motivated by the knowledge they gained from the internet and social networking sites
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Where are the youth of the Egyptian revolution? - 0 views
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youth do not see the dangers of politicising the military and are calling for military intervention to resolve their political differences with the Muslim Brotherhood
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advice of experts in situations where there is a shortage of expertise on a particular subject pertaining to state
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This author gives an analysis of where the Egyptian youth failed and succeeded in their revolution. He applauds their original motivation: overthrowing the oppressive regime and seeking political freedom. However, he criticizes the movement for not having organized goals with practical implications. Their focus was so set on overthrowing Mubarak that they did not have a plan once that was achieved. As a result, the youth allowed the military to become politicized and enforce their political ideas. The author claims this move set a dangerous precedent for the future and took away the attention of the military from places it was needed. The author claims that by endorsing the army to act militarily against the first civilian elected president of the country, the youth is undermining their original goals. He goes on to explain his suggestions for the Egyptian youth to get back on track and follow through in the remaining phases of the revolution.
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As Oil Prices Fall, Who Wins And Who Loses? - 0 views
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This is one likely reason the Saudis have been willing to pump oil at high levels even though that's contributing to low prices. The Saudis publicly cite a business motive, saying they want to maintain their current share of the oil market. But the Saudis are also well aware that low prices mean less money for archrival Iran.
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What Happened to the Humanitarians Who Wanted to Save Libyans With Bombs and Drones? - ... - 0 views
firstlook.org/...nted-save-libyans-bombs-drones
humanitarian libya civil war politics US Intervention NATO revolution
shared by allieggg on 23 Nov 14
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“Libya is a reminder that sometimes it is possible to use military tools to advance humanitarian causes.”
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intervention was a matter of upholding “universal values,” which itself advanced America’s strategic goals. In justifying the war to Americans (more than a week after it started), President Obama decreed: “Some nations may be able to turn a blind eye to atrocities in other countries. The United States of America is different.”
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But “turning a blind eye” to the ongoing – and now far worse – atrocities in Libya is exactly what the U.S., its war allies, and most of the humanitarian war advocates are now doing.
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“this was a rare military intervention for humanitarian reasons, and it has succeeded” and that “on rare occasions military force can advance human rights. Libya has so far been a model of such an intervention.”
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But the most compelling reason to oppose such wars is that – even if it all could work perfectly in an ideal world and as tempting as it is to believe – humanitarianism is not what motivates the U.S. or most other governments to deploy its military in other nations.
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As the country spun into chaos, violence, militia rule and anarchy as a direct result of the NATO intervention, they exhibited no interest whatsoever in doing anything to arrest or reverse that collapse. What happened to their deeply felt humanitarianism? Where did it go?
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What’s most notable here isn’t how everything in Libya has gone so terribly and tragically wrong. That was painfully predictable: anyone paying even casual attention now knows that killing the Bad Dictator of the Moment (usually one the U.S. spent years supporting) achieves nothing good for the people of that country unless it’s backed by years of sustained support for rebuilding its civil institutions.
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If there were any authenticity to the claimed humanitarianism, wouldn’t there be movements to spend large amounts of money not just to bomb Libya but also to stabilize and rebuild it? Wouldn’t there be just as much horror over the plight of Libyans now: when the needed solution is large-scale economic aid and assistance programs rather than drone deployments, blowing up buildings, and playful, sociopathic chuckling over how we came, conquered, and made The Villain die?
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The way most war advocates instantly forgot Libya existed once that fun part was over is the strongest argument imaginable about what really motivates these actions. In the victory parade he threw for himself, Kristof said the question of “humanitarian intervention” will “arise again” and “the next time it does, let’s remember a lesson of Libya.”
