A minority of the population -- 26 percent of Tunisians and 28 percent of Egyptians -- believes that Islam should play a large role in government.
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World Report 2014: Syria | Human Rights Watch - 0 views
www.hrw.org/...syria
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Syria's armed conflict escalated even further in 2013 as the government continues and intensified its attacks against civilians and began using increasingly deadly and indiscriminate weapons including chemical weaponry. This link also provides an abundant amount of information on not only human rights issues revolving around chemical warfare but also on human rights issues in regards to torture, unlawful arrests and forced displacement. At the end of the article, a list of key international actors are given including supporters and opponents of Syria.
19-year-old actor arrested from home for online videos | Mada Masr - 0 views
www.madamasr.com/...or-arrested-home-online-videos
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Islamists Aren't the Obstacle | Foreign Affairs - 0 views
www.foreignaffairs.com/...islamists-arent-the-obstacle
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Islamist parties received considerable support in both countries' recent elections -- not only because there is a broad ideological affinity for Islamism among the population but also because of Islamist parties' effective campaigning.
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When asked about the most important feature of a democracy, 69 percent of Egyptians and 32 percent of Tunisians put providing people with basic necessities or narrowing the gap between rich and poor at the top of their lists.
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Tunisia has fared better than Egypt so far in the post-Arab Spring transition, with less violence, fewer demonstrations, and greater political stability. This is in part because challenges are easier to confront in a country of only 11 million, 98 percent of whom are Sunni Muslim, compared to the more diverse and populous Egypt. But Tunisia's success is primarily a result of its stronger institutions, which provide a conduit for political debate.
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Egypt's institutions are weak and have been routinely undermined by entrenched interests. The countries' different geopolitical situations play a role here. Tunisia's minimal strategic importance means that foreign countries have less reason to intervene. But Egypt's proximity to Israel and the Palestinian territories, its 1979 peace treaty with Israel, and its role as an intermediary between Israel and Hamas make its political developments important to Israel and the United States. Consequently, Egypt is vulnerable to foreign interference, particularly to attempts to prop up its military. Furthermore, beyond serving as a pillar to Egypt's authoritarian regimes, the Egyptian military has significant business interests and accounts for ten to 30 percent of Egypt's gross domestic product.
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Many onlookers claim that Egypt's more tumultuous post-revolution trajectory is because of the country's legacy of religiosity and Islamism.
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Egypt's judicial branch, which is also more powerful than Tunisia's, has at times undermined democratic processes.
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Egyptian Supreme Constitutional Court ruled that the Islamist-dominated parliament and the Constituent Assembly it elected were unconstitutional, because Islamist parties contested seats intended for independent candidates. The move polarized the country and pushed the executive branch to take extreme measures.
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Egyptian democracy is undermined by the inability of institutions to address citizens' demands and the impulse of powerful actors to interfere, not by the divide between Islamists and secularists. Institutions in Egypt fail to provide a meaningful forum for debate. As a result, violent street protesters and extremist sheiks are gaining power.
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U.S. policy must support institutions rather than actors, and processes rather than outcomes, in order to help Egypt and Tunisia achieve their democratic potential.
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The Council on Foreign Relations published an article about democratization in the middle east and the major obstacles that are present in the process. While most assume Islamists and Islamic embedded institutions are the root of the delayed democratic transition, the problems are much bigger than that. While Islamist regimes do indeed stunt the growth of democratic progress in terms of creating a stable government, Arab countries struggle with economic and social factors as well. The Arab Spring Revolutions have caused economic and social degradation across the region, resulting in a road block of political leadership. Without a reliable and capable government structure, the states are unable to progress economically. However, in order to have a stable government, social and economic institutions must be in place to create this capitalist economy that they strive for. Because most wealth resides in oil, the revenue that the states bring in isn't distributed properly throughout society and is concentrated within few business elites. The article stresses that instead of foreign aid going into the hands of an unstable leader or regime, it should be invested in institutions in order to spur economic growth and eliminate corruption. Rather than focusing on the Islamist-secularist divide, the world should be working towards the strengthening of institutions to create a stable foundation for governance.
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Oil Extends Drop on Libyan Field Restart, OPEC Outlook - Bloomberg - 1 views
www.bloomberg.com/...-rise-less-than-predicted.html
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Libya should resume pumping “soon” at Sharara, its biggest-producing oil field prior to the disruption, following an attack yesterday, an official said.
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“The Sharara disruption highlights the current chaos in Libya, and also how fragile the production is.”
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This article basically highlights the significance of Libyan oil fields in terms of the international community. Chaos in Libya not only affects the eastern region, but all OPEC members and importers of crude oil across the globe. After the recent attacks on Sharara, the biggest field in Libya, production has significantly slowed down. Libya's elected parliament assures the global community that they will resume normal outputs soon, but as the country deepens further into civil war, international actors remain skeptical.
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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
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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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The New Arab Cold War - 0 views
www.foreignpolicy.com/...r_saudi_arabia_uae_libya_syria
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It stretches from Iraq to Lebanon and reaches into North Africa, taking lives in the Sinai Peninsula, Egypt's Western Desert, and now Libya
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this violence is the result of a nasty fight between regional powers over who will lead the Middle East
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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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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.
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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.
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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.
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Yet the war of words between Ankara and Cairo since then and the support that the Turkish government has extended to the Muslim Brotherhood
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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.
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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
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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.
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The Russians show their hand in Syria by withdrawing - 0 views
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THERE is nothing Russia's president, Vladimir Putin, likes more than taking everyone by surprise. Except, perhaps, demonstrating that his country is an independent actor on the world stage that has to be taken seriously. Thus, the announcement from the Kremlin on March 14th that Russia was partially withdrawing its forces in Syria was vintage Putin.
BBC News - Egypt radio bans popular singer Hamza Namira for 'critical' songs - 0 views
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Syria after Assad: Heading toward a Hard Fall? - The Washington Institute for Near East... - 0 views
www.washingtoninstitute.org/...sad-heading-toward-a-hard-fall
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new opportunities for external actors, especially Iran and Hizballah, both of which would seek allies among the former regime's Alawite security elite
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UN expert decries Israeli soldier's killing of Palestinian attacker - 0 views
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Two-Factor Authentication Phishing From Iran - 0 views
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A new method to bypass G-mail's two step authentication is being implemented by Iranian hackers. Essentially it is a very active method of phishing in which the Iran hackers monitor a phone while triggering password verification. This puts everyone at risk and not just state actors or significant public figures.