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wmulnea

BBC News - Opec oil output will not be cut even if price hits $20 - 0 views

www.bbc.com/...business-30585538

shared by wmulnea on 13 Feb 15 - No Cached
  • Danny Gabay of Fathom Financial Consulting told the BBC that the oil price fall was "overwhelmingly, predominantly, if not entirely, a demand shock.
  • International Monetary Fund (IMF) economists have speculated that the low oil price could boost the global economy by up to 0.7% in 2015.
  • Opec producers believe the oil price could return to about $70 or $80 by the end of 2015 as global economic recovery boosts demand.
alarsso

BBC News - Arab uprising: Country by country - Syria - 0 views

www.bbc.com/world-12482309

syria uprising post-assad revolution

shared by alarsso on 16 Feb 15 - No Cached
  • Protests demanding greater freedom and an end to corruption
  • Deraa
  • March 2011.
  • ...19 more annotations...
  • demanding President Bashar al-Assad's resignation.
  • Opposition supporters began to take up arms, first to defend themselves and then to oust loyalist forces from their areas.
  • February 2012,
  • a new constitution
  • dropped an article giving the ruling Baath Party unique status as the "leader of the state and society"
  • denounced it
  • rebels seized control of large parts of the north and east of the country
  • National Coalition
  • Syrian people's "legitimate representative".
  • 2013,
  • shifting in Mr Assad's favour,
  • government
  • recover territory
  • August 2013
  • chemical weapons attack on the outskirts of Damascus
  • destroy Syria's chemical weapons.
  • peace conference in Geneva in January 2014.
  • more than 100,000 people dead
  • millions from their homes.
  • alarsso on 16 Feb 15
     
    Overview of revolts in Syria and where it stands as of December 2013
kbrisba

Tunisia reopens crossing point on border with Libya Anadolu Agency - 1 views

www.aa.com.tr/...ing-point-on-border-with-libya

shared by kbrisba on 22 Feb 15 - No Cached
  • kbrisba on 22 Feb 15
     
    Earlier this month, the residents of Ben Gardane declared a strike that led to the closure of the border crossing to demand lifting a 30 dinar tax imposed on foreigners crossing into Tunisia from Libya. Saturday Libyan vehicles crossed into Tunisia's border for the first time after the three week protest. According to the Tunisian security officials the protest was ended "swiftly" and "peacefully".
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.
aavenda2

Oil prices edge up in Asian trade extending earlier gains - 0 views

english.alarabiya.net/...es-edge-up-in-Asian-trade.html

Oil Economy Production

shared by aavenda2 on 13 Apr 15 - No Cached
  • aavenda2 on 13 Apr 15
     
    More speculation about oil prices and contracts with Asia as oil productions continue to increase with little proof of future demand in oil
aavenda2

How Iran's Rise Could Mean the End of Oil Kingdoms / Sputnik International - 0 views

sputniknews.com/...1020819260.html

iran rise oil Saudi Arabia

shared by aavenda2 on 13 Apr 15 - No Cached
  • aavenda2 on 13 Apr 15
     
    Iran's new production and possibilities to sell to Asia could hurt Saudi's plans for projected future demand of their oil
ysenia

Demands - Tahrir Documents - 0 views

www.tahrirdocuments.org/...demands-revolution-2

Egypt revolution tahrir documents

shared by ysenia on 21 Jan 16 - Cached
  • ysenia on 21 Jan 16
     
    "Tahrir Documents is an ongoing effort to archive and translate activist papers from the 2011 Egyptian uprising and its aftermath. Materials are collected from demonstrations in Cairo's Tahrir Square and published in complete English translation alongside scans of the original documents."
atownen

Tunisia News - Breaking World Tunisia News - The New York Times - 0 views

topics.nytimes.com/...index.html

Tunisia

shared by atownen on 27 Jan 16 - No Cached
  • atownen on 27 Jan 16
     
    Here is an interesting currently updated timeline of events in Tunisia. I find it interesting that last week protesters demand jobs.
cthomase

