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kkerby223

Saudi Arabia's dress code for women and Michelle Obama - 0 views

www.economist.com/...economist-explains-20

economist saudi arabia dress dress code code 'michelle obama'

shared by kkerby223 on 08 Apr 15 - No Cached
  • kkerby223 on 08 Apr 15
     
    Michelle Obama visited Saudi Arabia in loose fitting clothing but without a burka or head scarf or any traditional conservative clothing options. This sparked a debate as to how strict the laws actually are for dress and if women can still express themselves. There are laws dictating a certain level of conservative clothing requiring burkas be worn by women unless they are at home. However, there are many cuts, styles, and colors in burkas as well the ability to accessorize with any shoes, purse, sunglasses, and jewelry.
cbrock5654

Turkey and the PKK: How to deal with Syria's Kurds - 0 views

www.economist.com/...-unsettles-government-how-deal

PKK ISIS Turkey ISIL

shared by cbrock5654 on 13 Oct 14 - No Cached
  • cbrock5654 on 13 Oct 14
     
    This is a news report by The Economist about the Turkish government's reaction to ISIL's assault on Kobane, a Kurdish town in Syria on the border of Turkey. This town is one of three enclaves that are governed by the Kurds. Turkey ceded the area to PKK control, but PKK leaders claim that by not assisting in the fight, the Turkish government is supporting ISIS, because it has a deep-rooted fear of any Kurdish autonomy.
  • cbrock5654 on 13 Oct 14
     
    A SENIOR commander of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), a rebel group that has been fighting for Kurdish self-rule inside Turkey since 1984, declared on...
micklethwait

Africa's hopeful economies: The sun shines bright | The Economist - 0 views

www.economist.com/21541008

africa economist GDP growth continent

shared by micklethwait on 15 Sep 14 - No Cached
  • micklethwait on 15 Sep 14
     
    From Dec. 3, 2011, as the Tunisian revolution is unfolding. I notice the comparative growth numbers: Libya is exploding at more than 10 percent annual growth (twice the rate of the US), while the band of central African nations see economic growth rates that are no doubt smaller than their population growth rates.
kkerby223

Women's rights in Saudi Arabia: Driving change | The Economist - 0 views

www.economist.com/...womens-rights-saudi-arabia

rights saudi arabia driving change economist

shared by kkerby223 on 08 Feb 15 - No Cached
  • kkerby223 on 08 Feb 15
     
    Women in Saudi Arabia have many laws and guidelines by which they are forced to abide by. This video interviews a woman named Sarah Birke who gives insight into what she has witnesses as a correspondent in the middle east. Burke discusses laws that women are forced to follow as well as the changes that are slowing beginning to take hold, specifically in regards to Saudi women driving.
  • kkerby223 on 08 Feb 15
     
    Women in Saudi Arabia have many laws and guidelines by which they are forced to abide by. This video interviews a woman named Sarah Birke who gives insight into what she has witnesses as a correspondent in the middle east. Burke discusses laws that women are forced to follow as well as the changes that are slowing beginning to take hold, specifically in regards to Saudi women driving.
ajonesn

Women in Egypt: Still struggling | The Economist - 0 views

www.economist.com/...women-egypt

economist egypt

shared by ajonesn on 16 Feb 15 - No Cached
  • ajonesn on 16 Feb 15
     
    Lack of political freedom and poor education is a shocking reality for women in Egypt.
wmulnea

The new economics of oil: Sheikhs v shale | The Economist - 0 views

www.economist.com/...es-will-go-bust-market-will-be

shared by wmulnea on 23 Feb 15 - No Cached
  • The contest between the shalemen and the sheikhs has tipped the world from a shortage of oil to a surplus.
  • Big importing countries such as the euro area, India, Japan and Turkey are enjoying especially big windfalls. Since this money is likely to be spent rather than stashed in a sovereign-wealth fund, global GDP should rise.
  • There will, of course, be losers (see article). Oil-producing countries whose budgets depend on high prices are in particular trouble. The rouble tumbled this week as Russia’s prospects darkened further. Nigeria has been forced to raise interest rates and devalue the naira. Venezuela looks ever closer to defaulting on its debt
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • But Saudi Arabia, in particular, seems mindful of the experience of the 1970s, when a big leap in the price prompted huge investments in new fields, leading to a decade-long glut.
  • wmulnea on 23 Feb 15
     
