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mcooka

2015 Education Year: Challenges ahead | Yemen Times - 1 views

  • n Nov. 24, the prime minister declared 2015 “Education Year,” highlighting the need to improve the country’s educational system and its importance for Yemen’s future prosperity
  • An ominous reminder came just 20 days after the prime minister’s announcement, when an explosive-laden car detonated at a checkpoint in Rada’a, killing 16 girls who were passing on their way home from school. The tragedy provides some indication of the immense challenges facing government and Yemeni society if 2015 is really to be a year for education.
  • Speaking at a ceremony honoring the nation’s highest-achieving students for the 2013/14 school year,
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  • eeting these lofty goals will require a range of initiatives—repairing infrastructure and building new facilities, providing sufficient learning materials, narrowing teacher-student ratios, and addressing gender disparities—especially in rural areas, where underfunding and conflict have compounded the problems facing schools ther
  • Mohammad bin Mohammad, a school teacher in Erman Primary School in the Ans area of Dhamar governorate, which accommodates 110 children from first to sixth grade, says many of his students are forced to take their lessons sitting on the ground. “Students don’t study in proper classrooms. Let alone having enough labs, chairs or tables,” he said.
  • Addressing security concerns and providing necessary infrastructure are fundamental prerequisites, but staffing and improving access to education for girls remain high on the agenda.
  • Government expenditure on bonuses amounts to YR60 million ($279,000) for the current fiscal year, and is expected to reach 271,696 employees nationwide working in the education sector, according to the Ministry of Education.
  • In areas where female enrolment and retention in school is significantly lower than the national average, the government also offers conditional cash transfers to families to encourage them to allow their girls to attend school.
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    This article highlights some of the challenges with improving girls education. Yemen has very little resources so taking resources from one place and giving to another-is basically like taking from students sitting on the dirt and giving to students sitting on rocks. There is also high security concerns. Many religious sects don't believe women should receive education.  So girls and schools are being terrorized on the way to school. Some families don't believe the cash transfer is worth loosing children. 
yperez2

Egypt’s First Woman to Fly Against Tradition | Egyptian Streets - 0 views

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    Lotfia El Nadi one of the first women in Egypt to fly. She challenged traditional norms of women being repressed.
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    Lotfia El Nadi one of the first women in Egypt to fly. She challenged traditional norms of women being repressed.
mwrightc

In Chaotic Iraq, ISIS Is Just One Challenge Among Many : Parallels : NPR - 0 views

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    ISIS is not the only group that is causing conflict in Iraqi territory. There is a shiite armed group called Kataib Hezbollah that everyone knows is in control of Jarf al-Sakhr.
mariebenavides

The #Jan25 Revolution and the 'Liberation' of Arabic Literature | Arabic Literature (in... - 0 views

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    This article discusses the issue of censorship. By talking with Egyptian novelist Khaled al-Berry, presented is the idea of a strong hope for less censorship because the January 25th revolutions had opened up a future of possibilities and challenges for Egyptian literature. While in previous years there had been no actual direct political censorship, publishers would attempt both religious and moral censorship as a means to protect people. While the article does discuss that there will always be censorship, they also look forward to a culture that values art and reading that will change the perspective of the culture.
mjumaia

In Saudi Arabia, Shiite Muslims Challenge Ban On Protests - 0 views

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    When Arab Spring protests broke out in Saudi Arabia in 2011, the government reacted quickly, pumping $130 billion into the economy and cracking down on dissent. While this approach has worked in some cities, the Shiite Muslims in the Eastern Province continued to demonstrate.
alarsso

Syria After Assad: Managing the Challenges of Transition | United States Institute of P... - 0 views

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    Meeting at USIP to discuss post-assad government in Syria
kbrisba

Tunisian Women Face Challenges in Achieving Gender EqualityMorocco World News - 0 views