100 Libya MPs back unity government, demand new vote - 0 views

news.yahoo.com/ent-demand-vote-164600640.html

Libya politics revolution war

shared by cthomase on 24 Feb 16 - No Cached
  • cthomase on 24 Feb 16
     
    In a relatively good sign for the UN lead efforts for a new government, members of Libya's recognized parliament officially backed the UN sponsored Unity government. Recognizing the importance of a united Libya, this is a step in the right direction on the long road toward peace.
ccfuentez

Arab governments are failing on human trafficking | Brian Whitaker | Opinion | The Guar... - 0 views

www.theguardian.com/...-governments-human-trafficking

human trafficking Saudi Arabia prostitution abuse

shared by ccfuentez on 22 Feb 16 - No Cached
  • "Trafficking in persons" covers various forms of exploitation including, in the words of the international Palermo protocol, "sexual exploitation, forced labour or services, slavery or practices similar to slavery, servitude or the removal of organs".
  • A large part of the problem in the wealthier Arab countries is the extensive use of foreign labour
  • ccfuentez on 22 Feb 16
     
    In Saudi Arabia if workers file a complaint against their employers about abuse they are usually returned to their employers or pressured to drop the charges. Typically, the employers will file a false counter-argument against the workers for theft, witchcraft, and adultery in retaliation. This country is also accused of failing to take action to reduce the demand of prostitution or child sex tourism. 
mcooka

Schooling in a crisis: the case of Syrian refugees in Turkey - ODI HPN - 0 views

odihpn.org/...e-of-syrian-refugees-in-turkey

refugee schooling crisis turkey Syria camps education

shared by mcooka on 17 Feb 16 - No Cached
  • The Syrian civil war has created one of the largest and most intense episodes of human suffering of the early twenty-first century.
  • 387,883, with 200,039 living in government camps and 164,143 living in rented apartments
  • Turkey’s efforts to meet the needs of refugees have been spearheaded by the Afet ve Acil Durum Yonetimi Baskanligi
  • ...36 more annotations...
  • majority of refugees are women and, especially, children; of the 200,000 refugees in Turkish camps, about 60% are children.
  • t was left to him to find tents, wooden flooring, carpets and paving bricks, desks, chairs, drawing boards, teaching aids and, of course, textbooks
  • urkish Red Crescent
  • acquired through AFAD channels a
  • egging
  • he result
  • ten large tents with floors
  • drawing boards
  • electricity
  • computer projectors.
  • limate control consisted of large fans
  • he pre-school director in Islahiye Camp used empty office and storage space in the warehouse to house five rooms full of loud young children
  • preschools enjoyed the largest proportion of age-group participation.
  • camp schools are administered by Turks
  • curricula are not recognised or sanctioned by the Turkish education authorities, and so licenced Turkish teachers cannot be assigned to them.
  • amp education directors rely heavily on volunteers from among the refugees themselves
  • time and instruction with the children is often inconsistent
  • not be able to teach in Arabic
  • There is little incentive for parents to commit their children to learning a new language
  • Closely related to the issue of language is the curriculum
  • eenage students in the camps generally do not have access to the secondary schooling
  • Indeed, one source of tension between Syrian parents and the Turkish authorities has been the Syrian demand for special classes for advanced students whose preparations for university entrance exams were interrupted by the war.
  • Syrian schools have opened outside of the camps with funding from the local government,
  • using the Syrian curriculum and books salvaged from Syrian schools and reproduced
  • Gaziantep
  • namely Syrian demands for the separation of the sexes in classrooms
  • Syrian parents also tend to insist that their daughters wear headscarves (hijab) in public and in schools, while it is illegal for Turkish teenage girls to cover their hair at school.
  • Tensions over the separation of the sexes, curriculum and language of instruction are compounded by the politics of Syrians’ refugee status
  • y contrast, the Turkish government chose not to officially recognise the Syrians as refugees as defined by UNHCR, and did not ask UNHCR to register the newcomers as refugees.
  • officially designate Syrians as refugees would limit Turkey’s involvement in the Syrian civil war,
  • Turkey has allowed arms and non-lethal aid through its territory to supply the Free Syrian Army
  • here are also concerns that Syrians, desperate for income, take jobs at lower wages than Turks
  • Even guests can outstay their welcome, and with no end in sight to the civil war and no prospect of a return of Syrians to Syria, Turks are beginning to question how long they can sustain their assistance. I
  • une 2013 AFAD began accepting offers of financial and other aid from outside agencies, including UNHCR and the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO).
  • The schools developed in Syrian refugee camps in Turkey provide valuable models for establishing schools for rapidly growing refugee populations.
  • The next critical challenge for Syrian education in Turkey is what to do with the growing number of Syrian teenagers who need to finish their high-school studies at accredited schools in order to compete for places at universities in Turkey or elsewhere.
  • mcooka on 17 Feb 16
     
