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sheldonmer

Timeline: What's Happened Since Egypt's Revolution? | Egypt in Crisis | FRONTLINE | PBS - 0 views

www.pbs.org/...ppened-since-egypts-revolution

egyptian egyptian revolution social media aftermath

shared by sheldonmer on 10 Nov 14 - No Cached
    • sheldonmer
      sheldonmer on 10 Nov 14
       
      This article lays out what has happened in Egypt since the 2001 revolution. Starting from when Mubarak stepped down, the article gives a timeline of significant events up until September 12th of 2013. It highlights events such as Morsi being voted into presidency in 2012, The first draft of the constitution on Nov. 29th 2012, when protestors return to Tahrir Square on Jan. 25 2013, to when Sisi warns Mubarak of military intervention, to when Morsi is removed from office, to when Supreme Court Chief Justice Adly Mansour is chosen by Sisi to step in as Egypt's interim president, etc.
allieggg

Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the Middle East's 30 year war » The Spectator - 0 views

www.spectator.co.uk/...armageddon-awaits

proxy wars leadership polarization US Saudi Iran the middle east war

shared by allieggg on 21 Nov 14 - No Cached
  • There are those who think that the region as a whole may be starting to go through something similar to what Europe went through in the early 17th century during the Thirty Years’ War, when Protestant and Catholic states battled it out. This is a conflict which is not only bigger than al-Qa’eda and similar groups, but far bigger than any of us. It is one which will re-align not only the Middle East, but the religion of Islam.
  • Either way there will be a need for a Treaty of Westphalia-style solution — a redrawing of boundaries in a region where boundaries have been bursting for decades.
  • But for the time being, a distinct and timeless stand-off between two regional powers, with religious excuses and religiously affiliated proxies will in all probability remain the main driver of this conflict.
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • ‘Saudi Arabia is the custodian of the Two Holy Mosques and the birthplace of Islam. As such, it is the eminent leader of the wider Muslim world. Iran portrays itself as the leader of not just the minority Shiite world, but of all Muslim revolutionaries interested in standing up to the West.’
  • ‘Saudi Arabia will oppose any and all of Iran’s actions in other countries, because it is Saudi Arabia’s position that Iran has no right to meddle in other nations’ internal affairs, especially those of Arab states.’
  • Saudi officials more recently called for the Iranian leadership to be summoned to the International Criminal Court in The Hague for war crimes. Then, just the month before last, as the P5+1 countries eased sanctions on Iran after arriving at an interim deal in Geneva, Saudi saw its greatest fear — a nuclear Iran — grow more likely. And in the immediate aftermath of the Geneva deal, Saudi sources darkly warned of the country now taking Iranian matters ‘into their own hands’. There are rumours that the Saudis would buy nuclear bombs ‘off the shelf’ from their friends in Pakistan if Iran ever reaches anything like the nuclear threshold. In that  case, this Westphalian solution could be prefaced with a mushroom cloud.
  • allieggg on 21 Nov 14
     
    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. 
mpatel5

Britain vows 'significant' support for Syrian opposition - 0 views

english.alarabiya.net/...rt-for-Syrian-opposition-.html

Britain Syria Revolution President Bashar al-Assad

shared by mpatel5 on 11 Nov 14 - No Cached
  • mpatel5 on 11 Nov 14
     
    Britain will make "a significant contribution" to equip and train the moderate Syrian opposition to defeat both Islamic State extremists and the Damascus regime of President Bashar al-Assad, its foreign secretary said on Monday. Secretary of Foreign Affairs made a statement,"The UK is helping the opposition establish security and governance, and to deliver essential services. This includes life-saving search and rescue training, helping Syrians whose homes have been reduced to rubble by the regime's bombs."
sgriffi2

US Department of State - 0 views

http://www.state.gov/s/gwi/rls/rem/2011/176643.htmThis source is testimony given by Melanne Verveer, Ambassador-at-large for Global Women's Issues, she gave a statement to the Subcommittees on Inte...

started by sgriffi2 on 14 Feb 15 no follow-up yet
sgriffi2

US Department of State - 0 views

http://www.state.gov/s/gwi/rls/rem/2011/176643.htmThis source is testimony given by Melanne Verveer, Ambassador-at-large for Global Women's Issues, she gave a statement to the Subcommittees on Inte...

