Group items tagged

A New York Times article discussing how the various sides were following the truce at the time of publication. I think this truce is a step in the right direction and therefore is worth bookmarking.

It really frustrates me that the US is often very outspoken about rights, freedom and democracy. Yet time and time again, I have seen that politics are nothing more than a pursuit of interests. The US continues its "ambiguity" of action in Syria, essentially furthering the spread of chaos. Now Turkey, and important US ally is frustrated that the US has been siding with alleged Kurdish terrorist groups.

New York Times article with youtube videos of rebel fighters using Russian SA-7s to shoot down fixed and rotary wing aircraft

ISIS has huge motivations about the end times that are pushing them forward in their fight for a pure Muslim culture around the world. They believe that two towns in Syria that they now hold as there own are the location for the looming final battle of the apocalypse.

A New York Times article talking about the differences as far as legal terms between a truce, a cease-fire, and an armistice. I think that it's an excellent article to include because there's a lot of mixing and matching of these three terms by media sources when in actuality they are very different.

New York Times article discussing how the US and Russia are getting involved in the Syrian conflict have turned it into a proxy war. I bookmarked this because I think it's significant to keep this in mind and how it echoes the events leading up to say Vietnam.

A New York Times article on the violence in Greece between Syrian refugees and the Macedonian border guards. The article talks about the Europeans not being able to come to a consensus on what to do with refugees. Additionally the page has a video of the protesters attempting to break through the barricade, which in response Macedonian authorities indiscriminately fired tear gas into a crowd including small children.

Another New York Times article about the weekend truce. Unfortunately according to the article it seems that Russia used the clause that allows airstrikes against ISIS, as an opportunity to also bomb some opposition fighters positions.

Before the conflict and poverty that has been affecting the nation for years, Yemen was once a center of civilization and wealth. This article outlines the history of this tumultuous country from its beginnings as "Happy Arabia" (as the Romans used to call it) to a country divided.

This article is a response to International Women's Day, saying that gender equality doesn't exist in the world. In the middle of the article, they show a chart of the gender gap between men and women. Egypt is last in the chart.

This article goes into depth about the inequality in the Middle East which extends to today. This looks at the ideas of democratization which would promote higher education. Greater rights for women. and improve infant morality rates 

This article discusses the growing suspicions that have risen from the Muslim Brotherhood. According to many, the Muslim Brotherhood has an active influence on the Obama Administration.

Ironically, the Muslim Brotherhood has come to be seen by some in the State Department as a force of moderation in contemporary Islamist politics. You should look at the recent New York Times op-ed criticizing Sisi for cracking down on the Brotherhood.

Egyptian art historian and graffiti artist, Bahia Shehab, discusses how she was first commissioned for an art piece in 2010 called "A Thousand Times No" that consisted of the way the word "no" had been represented in history over different continents in different art works. This later translated into her graffitiing the word all over Egypt as a way to speak out again the dictators and the violence that she witnessed.

Russia and China once again veto a resolution that would have lead  to an investigation by the International Criminal Court (ICC) of Syrian governments possible violation of human rights, and international humanitarian law. This is the fourth time both countries have vetoed resolutions relating to the situation in Syria.

This article, from the Times, discusses the transition seen in Saudi Arabia after the death of Kind Abdullah. It specifically discusses the story of a woman, named Loujain Al Hathloul, who drove illegally and was stopped by police. The police took her passport and refused to let her drive. She took to Twitter about the experience as she sat for about a day in her car until she was arrested.

The internationally recognized parliament of Libya was ruled invalid by the supreme court. The parliament reacted by dismissing the ruling, claiming that its verdict was coerced by the threat of arms. The polarization of these 2 ruling governments continues without negotiations.

This article touches on an array of ideas but for the sake of my research I focused on the "Thirty Years War" section. Douglass Murray from The Spectator conveys the perspective that the Middle East is likely to be going through a similar 17th century European 30 years war, when Protestant and Catholics launched a full fledged war against one another. This means that religious war in the Middle East is so much bigger than just al-Qaeda and similar groups. The conflict will re-align the region, but also the entire religion of Islam. Douglass says the outcome would call for a Treaty of Westphalia-style solution, redrawing boundaries of a region where they've been bursting for decades.  For the time being the drivers of the conflict is a standoff between the two regional powers and their affiliated proxies, Saudi Arabia and Iran. 

After the heated argument Ben Affleck had with Real Time host Bill Maher, people are still debating the topic of Islam in the world. A Muslim woman named Eiynah has entered the discussion, and directed her opinion of the often archaic nature of Islam in an open letter to Affleck, which was posted on Pakistan Today : Dear Ben, I am writing to you today as a woman who was born and raised in Islam. This topic is interesting because liberals in the West are so annoyed by the rhetoric that comes from bigoted sources; while Affleck was standing up for what he believes in, the writer suggests he should have gone about it in a different way. It's just also unfortunate that many are quick to judge and condemn a faith even though other faiths have had just as many problems (and have supported immoral practices) throughout history. However its still important to bring up and try to make solutions for human rights crisis that take place based on Sharia law.

After the heated argument Ben Affleck had with Real Time host Bill Maher, people are still debating the topic of Islam in the world. A Muslim woman named Eiynah has entered the discussion, and directed her opinion of the often archaic nature of Islam in an open letter to Affleck, which was posted on Pakistan Today : Dear Ben, I am writing to you today as a woman who was born and raised in Islam. This topic was interesting because liberals in America have to deal with bigoted rhetoric all the time and its frustrating. While the author of the letter was proud of Affleck for standing up for Islamic people and what he believes is right, she suggests he just go about it in a different way because discussions of human right violations in the Middle East should still be called out.

The Turkish government recently went into an extremist-controlled territory in order to evacuate a tomb of a major historical figure, and the soldiers who guarded it. The safe passage of this mission has shown that the relations between Turkey and Syria have gotten a bit better.