    This was probably the most interesting article I have read about education in the MIddle East. It is from the "Humanitarian practice Network". This article is about Turkey and the Syrian refugees, who are not documented as refugees, and the growing desire for improvements to education. Right now, the education which is in place for Syrians is adequate for a temporary stay of preserving knowledge. It is not designed to be used long term, to advance students, or to prep them for universities. This article looks at those issues and tensions which are happening currently in Turkey
ralph0

Turkey wants 'secure line' created 10km inside Syria, including Azaz - deputy PM - RT News - 0 views

www.rt.com/...32718-turkey-secure-line-syria

turkey syria borders war policy

shared by ralph0 on 17 Feb 16 - No Cached
  • ralph0 on 17 Feb 16
     
    It is interesting to see how the conflict has affected the borders between Syria and Turkey. After allowing movement across the border, Turkey is now demanding a "secure line" be created inside Syria. This is especially interesting because those regions have been somewhat fought over between both countries over the past century.
mcooka

Lebanon - Educational System-overview - Schools, Private, Students, and Lebanese - Stat... - 0 views

education.stateuniversity.com/...UCATIONAL-SYSTEM-OVERVIEW.html

lebanon system overview schools private public

shared by mcooka on 02 Mar 16 - No Cached
  • The Lebanese educational system is divided in two sectors: private schools and universities, for which there is a charge for admission, and public (government) schools and universities that are practically free of charge.
  • Education was once almost exclusively the responsibility of religious communities or foreign groups, but because the number of students in public schools has risen to more than two-fifths of the total school enrollment, the government was pressured to open more public schools to meet the demands of the general public.
  • While public schools have not paid much attention to the preschool phase and have required students to be five-years-old to be accepted in kindergarten until the 1990s, private schools have always had a preschool phase and have accepted students as young as three-years-old
  • ...18 more annotations...
  • The total duration in school remains intact, 12 years. The primary cycle of general education has been increased by one year, and is divided into two modules of three years each, while the intermediary cycle was reduced to three years instead of four. The first year of general education's secondary cycle must be considered common for all four different series of instruction, and the second year is common to only two out of four series. Lebanese students are not allowed to enter formal technical education before age 12, which is the age limit of obligatory education. The scholastic year was changed to 36 weeks, and 4 supplementary hours per week were added at the intermediary and secondary cycles.
  • The new school curricula was launched in September 1998, and the Educational Center for Research and Development had trained 16,000 teachers in public schools and 6,000 teachers in private schools on the new uses and principles of the new program. The new system took into account economic, social, and national perspectives. The principle characteristics of this new system consist of the following:
  • The Lebanese educational system has usually relied heavily on private schooling to accommodate the evergrowing demand for learning in the country
  • As to special education concerning handicapped students, there were about 10,000 handicapped people in 1975 (prior to the Lebanese civil war). During the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982, this number reached 13,000; it is more than 15,000 in 2001. About 2,500 handicapped people were being educated and made ready to enter the work market.
  • There are 1508 public and private intermediary and secondary schools for the general instruction program in Lebanon, while there are only 262 schools for the technical and professional instruction program divided between the public sector (29 schools) and the private sector (233 schools).
  • Education is compulsory until the end of the intermediate cycle, is available to all Lebanese students, and is attended by nearly 95 percent of school-age children