    This article suggests that increased shale oil production is changing the economy of oil, but at the same time Saudi Arabia is reluctant to slow OPEC production.
wmulnea

Libya's civil war: That it should come to this | The Economist - 3 views

www.economist.com/...factional-chaos-it-should-come

shared by wmulnea on 11 Apr 15 - No Cached
  • It is split between a government in Beida, in the east of the country, which is aligned with the military; and another in Tripoli, in the west, which is dominated by Islamists and militias from western coastal cities
  • Benghazi is again a battlefield.
  • The black plumes of burning oil terminals stretch out over the Mediterranean.
  • ...69 more annotations...
  • Libya looked like the latest fragile blossoming of the Arab spring
  • Army commanders, mostly of Arab Bedouin origin, refused orders to shoot the protesters
  • the revolutionaries cobbled together a National Transitional Council (NTC) claiming to represent all of Libya
  • Volunteers from students to bank managers took up arms, joining popular militias and only sometimes obeying the orders of defecting army commanders trying to take control
  • In August Western bombing of government bases surrounding Tripoli cleared an avenue for the revolutionaries to take the capital.
  • Recognised abroad, popular at home and enjoying the benefits of healthy oil revenues—97% of the government’s income—the NTC was well placed to lay the foundations for a new Libya
  • he judges, academics and lawyers who filled its ranks worried about their own legitimacy and feared confrontation with the militias which, in toppling Qaddafi, had taken his arsenals for their own.
  • militia leaders were already ensconced in the capital’s prime properties
  • The NTC presided over Libya’s first democratic elections in July 2012, and the smooth subsequent handover of power to the General National Congress (GNC) revived popular support for the revolution.
  • Islamist parties won only 19 of 80 seats assigned to parties in the new legislature, and the process left the militias on the outside
  • The Homeland party, founded by Abdel Hakim Belhad
  • tried to advertise its moderation by putting an unveiled woman at the head of its party list in Benghazi
  • The incumbent prime minister, Abdurrahim al-Keib, a university professor who had spent decades in exile, fretted and dithered
  • He bowed to militia demands for their leaders to be appointed to senior ministries, and failed to revive public-works programmes
  • which might have given militiamen jobs
  • Many received handouts without being required to hand in weapons or disband, an incentive which served to swell their ranks
  • the number of revolutionaries registered with the Warriors Affairs Commission set up by the NTC was about 60,000; a year later there were over 200,000. Of some 500 registered militias, almost half came from one city, Misrata.
  • In May 2013 the militias forced parliament to pass a law barring from office anyone who had held a senior position in Qaddafi’s regime after laying siege to government ministries.
  • In the spring of 2014, Khalifa Haftar, a retired general who had earlier returned from two decades of exile in America, forcibly tried to dissolve the GNC and re-establish himself as the armed forces’ commander-in-chief in an operation he called Dignity
  • The elections which followed were a far cry from the happy experience of 2012. In some parts of the country it was too dangerous to go out and vote
  • Such retrenchment has been particularly noticeable among women. In 2011 they created a flurry of new civil associations; now many are back indoors.
  • Turnout in the June 2014 elections was 18%, down from 60% in 2012, and the Islamists fared even worse than before
  • Dismissing the results, an alliance of Islamist, Misratan and Berber militias called Libya Dawn launched a six-week assault on Tripoli. The newly elected parliament decamped to Tobruk, some 1,300km east
  • Grasping for a figleaf of legitimacy, Libya Dawn reconstituted the pre-election GNC and appointed a new government
  • So today Libya is split between two parliaments—both boycotted by their own oppositions and inquorate—two governments, and two central-bank governors.
  • The army—which has two chiefs of staff—is largely split along ethnic lines, with Arab soldiers in Arab tribes rallying around Dignity and the far fewer Misratan and Berber ones around Libya Dawn.
  • Libya Dawn controls the bulk of the territory and probably has more fighters at its disposal.
  • General Haftar’s Dignity, which has based its government in Beida, has air power and, probably, better weaponry