started by sgriffi2 on 14 Feb 15 no follow-up yet
wmulnea

How the 1973 Oil Embargo Saved the Planet | Foreign Affairs - 0 views

www.foreignaffairs.com/...3-oil-embargo-saved-the-planet

shared by wmulnea on 23 Feb 15 - No Cached
  • That strategy allowed the United States to function as a “swing producer,” able to boost or trim production to stabilize global supplies and prices (just as Saudi Arabia does today).
  • there was no spare capacity left in East Texas.
wmulnea

Is Libya on the brink of a new civil war? - Al Jazeera English - 0 views

www.aljazeera.com/...l-war-2013102183055736865.html

shared by wmulnea on 11 Apr 15 - No Cached
  • former rebel fighters who helped to oust Gaddafi are now jostling among themselves for power
  • The country is flooded with weapons
  • In the past year alone, more than 80 people, many of them high-ranking military and police figures, have been killed in eastern Libya.
  • ...5 more annotations...
  • Libya's Prime Minister Ali Zeidan
  • The country's prime minister recently called on western powers to help him stop the spread of what he calls 'militancy' in his country.
  • There are more than 225,000 Libyans registered in militias. They receive state salaries but often act outisde of government control, taking orders from local or political commanders.
  • Groups in Libya's eastern Cyrenaica region and in the southern Fezzan region have called for independence
  • In Cyrenaica, former rebel leader Ibrahim al-Jathran and his 20,000 men strong militia say they now run local affairs, with Jathran and his men controlling facilities that account for 60 percent of Libya's oil wealth.
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.
mcooka

Saudi Arabia's education system in the spotlight again - Al Arabiya English - 0 views

english.alarabiya.net/...em-in-the-spotlight-again.html

#Middle East #Education #Saudi Arabia

shared by mcooka on 27 Jan 16 - No Cached
  • Education in Saudi Arabia is in the spotlight again with the appointment of a new minister for this famously problematic ministry. In fact, education has always been a main concern for Saudi officials involved in public affairs and they were about to lose hope that the ministry, and the education sector as a whole, could be fixed. Whenever unemployment, labor and terrorism issues are brought up, education becomes the main concern of parliament and the media.
  • The report only covers 13 Arab countries where statistical information was available. Among those countries is Saudi Arabia whose statistics reveal that about half of the male students did not succeed in acquiring basic education after four years of primary school. Girls, however, were better because one third were able to acquire the basic requirements in education and thus they recorded the highest difference between boys and girls in the Arab world.
  • . This is the crisis tackled by the Brookings report, a crisis manifested through protests and anger in the streets of the Arab Spring countries.
  • mcooka on 27 Jan 16
     
    Education in Saudi Arabia. While this article is a year old, it shows the beginning of a hopeful future in Saudi education which has been lacking. 
ccfuentez

Human Trafficking In The Middle East: Manola�s Story - 0 views

www.worldcrunch.com/...c1s3343

Madagascar raped beaten Lebanon human trafficking

shared by ccfuentez on 17 Feb 16 - No Cached
  • Presently, there are 7,000 women from Madagascar working as household help in Lebanon.
  • a military coup in Madagascar saw the percentage of poor people (those living on less than $1 a day) rise from 67% to 76%
  • ccfuentez on 17 Feb 16
     
    Manola is now only 20 years old, but a few years ago she heard about a program in Lebanon. Next thing she knew she was on a plane with 11 other girls on their way to their personal nightmare. In Lebanon, Manola was a housekeeper who was abused, raped, and beaten regularly.
eyadalhasan

Sex, lies, and debt potentially exposed by the latest hack of US data from China - 0 views

www.businessinsider.com/exposed-by-us-data-hack-2015-6

US security cyber

shared by eyadalhasan on 01 Mar 16 - No Cached
  • eyadalhasan on 01 Mar 16
     
    When a retired 51-year-old military man disclosed in a U.S. security clearance application that he had a 20-year affair with his former college roommate's wife, it was supposed to remain a secret between him and the government.
cguybar

What is the Muslim Brotherhood? - CNN.com - 1 views

www.cnn.com/...t-muslim-brotherhood-explainer

muslim brotherhood revolution Egypt

shared by cguybar on 22 Sep 14 - No Cached
  • is a religious and political group founded on the belief that Islam is not simply a religion, but a way of life
  • advocates a move away from secularism, and a return to the rules of the Quran as a basis for healthy families, communities, and states.
  • slamic Sharia (way of life or principles) as the basis controlling the affairs of state and society and working "to achieve unification
    • kristaf
      kristaf on 22 Sep 14
       
      statement of what the Brotherhood initially sought to achieve
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • Morsy
  • is government failed to keep order as the economy tanked and crime soared, including open sexual assaults on women in Egypt's streets. The chaos drove away many tourists and investors.
    • kristaf
      kristaf on 22 Sep 14
       