  • The school year starts in early October and ends in late June. The school day consists of six hours starting at 8:00 a.m. with two hour lunch break and ends at 4:00 p.m. The length of class periods ranges from 50 to 55 minutes. Both public and private schools are supposed to observe official holidays, which are decided by the government; however, Christian-administered, religious private schools take Saturday and Sunday off every week, while Moslem-run religious private schools take Friday and Sunday, and Jewish-run private schools take off all of Saturday and Sunday afternoon only.
  • In short, the new formal educational system of Lebanon, like in many other countries, divides the years of instruction as follows: 6-3-3 (six years for the primary cycle, three years for the intermediate cycle, and three years for the secondary cycle), followed by the higher education cycle. Primary school education is followed either by a six-year intermediary and secondary program, leading to the official Lebanese baccalaureate certificate, which was originally based on the equivalent French school diploma, or by a three- to six-year technical or vocational training program.
  • In addition, females appeared to have a slightly higher percentage than males with regard to attending schools and universities. After age 25 male attendance becomes almost double that of female attendance.
  • the literacy rate was 88.4 percent in 1997
  • ue to the Lebanese people's negative attitude toward manual work, especially in industry and agriculture, students of lower socioeconomic status enroll mostly in vocational and technical schools. Therefore, there is a big difference between the two major types of instruction, as well as the relative numbers of schools and students enrolled in each of these types
  • The brevet certificate is only required by public schools, vocational schools, and teacher training institutes. The baccalaureate part I exam has two main tracks: literary and scientific. The baccalaureate part II has four main tracks: literature and humanities, which includes language, literature, history, philosophy, education, arts, and religion; sociology and economy, which includes economic sciences, politics, business and management, law, and sociology; general sciences, which includes mathematics, physics, chemistry, and their applications at the level of engineering; and life sciences, which includes biology and life sciences, chemistry and their applications in the area of medicine, health, agriculture, and other related subjects.
  • Most institutions of higher education require entrance examinations besides the baccalaureate part II, which is required by law.
  • The grading system is generally based on scales of 0 to 20 or 0 to 100, with 10 or 60, respectively, as passing grades
  • he curriculum in Lebanese schools is somewhat rigid, for all students must pursue the same programs in all three cycles
  • rivate schools can choose textbooks that meet their syllabi, except in the civics area where the Ministry of Education, Youth, and Sport requires them to use the center's textbooks.
  • rabic and either French or English are the languages of instruction in the Lebanese schools.
  • The United Nations Reliefs and Works Agency (UNRWA) provides funds supporting a private nonsectarian school system for Palestinian Refugees in the Middle East. This type of private schooling has been very effective in offering education and social services for children of Palestinian Refugees residing in Lebanon
  • mcooka on 02 Mar 16
     
    This article gave a great general overview to the education in Lebanon. One of the major components of Lebanon's education system is when they changed it 1999 to reflect the style of French education systems. Additionally, Lebanon has a high rate of 95% attendance for its students and it also has a high rate of literacy at 89%
blantonjack

Russia threatens force against Syrian truce violators - 0 views

www.aljazeera.com/...iolations-160321102229084.html

isis Syria Russia UnitedStates politics

shared by blantonjack on 23 Mar 16 - No Cached
  • blantonjack on 23 Mar 16
     
    Russia warned it will act unilaterally starting on Tuesday to end alleged violations of the "cessation of hostilities" agreement, unless Moscow and Washington urgently reach an agreement to deal with attacks. The Russian military has accused the United States of dragging its feet on responding to Moscow's proposals on rules for joint monitoring of the Syria ceasefire and response to violations, saying delays are leading to civilian casualties. The Russian Government has threatened the Syrian people who stand against the peace treaty..
diamond03