  • the Dignity movement proclaims itself America’s natural ally in the war on terror and the scourge of jihadist Islam
  • Libya Dawn’s commanders present themselves as standard-bearers of the revolution against Qaddafi now continuing the struggle against his former officers
  • Ministers in the east vow to liberate Tripoli from its “occupation” by Islamists, all of whom they denounce as terrorists
  • threatens to take the war to Egypt if Mr Sisi continues to arm the east. Sleeping cells could strike, he warns, drawn from the 2m tribesmen of Libyan origin in Egypt.
  • Yusuf Dawar
  • The struggle over the Gulf of Sirte area, which holds Libya’s main oil terminals and most of its oil reserves, threatens to devastate the country’s primary asset
  • And in the Sahara, where the largest oilfields are, both sides have enlisted ethnic minorities as proxies
  • ibya Dawn has drafted in the brown-skinned Tuareg, southern cousins of the Berbers; Dignity has recruited the black-skinned Toubou. As a result a fresh brawl is brewing in the Saharan oasis of Ubari, which sits at the gates of the al-Sharara oilfield, largest of them all.
  • Oil production has fallen and become much more volatile
  • oil is worth half as much as it was a year ago
  • The Central Bank is now spending at three times the rate that it is taking in oil money
  • The bank is committed to neutrality, but is based in Tripoli
  • Tripoli may have a little more access to cash, but is in bad shape in other ways
  • Fuel supplies and electricity are petering out
  • Crime is rising; carjacking street gangs post their ransom demands on Twitter
  • In Fashloum
  • residents briefly erected barricades to keep out a brigade of Islamists, the Nuwassi
  • “No to Islamists and the al-Qaeda gang” reads the roadside graffiti
  • Libya’s ungoverned spaces are growing,
  • Each month 10,000 migrants set sail for Europe
  • On January 3rd, IS claimed to have extended its reach to Libya’s Sahara too, killing a dozen soldiers at a checkpoint
  • The conflict is as likely to spread as to burn itself out.
  • the Western powers
  • have since been conspicuous by their absence. Chastened by failure in Afghanistan and Iraq, they have watched from the sidelines
  • Obama washed his hands of Libya after Islamists killed his ambassador
  • Italy, the former colonial power, is the last country to have a functioning embassy in Tripoli.
  • Even under Qaddafi the country did not feel so cut off
  • Dignity is supported not just by Mr Sisi but also by the United Arab Emirates, which has sent its own fighter jets into the fray as well as providing arms
  • The UAE’s Gulf rival, Qatar, and Turkey have backed the Islamists and Misratans in the west
  • If oil revenues were to be put into an escrow account, overseas assets frozen and the arms embargo honoured he thinks it might be possible to deprive fighters of the finance that keeps them fighting and force them to the table
  • Until 1963 Libya was governed as three federal provinces—Cyrenaica in the east, Fezzan in the south and Tripolitania in the west
  • The old divisions still matter
  • the marginalised Cyrenaicans harked back to the time when their king split his time between the courts of Tobruk and Beida and when Arabs from the Bedouin tribes of the Green Mountains ran his army
  • Tensions between those tribes and Islamist militias ran high from the start.
  • July 2011 jihadists keen to settle scores with officers who had crushed their revolt in the late 1990s killed the NTC’s commander-in-chief, Abdel Fattah Younis, who came from a powerful Arab tribe in the Green Mountains. In June 2013 the Transitional Council of Barqa (the Arab name for Cyrenaica), a body primarily comprised of Arab tribes, declared the east a separate federal region, and soon after allied tribal militias around the Gulf of Sirte took control of the oilfields.
  • In the west, indigenous Berbers, who make up about a tenth of the population, formed a council of their own and called on larger Berber communities in the Maghreb and Europe for support
  • Port cities started to claim self-government and set up their own border controls.
  • Derna—a small port in the east famed for having sent more jihadists per person to fight in Iraq than anywhere else in the world
  • opposed NATO intervention and insisted that the NTC was a pagan (wadani) not national (watani) council
  • Some in Derna have now declared their allegiance to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the caliph of the so-called Islamic State (IS) in Syria and Iraq.
  • In December the head of America’s Africa command told reporters that IS was training some 200 fighters in the town.
eyadalhasan