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This article basically lays out the faults in US intervention in Libya during the fall of Gaddafi and condemns the US officials for their lack of hindsight in their agenda. The US claimed that they could not "turn a blind eye" to atrocities and human right violations in other countries and to intervene in Libya was a matter of upholding "universal values." After the successful ousting of Gaddafi, the US hypocritically turned their back on the country as a whole, leaving them to pick up the pieces and re-build themselves in the midst of socio-political and economic chaos. The US claims that military intervention is sometimes necessary to address human right violations, but in the case of Libya more violations have occurred as a result of a fallen regime rather than because of its reign. The author basically says that the US should have predicted that short-term intervention strategies achieves nothing without years of sustained support for rebuilding the civil institutions.
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The Isis economy: Meet the new boss - FT.com - 0 views
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Iraq’s second city of Mosul looks like a model of success for its new rulers from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant
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But in the back alleys, litter fills the streets. The lights stay on, but only because locals rigged up generators themselves. And under the blare of café televisions, old men grumble about life under Isis’s self-proclaimed caliphate.
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Sunni Muslims in both countries have long felt discriminated against by regimes dominated by rival sects
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without an economy that gives people a chance to make a living, many say Isis has little more to offer
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“Compared to past rulers, Isis is a lot easier to deal with. Just don’t piss them off and they leave you alone,” says Mohammed, a trader from Mosul. “If they could only maintain services — then people would support them until the last second.”
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“They’re operating like something between a mafia, an insurgency and a terror group. Maybe they thought six months ago they were going to function as a state. But they don’t have the personnel or manpower.”
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volunteers handing out sacks of wheat stamped with their black and white seal. They even announced plans to issue a currency,
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In some cases they say Isis takes credit for systems in place before it seized power. In others, locals say it is stealing the resources of the region it seeks to rule
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Travellers must stock up on Iraqi dinars to use in Iraq, US dollars for the road and Syrian pounds once they arrive.
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services continue to function because of the money Baghdad still pays to former civil servants in Mosul. Isis taxes those employees at up to 50 per cent of their salaries.
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It is as if Isis is financing itself partly through a pyramid scheme, and this has begun to falter.”
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Though many now question Isis’s economic management, its military prowess and organisational skills are clear.
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Isis allows easy movement through its territories to facilitate trade. Trucks passing through are taxed about 10 per cent of the value of their cargo.
Why the new ISIS currency is doomed - Nov. 14, 2014 - 0 views
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This Is How ISIS Smuggles Oil - 0 views
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The militants can make more than $1 million a day selling oil from fields captured in eastern Syria.
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In recent months, the government has vowed to crack down on illicit oil, and police have targeted smuggling routes, seizing oil drums and digging up pipelines.
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Rebel groups targeted oil resources from the regime in battles often overshadowed by higher-profile fronts in the war — namely in the provinces of Raqqa and Deir Ezzor, where there were refineries and oil fields.
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Strapped for cash, the rebels smuggled some of the oil to buyers in Turkey, whose government was one of the Syrian opposition’s main backers, having already opened its borders to activists, fighters, and refugees.
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Omar would receive a call from a commander in the Free Syrian Army (FSA), the U.S.-backed rebel coalition, telling him to head to the Syrian side of the border.
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If he took in $1,500 in a night, he would give $500 to the FSA commander and another $500 to the Turkish border guards. “You can’t really say that we are smuggling oil, because we take permission from the Turkish side and the Syrian side,” Omar said. “But since it’s under the table, we call it smuggling.”
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it controlled Raqqa, and soon after it was battling for control of the rebel-held parts of Deir Ezzor.
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As ISIS gained new oil fields, Omar kept smuggling. He may have worked along an FSA-run border, but he knew he was buying the oil from middlemen who had taken it from ISIS’s hands.
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For ISIS, the profits were startup funds as it built up its self-styled caliphate, buying weapons and paying salaries.
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U.S. airstrikes now targeting its oil infrastructure, ISIS can make over $1 million a day from the trade
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ISIS controls 60% of the oil-producing resources in eastern Syria, he said, plus a handful of marginal oil fields in Iraq.
