - 0 views

www.bbc.com/...world-middle-east-27838034 Isis Syria Iraq air strikes
shared by nicolet1189 on 29 Sep 14 - No Cached
  • The US with Bahrain, Jordan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates launched 14 strikes against IS in Syria, hitting a number of targets, including Raqqa, a stronghold in eastern Syria captured by the group in 2013.
  • al-Qaeda veterans named
  • These refineries are believed to be producing "between 300-500 barrels of refined petrolium per day", generating as much as $2 million (£1.2m) per day for the militants, a key source of revenue for IS.
  • ...17 more annotations...
  • Khorasan
  • a caliphate, or Islamic state, stretching from Aleppo in Syria to the province of Diyala in Iraq.
  • more than 200 attacks on IS targets in Iraq since 8 August. F
  • concentrated on targets around the Mosul Dam -
  • killed 14 of the group's fighters and five civilians
  • Mosul
  • Ramadi
  • 12,000 fighters from almost 80 countries
  • Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi
  • beneath him are four advisory councils:
  • 31,000 fighters in Iraq and Syria -
  • Falluja
  • foreign recruits - the number of whom has surged since IS declared itself a caliphate in the summer, international investigators say.
  • majority are from nearby Arab countries, such as Tunisia, Saudi Arabia and Jordan.
  • 16 "wilayats", or provinces, that IS claims to control,
  • match areas where its predecessor, al-Qaeda in Iraq
  • three million people have fled abroad to escape the fighting in Syria.
  • nicolet1189 on 29 Sep 14
     
    This article provides a detailed outline of the battle against ISIS in Iraq and Syria through the use of maps, charts, and photographs to allow readers to visualize areas where fighting is taking place. Several maps provide locations of ISIS controlled territory, locations of airstrikes, and locations of ISIS controlled oil refineries. It was really helpful to see different maps outlining this information because I often hear about this conflict on the radio or television programs and it can be hard to understand the scope of the conflict without any visual aids. I really appreciated the effort to show in detail the specific locations.
  • nicolet1189 on 13 Oct 14
     
    This article outlined the fight against ISIS in Syria and Iraq providing detailed maps, charts, and photos to present a more clear picture of where violence and air strikes are occurring.
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