Why Saudis are ardent social media fans - 1 views

www.economist.com/...economist-explains-21

Saudis social media smart phone

shared by eyadalhasan on 28 Apr 15 - No Cached
  • mjumaia on 28 Apr 15
     
    ON MARCH 18th, at an Arab media get-together, Twitter announced that it will open an office in Dubai. Saudi Arabia is well-known by their use of the social media. This article has explain in depth why is this.
  • eyadalhasan on 01 Mar 16
     
    Why Saudis are ardent social media fans by S.B. | BEIRUT ON MARCH 18th, at an Arab media get-together, Twitter announced that it will open an office in Dubai. Not before time. Smartphone growth has rocketed in the Gulf-by most counts the region has the highest penetration.
mcooka

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. 
kevinobkirchner

Egypt: Al-Sisi Ascendant | The Economist - 0 views

www.economist.com/...cost-political-freedom-al-sisi

egypt muslim brotherhood al-sisi protests

shared by kevinobkirchner on 22 Sep 14 - No Cached
  • kevinobkirchner on 28 Sep 14
     
    General Al-Sisi, who took over Egypt after a coup against the Muslim Brotherhood is set to address the UN General Assembly on September 25th. His first 100 days in office has seen economic growth and increasing political stability. His government has increased fuel prices to curb the deficit and set out on a project to double the capacity of the Suez canal. With rising turmoil in the Middle East, Egypt has made its return as a moderating force. However the general's reliance on heavy-handed police forces to quell uprising and the continued holding of political prisoners continues to draw ire. To counter this he has released high profile prisoners and may revisit the anti-protest law.
nicolet1189

Twitter, terror and free speech: Should Twitter block Islamic snuff videos? | The Econo... - 0 views

www.economist.com/...twitter-terror-and-free-speech

ISIS free speech Social Media twitter censorship

shared by nicolet1189 on 10 Nov 14 - No Cached
  • YouTube removed one version of the video, citing a violation of their policy on violent content. On Tuesday, Twitter announced a new policy that it would remove images and video of the deceased at the request of family member
  • g #ISISMediaBlackout
  • The logical incoherence of this statement aside, is disseminating offensive material the same thing as promoting it? It is conceivable that the video could incite potential terrorists and others harboring anti-American sentiments to copycat acts of violence. But it is equally true that content of this kind wakes people up t
  • ...9 more annotations...
  • Should platforms like YouTube and Twitter really have the power to censor what content we can or cannot see? At least in America, the suppression of disturbing or offensive content, if it does not incite violence, is a direct violation of our principles of free speech. Especially in this instance, it seems deeply inappropriate to respond to authoritarianism with authoritarian action.
  • Others have argued that the video shouldn’t be shared because that’s what ISIS wants.
  • Does it matter what ISIS wants?
  • Part of ISIS’s aim is presumably to terrorise us remotely, but most people are just getting angry.
  • intentionality does not factor into censorship decisions anyway. 
  • Twitter is not television. No one is being forced to view the footage.
  • It’s completely understandable that family members don’t want footage of a loved one’s death to spread, but it’s not clear that that’s their decision to make.
  • It’s really not Twitter’s decision either—unless we want to grant tech giants the power to control public knowledge and discourse, a dangerous precedent indeed.
  • Its democratic power derives from the fact that it’s unedited; for better or for worse,
  • nicolet1189 on 10 Nov 14
     