Egypt women: Rights on paper, not yet on ground - Yahoo News - 0 views

news.yahoo.com/-not-yet-ground-061711942.html

egypt rights women

shared by diamond03 on 16 Sep 14 - No Cached
  • worrying whether those rights will be implemented or will turn out to be merely ink on paper.
  • Men hold an overwhelming near-lock on decision-making in politics, and activists say they are doing little to bring about equality.
  • saying the student was "dressed like a belly dancer." She was wearing black pants, a long-sleeved pink shirt and a head-scarf.
  • ...30 more annotations...
  • women should wear "appropriate" clothing when they go out.
  • There have been multiple mass sexual assaults on women during protests the past three years.
  • security forces dragged a female protester to the ground, pulled up her top to reveal her blue bra and stomped on her chest.
  • female protesters at the time were forced to undergo humiliating "virginity tests" when detained by the military.
  • Violence is a "very intimidating weapon" against women participating in public life
  • "If there is no democratic climate, how would you benefit from these beautiful laws?" said Abdel-Hameed. "It will be the same as under Mubarak: you have a beautiful law but it's not implemented."
  • The document explicitly enshrines equality between the sexes and women's rights to education, work and high political office.
  • "It's not just more progressive than the 2012 constitution, it's more progressive than the 1971 constitution . from the gender perspective,
  • Women have only been allowed to be judges since 2007
  • guarantees their right to hold high positions in the judiciary
  • 2010 court decision barred women judges from the State Council, a powerful judicial body that regulates disputes between individuals and the state and reviews legislation.
  • January she wrote to the State Council demanding it take on women judges in light of the constitution.
  • The Council replied b
  • violated appropriateness and manners"
  • sought criminal action against the National Council for Women.
  • "the mentality of the decision-makers
  • is the main obstacle to the carrying out the promises of the constitution.
  • low representation of women in government.
  • lowest in the Arab world
  • two percent of the seats in the last parliament,
  • We're tired of the government and officials .
  • creation of a Commission on Discrimination with real judicial power
  • more women judges; a
  • he presence of women in parliament and local council
  • and the nullification of the draconian protest law,
  • gender issues should be mainstreamed across all government bodies.
  • activate a unit specialized in fighting violence against women and "the health sector should take into account reproductive rights.
  • h clinics should provide contraception and treatment for STDs
  • women's issues are never a priority for anyone
  • parts of the constitution may make enforcing the women's rights provisions harder.
  • diamond03 on 16 Sep 14
     
    Women are Egypt have been treated different than men since anyone can remember. The women are taking action and protesting that the constitution be revised to change rights. Seats in parliament is one of the goals they hope to achieve. Equality between sexes is their main goal.
diamond03

Prevalence of female genital cutting among Egyptian girls - 0 views

www.who.int/...en

female genital cutting egyptian

shared by diamond03 on 06 Oct 14 - No Cached
    • diamond03
      diamond03 on 06 Oct 14
       