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The group sells most of it within its own territory in Iraq and in Syria — which covers more than 12,000 miles, a size comparable to Belgium, and includes some 8 million people, a population approaching Switzerland’s. Desperate residents need the fuel to run their cars, generators, and bakeries.
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It was the worst example of a wartime pillage that has stripped Syria of everything of value, from scrap metal to precious artifacts. “I just want to show the world what they are doing to my country,” he said.
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US weighs sanctions on Libyan factions to try to halt proxy war - 1 views
www.todayszaman.com/-to-halt-proxy-war_363768.html
UN libya militias armed groups war middle east proxy power vacuum sanctions US
shared by allieggg on 13 Nov 14
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US sanctions would be separate from potential United Nations sanctions that aim to pressure Libyan factions and militias to take part in UN-backed political negotiations to be led by UN envoy Bernardino Leon.
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US officials declined to say who they might target with sanctions or why they felt it necessary to look at US. penalties separate from the United Nations. Nor would they detail what sanctions they would propose.
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If applied, the United Nations sanctions would target individuals or groups involved in the fighting, rather than their foreign backers, and would freeze their assets as well as impose travel bans.
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United Nations moves slowly or not at all, US penalties could be imposed whenever Washington wished.
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US sanctions could be especially worrisome to Khalifa Haftar, a former Libyan army general who fled to the United States after breaking ranks with Gaddafi and returned to launch a campaign against the Islamists in Benghazi.
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Western officials believe the involvement of outside powers such as Egypt and the UAE is exacerbating the conflict and that the two countries are arming and funding the more secular forces.
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UAE sees Egypt's leadership as a firewall against militants and has given Cairo financial and military support
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Saudi Arabia, a supporter of Sisi, is sympathetic to the Egyptian and Emirati involvement in Libya but is not believed to have played any direct role,
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Qatar and Turkey. Qatar, officials said, has given arms and money to Islamist militias while Turkey has offered moral support.
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The UN is pushing for sanctions to put pressure on Libyan factions and militias to take part in political negotiations. These sanctions would target individual groups rather than the foreign backers involved in the proxy war and would freeze their assets and impose travel bans. US officials have introduced the possibility of using their own sanctions separate from the UN for a few reasons: UN sanctions move slowly if not at all, Washington could impose them whenever they wish. The US places more emphasis on the importance on external actors in the conflict than domestic groups, explaining that these countries are actually intensifying the conflict.
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Bloody Proxy War in Libya: Qatar & Turkey vs. UAE & Egypt | Clarion Project - 0 views
www.clarionproject.org/...-qatar-and-turkey-vs-uae-egypt
proxy wars polarization libya clarion project civil war politics
shared by allieggg on 21 Nov 14
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Fresh clashes broke out in the Libyan capital Tripoli on Sunday, forcing the city's airport to close down. Mitiga airport has functioned as Tripoli's primary airport since Tripoli International Airport was damaged and ceased to operate in August.
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On November 6 the Tobruk parliament was ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in Tripoli. However, parliamentarians in Tobruk immediately hit back, saying that because Tripoli is largely in the hands of Islamists, the Supreme Court's decision was made under duress.
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Libyan Prime Minister Abdullah al-Thinni said Qatar sent 3 loaded planes with weapons to Tripoli. This is in keeping with Qatar's actions throughout the region. One diplomat from an undisclosed MENA country spoke to Telegraph saying "They [Qatar] are partly responsible for Jabhat al-Nusra having money and weapons and everything they need." Jabhat al-Nusra is the official Al-Qaeda affiliate fighting in the Syrian Civil War.
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Qatar's involvement in Libya goes back to the revolution that overthrew former Prime Minister Muammar Gaddafi. In 2012, then leader of the Libyan National Transitional Council Mustafa Abdul Jibril said at a Ramadan celebration event: "Doha [Qatar] has been supporting Islamic movements as part of its vision to help establish an Arab regime that adopts Islamic Shariah law as a main source of governance." He said that Qatar had contributed $2 billion to the revolution.
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The bloodshed is greatly exacerbated by the relentless funding of Islamist militias across the region by Turkey and Qatar.