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    After January 14, 2011 the issue of equality between men and women rose. Later in 2014, Article 46 of the new Constitution guaranteed equality between the sexes and highlighted the principle of parity. "The state is committed to protecting the acquired rights of women. It supports and works to improve them..."
nicolet1189

BBC News - Can Iraqi militants be kept off social media sites? - 0 views

  • co-ordinated hashtag campaigns to get its content trending on Twitter.
  • The Iraqi government responded by blocking social media sites and, in some provinces, barring access to the internet entirely.
  • But some of the most active Islamist social media accounts are still live,
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  • n Twitter using military pseudonyms,
  • The BBC spoke to a number of social networks, all of which said they did not actively monitor their sites for content promoting terrorism, but rather responded to requests from governments and individuals to remove offending material.
  • r Twitter said the company would remove a reported post that violated its rules.
  • Twitter's terms ban threats of violence and the "furtherance of illegal activities" on the site.
  • Many of the militants on Twitter redirect users to their Kik accounts.
  • Ask.fm, a
  • One Ask.fm account offered advice on how to join Isis fighters in Iraq, as well as what weapons one could expect to be equipped with on arrival.
  • Facebook and YouTube, have been more successful in removing extreme content.
  • rminated any account registered by a member of a foreign terrorist organisation - as designated by the US secretary of state - and used in an official capacity to further its interests.
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    Interesting article about challenges social media companies face in preventing and deactivating accounts with content or users linked to terrorist organizations such as ISIS.
kdancer

The ISIS Challenge - 0 views

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    The use of U.S. military force against ISIS is a significant escalation whose long-term significance is elusive. The announced justification for the military strikes combined a humanitarian rationale (the exigent need of the Yazidis stranded on their bleak mountain) with the threat that ISIS posed to American citizens in the Kurdish capital of Erbil.
malshamm

Yemen Uprising of 2011-12 | Britannica.com - 0 views

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    In early 2011 a wave of pro-democracy protests swept the Middle East and North Africa, unseating leaders in Tunisia and Egypt and leading to sustained unrest in other countries, including Libya, Syria, and Bahrain. In Yemen pro-democracy activists and members of the opposition staged protests challenging the rule of Pres. ʿAlī ʿAbd Allāh Ṣāliḥ, who had held power for more than three decades in spite...
pvaldez2

International Women's Day: An Annual Reminder Of Successes And Challenges In Gender Equ... - 0 views

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    This article is about International Women's Day, which is celebrated on March 8th every year to recognize women's achievements worldwide. The article describes how it began, why we have international women's day, a history of the women's rights struggle in Egypt, and how this day is an opportunity for change.
mcooka

Building a Culture of Quality in Higher Education in the MENA Region - 0 views

  • he Global Education Dialogue conference of the British Council discussed at length some of the global experiences, best practice, challenges and solutions toward Quality Assurance in Education.
  • e conference provided a safe space for candid conversations in formal and informal settings, and a unique opportunity to identify and discuss common challenges and share ideas, insights and experiences that might help to overcome these obstacles and to bridge the gap across the international communities.
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    This article focuses on how the British council created a space to discuss the quality of education with other countries educators. Specifically, the moroccan and egyptian educators worked to learn from the UK about quality higher education.
klweber2

Gallows Humor: Political Satire in Sisi's Egypt by Jonathan Guyer - Guernica / A Magazi... - 0 views