      This is so strange and taboo. 
  • fundamental violation of women’s and girls’ rights
  • 50% or highe
  • ...41 more annotations...
  • female circumcisio
  • harmful physical, psychological and human rights consequences has led to the use of the term “female genital mutilation
  • women who have undergone FGC do not consider themselves to be mutilated and have become offended by the term “FGM”
  • no definitive evidence documenting when or why this ritual began
  • practised in ancient Egypt as a sign of distinction, while others hypothesize its origin in ancient Greece, Rome, Pre-Islamic Arabia and the Tsarist Russian Federation.
  • 97% of married women surveyed experienced FGC.3
  • 94.6% of married women had been exposed to FGC and 69.1% of those women agreed to carry out FGC on their daughters
  • 41% of female students in primary, preparatory and secondary schools had been exposed to FGC.
  • females interviewed was 38 816. The prevalence of FGC among schoolgirls was 50.3%. The prevalence of FGC was 46.2% in government urban schools, 9.2% in private urban schools and 61.7% in rural schools.
  • FGC has remained a common practice in the countries where it has traditionally been performed.4
  • Egypt are type I (commonly referred to as clitoridectomy) and type II (commonly referred to as excision).5 In Africa, the most common type of FGC is type II (excision of the clitoris and the labia minor) which accounts for up to 80% of all cases.6 I
  • In 1995, a ministerial decree forbade the practice and made it punishable by fine and imprisonment
  • The difference in the prevalence rates of FGC is mainly due to educational status in both rural and urban areas
  • There is an obvious negative correlation between the female’s parents’ education and the practice of FGC
  • Parents with low or no education are the most likely to have circumcised their daughters with prevalence rates ranging between 59.5% and 65.1%
  • higher degrees of education are the least likely to have their daughters circumcised and the prevalence rate ranged between 19.5% and 22.2%.
  • age at which FGC is performed on girls varies
  • 4 and 12 years old
  • the procedure may be carried out shortly after birth to some time before the age of marriage.6
  • some girls mentioned that they were circumcised soon after birth, during the neonatal period.
  • . In Egypt, in the past, the majority of FGC procedures were performed by traditional midwives, called dayas. However, according to the Demographic and Health Survey (1995),16 the number of
  • An immediate effect of the procedure is pain because FGC is often carried out without anaesthesia.
  • Short-term complications, such as severe bleeding which can lead to shock or death
  • include infection because of unsanitary operating conditions, and significant psychological and psychosexual consequences of FGC
  • complications (early and late) such as severe pain, bleeding, incontinence, infections, mental health problems, sexual problems, primary infertility and difficult labour with high episiotomy rate. In addition, the repetitive use of the same instruments on several girls without sterilization can cause the spread of HIV and Hepatitis B and C.
  • Fathers played minor roles as decision-makers for the procedure (9.4%
  • mothers are the main decision-makers for the procedure of FGC (65.2%)
  • circumcision is an important religious tradition (33.4%)
  • religious tradition is still the most important reason for performing FGC in Egypt,
  • In these surveys, 72% of ever-married women reported that circumcision is an important part of religious tradition and about two-thirds of the women had the impression that the husband prefers his wife to be circumcised
  • one-third of ever-married women cited cleanliness as a reason while a small number saw it as a way to prevent promiscuity before marriage.
  • milies refuse to accept women who have not undergone FGC as marriage partners
  • Around 12% of girls believed that there is no religious support for circumcision.
  • . It is an issue that demands a collaborative approach involving health professionals, religious leaders, educationalists and nongovernmental organizations.
  • partial or total cutting away of the female external genitalia
  • Female genital cutting (FGC
  • Past issues Information for contributors Editorial members How to order About the Bulletin Disclaimer Prevalence of female genital cutting among Egyptian girls
  • 100 and 130
  • cultural or other non-therapeutic reason
  • 28 African countries and the Middle East have been subjected to FGC.2
  • million girls and women
  • micklethwait on 07 Oct 14
     
    This is such a controversial topic. I saw a reference to it recently (was it possibly something that was brought up in the Bill Maher/Ben Affleck dust-up?) that pointed out that the practice is almost unheard of outside of central and northeastern Africa, with a few small pockets in Iraq and the Gulf.
allieggg

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

www.foreignaffairs.com/...islamists-arent-the-obstacle

middle east democracy Islamists institutions egypt politics tunisia

shared by allieggg on 28 Sep 14 - No Cached
micklethwait liked it
  • 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.
  • ...10 more annotations...
  • 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.
  • allieggg on 28 Sep 14
     
    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. 
Briana S

ISIS executes Syrian youth after anti-jihadist protest - 1 views

www.dailystar.com.lb/...ter-anti-jihadist-protest.ashx

Syria ISIS Islamic State execution protest American airstrikes

shared by Briana S on 24 Sep 14 - No Cached
  • Briana S on 24 Sep 14
     
    ISIS fighters executed innocents in a Syrian town Friday, after hundreds of residents demanded they leave following regime airstrikes that targeted the jihadists but also incidently killed civilians as well- the Islamic State executed the innocents publicly
aavenda2

Saudi Arabia's Muhanna Sees Oil Recovering From 'Temporary' Drop - 0 views

www.bloomberg.com/...d-is-temporary-saudi-s-muhanna

Saudi Oil Future

shared by aavenda2 on 09 Apr 15 - No Cached
  • aavenda2 on 09 Apr 15
     
    An article of Saudi oil leaders projecting their optimistic views on the future of the oil economy. + a very interesting quote "Saudi Arabia sets its crude prices based on refining margins and not politics, al-Muhanna said."
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