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Conflict broke out in the Libyan capital Tripoli forcing Mitiga airport, primary airport since Tripoli International was closed due to damages, to close down worsening the bloody proxy war thus escalating the crisis. Egypt and UAE have been aiding the Islamic opposition, helping to fight against the Islamic militants backed by Turkey and Qatar. Apparently Qatar's involvement in Libya goes back to the revolution that ousted Gaddafi, contributing $2 billion in support of the Islamic movements as a part of its vision to establish an Arab regime ruling through Sharia Law. As of now, no players are willing to compromise in this "state of war."
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therichkidsoftehran on Instagram - 0 views
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✅ Official Page: Rich Kids Of Tehran™ The Rich Kids of Tehran, Iran instagram Account: is just another instagram devoted to flaunting money in a way that makes the users feel important, the only funny (sarcasm) thing is that this one is based in country that readily enforces harsh rules of modesty and lack of pleasure/luxury on the majority of its citizens..
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How ISIS Games Twitter - The Atlantic - 1 views
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ISIS hashtag consistently outperforms that of the group’s main competitor in Syria, Jabhat al-Nusra, even though the two groups have a similar number of supporters online.
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ISIS also uses hashtags to focus-group messaging and branding concepts, much like a Western corporation might.
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Author J.M. Berger discusses ISIS's strategy on Twitter, comparing their highly skilled techniques on this platform to the likes of a P.R./ marketing team working for a Western corporation. Berger goes on to discuss programs that automatically post tweets to users accounts, an app they developed that provides updates, and an intricate system able to surpass Twitter's spam and security teams.
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The new economics of oil: Sheikhs v shale | The Economist - 0 views
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The contest between the shalemen and the sheikhs has tipped the world from a shortage of oil to a surplus.
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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.
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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
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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.
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Syrian Christians fleeing ISIS find shelter in Turkey - World - CBC News - 0 views
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At any given time, there are about 70 refugees who have fled the war in Syria. They share the bunk beds inside, six to a room.
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Many are housed in state-of-the-art refugee camps throughout the country, but those who have connections and more money choose to come to Istanbul in hopes of easier communication with foreign embassies, faster passage to what they hope will be a more comfortable life in Europe
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The war has split and scattered all of their families around the world. Bekandy's father is still back in Syria, her fiancé and mother are in London.
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He hopes his good deeds might somehow help reunite him with his family, which is now split into three parts, spread across Europe.
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His wife and six-year-old son are on the line from Athens. Their eldest daughter — just 15 — is in Germany.
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Lezieh says ISIS drew that X on his house in Aleppo, marking it to show his was a Christian home. He says militants tried to recruit him, threatened to kidnap his children and bombed his new business
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Now Lezieh gets by with donations from parishioners and hopes to see his family all in one place soon. He tries to smile through the tears. He has to. His daughter is calling.
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Libya's civil war: That it should come to this | The Economist - 3 views
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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
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the revolutionaries cobbled together a National Transitional Council (NTC) claiming to represent all of Libya
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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
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In August Western bombing of government bases surrounding Tripoli cleared an avenue for the revolutionaries to take the capital.
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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
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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.
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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.
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Islamist parties won only 19 of 80 seats assigned to parties in the new legislature, and the process left the militias on the outside
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tried to advertise its moderation by putting an unveiled woman at the head of its party list in Benghazi
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The incumbent prime minister, Abdurrahim al-Keib, a university professor who had spent decades in exile, fretted and dithered
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He bowed to militia demands for their leaders to be appointed to senior ministries, and failed to revive public-works programmes
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Many received handouts without being required to hand in weapons or disband, an incentive which served to swell their ranks
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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.
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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.
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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
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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
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Such retrenchment has been particularly noticeable among women. In 2011 they created a flurry of new civil associations; now many are back indoors.