  • Illustrators capture the everyday challenges Egyptians face,
  • illiterate
  • transcending cultural, class-based, and generational barriers.
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  • hift the narrative
  • not just
  • reach a wide audience
  • outine struggles of life in Cairo.
  • hree political factions
  • epresent Egypt speak with one voice.
  • ndeel and Anwa
  • launched an alt-comics zine called Tok Tok,
  • Egyptian millennials.
  • “‘This is a stupid regime that is in control right now,’”
  • his powerlessness and his complicity in state-sponsored violence.
  • cartoons
  • Morsi overstepped
  • We all knew this was going to happen,”
  • everyone realized that the army was planning something.”
  • executive stained with blood
  • since
  • President Gamal Abdul Nasser
  • Andeel wrote about the anthem for Mada Masr,
  • military was asked by the people to rise up against Morsi.
  • implies
  • “Bless your hands”
  • 77-year-old Moustafa Hussein serve
  • baseline for the nationalist narrative.
  • Mocking the armed forces has been taboo
  • youth of the revolution have come to support a new authoritarianism.
  • underlining
  • “I would have had to very intensely water down my language, be way more patient and pragmatic to deliver my message.”
  • dozens of cartoons
  • ortraying the Muslim Brotherhood as violent, activating the terrorist trope
  • “The most important thing to me are regular people,”
  • “Winter After the Protest Law.”
  • everyone is at risk when authorities arbitrarily crack down on public demonstrations.
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    This article follows a cartoonist from Al-Masry Al-Youm a private newspaper in Egypt 
diamond03

This film will battle a global epidemic prevalent in Egypt: sexual harassment | Egyptia... - 0 views

  • Egypt:
  • sexual harassment
  • ‘Creepers on the Bridge’,
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  • feeling of intimidation
  • Cairo
  • experience whe
  • n walking down Egyptian streets,
  • , The People’s Girls
  • issue of sexual harassment
  • perfect time to create a documentary that will analyze the causes, provide alternatives to traditional thought and document women fighting back in creative ways,” explained 22-year-old Colette Ghu
  • “Because we’re both frequently in the street alone, we both experience high levels of stares daily, as well as verbal harassment,
  • sexual harassment is still taboo in Cairo
  • to walk outside or take public transportation,
  • don’t want to deal with the intimidation and anxiety.
  • the United States, Latin America, Europe, South Asia- we’ve experienced various levels of sexual harassment.
  • three people with different views of sexual harassment and their daily lives surrounding the issue,
  • three Egyptians to reveal the extent of sexual harassment in Egypt and to get a better understanding of the issue,
  • Esraa is a 25-year-old Egyptian woman
  • challenges social norms by performing in storytelling theater pieces about sexual harassment
  • participating in anti-sexual harassment protests and events.”
  • 8 out of 10 women experience sexual harassment in public transportation,
  • deters us
  • members of society open up about their own experiences and perspectives.”
  • 99 percent of women in Egypt have faced sexual harassment.
  • 2011 revolution had a big impact on the issue of sexual harassment,
  • positive and negative ways
  • unfortunately become more widespread,
  • lack of police
  • gives harassers a sense of immunity
  • more commonplace and accepted.
  • President Sisi
  • police presence in the streets has increased, and more harassers have been brought to justice
  • Egyptian women have reached their boiling point in recent years, and inspired by the revolution, they have become a lot more outspoken
  • critics of Islam often end up blaming misogyny on religion.
  • sexual harassment is not specific to one religion.
  • here remains a common misbelief in the West that Egyptian, as well as all Arab women, are oppressed.
  • women in Egypt have been able to do basically anything a man can do
  • work and have a career
  • degrees in higher education,
  • high leadership roles
  • product of the news cycle following the US invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan
  • societal pressures for women to focus on getting married and starting a family.
  • very similar to the ones women in the West
  • no way means that all Egyptian men are harassers,
  • Arab or Muslim-specific issue.
  • a worldwide problem.”
  • two meanings that it has in Arabic
  • well-mannered, cultured, respectable girl,
  • “When people blame victims of sexual harassment, they often argue that if only the girl was a ‘people’s girl’ then she wouldn’t get harassed. The name is also an ode to all the girls and women of Egypt.”
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    Filmmakers are filming a film that talks about the sexual harassment issue that occurring in Egypt. Ninety-nine percent of women in Egypt have faced sexual harassment. It also shares the common misbeliefs that people believe due to American news. 
allieggg