      Issues that were attributed to Morsi being in power included:  -increase in crime -issues with the economy  -assaults on women 
  • kristaf on 22 Sep 14
     
    The issues surrounding the brotherhood and the fear surrounding the idea that all of Egypt would be expected to become part of the brotherhood are discussed on this page. The original foundation of the brotherhood was based on the idea of "liberating them from foreign imperialism" as well as forming "unification" as a nation. Issues presented with the brotherhood include: a "poor economic stability or growth, increased crime, and assaults on women."
  • ...1 more comment...
  • kristaf on 22 Sep 14
     
    The issues surrounding the brotherhood and the fear surrounding the idea that all of Egypt would be expected to become part of the brotherhood are discussed on this page. The original foundation of the brotherhood was based on the idea of "liberating them from foreign imperialism" as well as forming "unification" as a nation. Issues presented with the brotherhood include: a "poor economic stability or growth, increased crime, and assaults on women."
  • zackellogg on 26 Sep 14
     
    The Muslim Brotherhood is the oldest and largest opposition group group in Egypt. It's members control many of the country's professional organizations.
  • cguybar on 02 Mar 16
     
    This article gives background information regarding who and what the Muslim Brotherhood is. It provides historical significance of the group as well as give suggestions as to why there is interest in learning about the group and their ideals.
aacosta8

Egypt's New Terrorism Law - 0 views

www.atlanticcouncil.org/...egypt-s-new-terrorism-law

Law Terrorism Egypt

shared by aacosta8 on 29 Mar 16 - No Cached
  • aacosta8 on 29 Mar 16
     
    The Atlantic Council promotes constructive leadership and engagement in international affairs based on the central role of the Atlantic Community in meeting global challenges. Founded in 1961, the Council provides an essential forum for navigating the dramatic shifts in economic and political influence that are shaping the twenty-first century by educating and galvanizing its uniquely influential, nonpartisan network of international political, business, and intellectual leaders.
mkulach

Israeli soldiers assault Palestinian detainees - 0 views

www.middleeastmonitor.com/...-assault-palestinian-detainees

Israel Palestinians prisoners media

shared by mkulach on 31 Mar 16 - No Cached
  • mkulach on 31 Mar 16
     
    Four Palestinians arrested this week for Facebook posts have spoken of physical assaults they endured during their detention and interrogation. The testimonies were collected by the Palestinian Committee for Prisoners' Affairs and relate to four Palestinian youths, including at least two teenagers detained.
cthomase

Shoukry urges Libyan parliament to authenticate newly formed government - 1 views

www.dailynewsegypt.com/...ticate-newly-formed-government

Egypt war politics Libya

shared by cthomase on 23 Mar 16 - No Cached
  • cthomase on 23 Mar 16
     
    Egypt's Foreign minister is urging the Libyan parliament, the only body Egypt recognizes as a legitimate authority in Libya, to authenticate Libya's newly formed unity government. Egypt believes that Libyan authentication and control of it's own affairs, is the only way forward for Libya to achieve stability.
cguybar

Who is the Muslim Brotherhood and their role after Mubarak - 0 views

realdealtalk.com/d-and-their-role-after-mubarak

muslim brotherhood mubarak role affairs

shared by cguybar on 30 Mar 16 - No Cached
  • cguybar on 30 Mar 16
     
    Explains how the Muslim Brotherhood went through somewhat of an identity change post Mubarak due to the oppression they were under when he was in power. Reformations within the group caused changes from radical parochialism to a more political pluralistic approach.
irede123

Why Hezbollah Might be the Iran Deal's Biggest Loser | Foreign Affairs - 0 views

www.foreignaffairs.com/...iran-deals-bigger-loser

hezbollah iran ISIS syria

shared by irede123 on 05 Apr 16 - No Cached
  • irede123 on 05 Apr 16
     
    "the decision to fork over $100 billion in sanctions relief to Iran as part of last summer's nuclear deal could be the worst thing that's happened to the Lebanese terrorist group Hezbollah in years"
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