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Turnout in the June 2014 elections was 18%, down from 60% in 2012, and the Islamists fared even worse than before
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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
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Grasping for a figleaf of legitimacy, Libya Dawn reconstituted the pre-election GNC and appointed a new government
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So today Libya is split between two parliaments—both boycotted by their own oppositions and inquorate—two governments, and two central-bank governors.
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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.
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General Haftar’s Dignity, which has based its government in Beida, has air power and, probably, better weaponry
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the Dignity movement proclaims itself America’s natural ally in the war on terror and the scourge of jihadist Islam
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Libya Dawn’s commanders present themselves as standard-bearers of the revolution against Qaddafi now continuing the struggle against his former officers
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Ministers in the east vow to liberate Tripoli from its “occupation” by Islamists, all of whom they denounce as terrorists
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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.
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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
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And in the Sahara, where the largest oilfields are, both sides have enlisted ethnic minorities as proxies
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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.
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On January 3rd, IS claimed to have extended its reach to Libya’s Sahara too, killing a dozen soldiers at a checkpoint
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have since been conspicuous by their absence. Chastened by failure in Afghanistan and Iraq, they have watched from the sidelines
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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
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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
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Until 1963 Libya was governed as three federal provinces—Cyrenaica in the east, Fezzan in the south and Tripolitania in the west
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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
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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.
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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
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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
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opposed NATO intervention and insisted that the NTC was a pagan (wadani) not national (watani) council
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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.
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In December the head of America’s Africa command told reporters that IS was training some 200 fighters in the town.
Sisi honors mother who dressed as man - 0 views
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What now for oil after Saudi king's death? - 0 views
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Saudi Arabia: Don't blame us for oil's big plunge - Mar. 4, 2015 - 0 views
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Bouazizi: The Man Who Set Himself and Tunisia on Fire - 0 views
After 40-year ban, U.S. starts exporting crude oil - Jan. 29, 2016 - 0 views
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Jordan - Educational System-overview - Students, School, Schools, and Secondary - State... - 0 views
education.stateuniversity.com/...UCATIONAL-SYSTEM-OVERVIEW.html
education jordan program students school
shared by mcooka on 16 Feb 16
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A compulsory stage for children ages 6 to 15 (grades 1-10), consisting of primary school (grades 1-6) and preparatory school (grades 7-10).
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A comprehensive secondary education (academic and vocational) and applied secondary education (training centers and apprenticeship).
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he majority of students are enrolled in schools directly controlled by the MOE. Some schools fall under the jurisdiction of the cultural bureau of the Ministry of Defense. The Ministry of Health oversees students studying for medical careers; it established the first nursing school in 1953-54.
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Under this system, students in grades 4 through 10 may repeat a grade twice. After that they are automatically promoted. In the preparatory stage, grade repetition is allowed only once. At the secondary level, students are allowed to repeat once in a government school provided they are younger than 17; otherwise they must transfer to a private school.
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Community colleges and universities vary in required attendance from two years in community colleges to six or more in universities based on the type of institution and specialization
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Higher education, either a two-year intermediate level course offered by community colleges or four years of university level courses, either in public or private institutions. The student's achievement on the General Secondary Education Certificate Examination is the sole criterion for admission into higher education institutes.
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Instruction is in Arabic, but English is introduced in public schools in the fifth grade and is widely used. A new policy was recently approved to start teaching English in the first grade beginning in the academic year 2001-02
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All public schools and most private ones use the same textbooks. Under Law 16 of 1964, the School Curricula and Textbooks Division of the MOE is responsible for producing and printing the textbooks. They are distributed free of charge during the compulsory stage, but there is a nominal fee at the secondary stage.
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In 1997, however, only 16 percent of students were attending two shift schools and 11 percent went to rented buildings.
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As a whole, education in Jordan is considered an investment in the future. Skilled citizens are necessary. Before the Gulf War, most graduates could find good jobs in the oil-rich countries, and the money they sent home helped the Jordanian economy to grow. It is not uncommon for a family living at subsistence level to be able to send a child to a university (Abu-Zeinh).