Islamists Aren't the Obstacle | Foreign Affairs - 0 views

  • A minority of the population -- 26 percent of Tunisians and 28 percent of Egyptians -- believes that Islam should play a large role in government.
  • Both secularists and Islamists associate democracy with economic prosperity
  • 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.
  • On a related note, Islamist parties have shown a remarkable ability to maintain their base.
  • 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.
  • Many onlookers claim that Egypt's more tumultuous post-revolution trajectory is because of the country's legacy of religiosity and Islamism.
  • Egyptians, in fact, are no more religious than Tunisians.
  • 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.
  • Egypt's judicial branch, which is also more powerful than Tunisia's, has at times undermined democratic processes.
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • 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. 
kristaf

Aisha Al-Shater Condemns Coup Lynching of Azhar University Female Student - Ikhwanweb - 0 views

  • lynching and arresting female students inside Al-Azhar University (east of Cairo), roughly manhandling them, often dragging them on dirty asphalt.
  • Commenting on pictures and a video clip where a female student was roughly pulled and dragged on the ground as she screamed, with coup policemen forcing her inside an armored vehicle, Aisha
  • I challenge coup media to broadcast those scenes of the female student's lynching inside Al-Azhar University in TV programs."
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  • riday, November 21,
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    This short article paints a picture of the violent crimes against women that are taken place at Al-Azhar University. Aisha Al-Shatar who is the daughter of the Muslim Brotherhood's vice-chairman, has publicly called upon the media to display the lynching of female students. 
micklethwait

CNN.com - Breaking News, U.S., World, Weather, Entertainment & Video News - 0 views

shared by micklethwait on 05 Sep 14 - Cached
  • NEW Missing 4-year-old boy found Soldier beaten to death ... by peers   Asteroid to pass 'very close' to Earth
  • NEW NATO to create 'spearhead' force Can NATO get back to its roots? ISIS vs. Muslims: The media war What does ISIS want?   NEW Ebola
fcastro2

Russia's Putin, Egypt's Sisi say committed to fighting terrorism | Reuters - 0 views

  • United by a deep hostility toward Islamists, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and Russia's Vladimir Putin said on Tuesday they were both committed to fighting the threat of terrorism.
  • Sisi, who is fighting a raging Islamist insurgency in the Sinai region, said Putin had agreed with him that "the challenge of terrorism that faces Egypt, and which Russia also faces, does not stop at any borders
  • utin, making his first state visit to Egypt in a decade, said they agreed on "reinforcing our efforts in combating terrorism
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  • The Kremlin chief was the first leader of a major power to visit Egypt since former army chief Sisi became president in 2014
  • Sisi has repeatedly called for concerted counter-terrorism efforts in the Middle East and the West. Egypt has fought Islamist militancy for decades, mostly through security crackdowns that have weakened, but failed to eliminate, radical group
  • Putin has also resorted to force against Islamists, sending troops to quell a separatist rebellion in Chechnya, but still confronts insurgents in parts of the predominantly Muslim North Caucasus region
  • Egypt and the Soviet Union were close allies until the 1970s when Cairo moved closer to the United States, which brokered its 1979 peace deal with Israel.
  • Sisi has since opened up to Moscow, describing Russia on Tuesday as a "strategic friend"
  • Putin, facing Western isolation and sanctions over his support for pro-Russian separatists in neighboring Ukraine, received a grand welcome in Cair
  • Putin said he expected a new round of talks on the Syrian conflict, following on from a meeting of some opposition figures and the Damascus government in Moscow last month
  • The Moscow talks, which ended on Jan. 29, were not seen as yielding a breakthrough as they were shunned by the key political opposition in Syria and did not involve the main insurgent groups fighting on the ground
  • Moscow has been a long-standing ally of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad
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    Not only is Russia aligning with Syria, but it is also getting closer to Egypt and its government. Egypt's president Abdel Fattah al-Sisi believes that its relationship with Russia is a "strategic alliance" which is what other middle eastern countries, such as Syria, believe. 
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