    The author of this article strongly opposes Social Media companies, specifically Twitter censoring ISIS related materials on their website. The author argues it violates free speech and the democratic principles associated with the website, arguing censoring a beheading video would be a slippery slope for future content.
wmulnea

OPEC and oil prices: Leaky barrels | The Economist - 1 views

www.economist.com/...dermining-cartel-leaky-barrels

shared by wmulnea on 05 Feb 15 - No Cached
  • OPEC, which produces about a third of the world’s daily consumption of 90m barrels of crude oil
  • cartel
  • anti-glut group
  • ...6 more annotations...
  • the country will produce 14m barrels a day (b/d) next year, on a par with Saudi Arabia
  • Iraqi oil exports, stricken by the war and its aftermath, are also set to increase.
  • Libya could be another source of production: its exports have collapsed to only a few hundred thousand barrels a day, against 1.6m in June last year.
  • OPEC’s best hope is continued American protectionism. Any easing of the restrictions on the export of liquefied natural gas (LNG) or crude will exert more downward pressure on the oil price.
  • But that would cede market share to their hated rivals, Iran and Iraq.
  • America’s domestic production of crude (and gas, which displaces some oil) is rocketing.
  • wmulnea on 05 Feb 15
     
    This article briefly addresses the current global petroleum market, outlining the top national producers and their current import/export strategies. The article is a good overview of the global politcs affecting oil prices.
taylordillingham

Tunisia's new president: Don't be ageist | The Economist - 0 views

www.economist.com/...as-newly-minted-democracy-dont

shared by taylordillingham on 09 Feb 15 - No Cached
  • taylordillingham on 09 Feb 15
     
    There was a lot of controversy over the age of the new president of Tunisia. A lot of people thought that the potential new president could be way too young to be ready to be the president of their nation.
tdford333

Saudi Arabia and Yemen: The test for a new monarch | The Economist - 0 views

www.economist.com/...-will-find-it-hard-end-it-test

yemen crisis

shared by tdford333 on 03 Apr 15 - No Cached
  • The test for a new monarc
  • tdford333 on 03 Apr 15
     
    Despite more Saudi bombings, Houthis fighters remain unwavering. The crisis could lead to an all out religious war between Sunni and Shia Muslims.
wmulnea

Libya's civil war: An oily mess | The Economist - 3 views

www.economist.com/...de-tries-grab-oil-revenue-oily

shared by wmulnea on 09 Apr 15 - No Cached
  • Libya’s oil output is down to some 500,000 barrels a day, from as much as 1.7m at its peak (see chart)
  • The revenue is being fought over by both sides in the conflict, which has split the country between two rival governments—the one in Beida, the other in Tripoli—and their allied militias.
  • wmulnea on 09 Apr 15
     
    Libya is going broke as two competing factions vie for government control. The Beida based government is trying to move Libyan oil money off-shore.
kbrisba

Pollution in Tunisia: Dirty business | The Economist - 0 views

www.economist.com/...sphate-industry-dirty-business

shared by kbrisba on 19 Apr 15 - No Cached
  • kbrisba on 19 Apr 15
     
    Locals claim that the state-managed industry is causing pollution and illness. Najib Chairat, 52, who worked in the refinery from the age of 32 can barely move and speak. His family believes it was caused by years of breathing in the noxious fumes. Strikes and protests over pollution, wages and unsafe working conditions caused Tunisia's phosphate production to halve after the 2011 revolution.
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