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This article also talks about the problems Syrian children face regarding education. International laws about "schools remain out of conflict" has gone ignored for a long time. Public Schools are overstretched in neighboring countries due to extra children in schools. The most interesting part of this article is the video which goes into more details about the growth of education in the last four years. 

Israel is one of Iran's prime targets of cyber attacks and espionage. State officials, generals, scientists, activists, those involved in large financial institutions are all victim to mass Iranian cyber tactics, such as phishing via e-mail, fake websites and links, and spyware sent through e-mail. Although Israel is second in the world in cyber-security, right after the US, the rate of cyber-attacks is accelerating higher than investment into cyber-security.

One thing I'm starting to get from the various bookmarks I'm posting is that the world seems to be very afraid of doing anything in Libya. After the Benghazi attack that killed our ambassador, the world has largely ignored what's been occurring in Libya. There's been essentially no government, regional neighbors are afraid of ISIS, the world doesn't want to get involved and now we're up to more of a mess than we started with.

This piece is talking about the efforts of Lebanon to support the education of Syrian children. The refugee students have been out of school for years which hinders their future quality of life. Only about half of the refugee children are attending some sort of school program. 

This article/video is about how a woman in Raqqa risked her own life to video tape what happens in the everyday life of the Islamic State. This woman gave us an insight to what is happening in cities that ISIL has taken over. We see how women in general are forced to wear the niqab and how they are told by men what to do. Another aspect that we see in the video is how many foreign women have actually go to these places to join the fight. The video states that around 150 french women have joined the Islamic State.

Hafed al-Ghwell is a senior non-resident Fellow with the Rafik Hariri Center at the Atlantic Council in Washington, DC. On Monday, Libya's House of Representatives, whose legitimacy has been questioned since the day it was elected by a mere 15 percent of the country's eligible voters, decided to add more gasoline to the already raging fire that is the four-year civil war in the country.

After the fall of Gaddafi a power vacuum allowed rival militias to thrive. Now, Libya has become a proxy war for other Arab nations. Saudi Arabia, UAE, Egypt, and Algeria on one side and Qatar and Turkey on the other. 

This article accentuates the "Age of Proxy Wars" in the Middle East. While Syria and Libya are the 2 most known proxy situations, the article illuminates other states involved as well. We know already about UAE, Turkey, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia, which this article also brings up, but new information suggests that Bahrain and Kuwait are supporting sides of the regional war as well. While these nations think they're doing their part to support their values, these proxy wars are actually fostering further extremism since people supporting each side do not directly suffer the consequences. The article states that the metastasizing of these jihadist groups is grave threat to US national security, and the US must intervene in order to solve this crisis. The author says the US needs to improve their performance in donor cordination, funding the right groups, as well as be more aggressive in working directly with elections, uncovering networks of money and influence. He says rather than the conduction of elections, we must focus on the nature of politics in general, curbing corruption and embedding sectarian democratic values in their political sphere.

A former senior official at the U.S. embassy in Cairo describes how Sisi's background is shaping his approach to domestic politics, counterterrorism, Israel, and other issues. From the way Sisi is described, his main priority is the domestic economy. He knows that without creating domestic stability through lowering unemployment and generating more capital, he cannot remain in power. In addition, it appears that Sisi is a strong believer of military influence. He has a strategic plan of cooperating with great powers to grow Egypt's reputation. Sisi's plan to create a strong state, while cooperating with other strong states and focusing on military power are all evidence of his political realist tendencies.

This video talks about the different groups in Libya who are fighting against each other. General Haftar is one of the major players in the attacks. He is against islamist groups and he says that he will never retreat until islamist groups back down. The main reason for the fighting is to gain as much power and economic gain as they can.

I want to cleanse Libya of Muslim Brotherhood: Haftar Renegade general launches 'operation dignity' against Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamist groups in Libya Ahram Online, Tuesday 20 May 2014 A retired Libyan general has said he wants to cleanse Libya of the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamist radicals.

This article from News Week basically paints a picture of Libyan history and how Gaddafi's reign devastated the state economically, socially, and politically. Author Dirk Vandewalle uses the phrase "a political tabula rasa" which in Latin means a blank slate, to describe the fate of Libya after Gaddafi's rule and convey the extent to which the country has to literally reconstruct every component that makes up a society and its government. He highlights major events that led to the downfall of both the Gaddafi regime and the Libyan state as a whole such as Arab nationalism, Jamahiriya, the Green Book, security apparatuses snuffing all opposition, terrorist incidents, isolation and international sanctions, the Lockerbie bombing, weapons of mass destruction, human right violations, divide and rule policies, and his use of oil revenue to fuel his insurgency. Vandewalle concludes the article with uncertain ideas thoughts towards Libya's future and the way the state is going to literally rebuild themselves from this "blank slate" that Gaddafi left behind. 

There are 3 types of FGM. Type 3 is the most harmful. Older women were not given nay type of pain medication. Recently, young girls were given medication to help with the pain. 

In May this year, a renegade general said that the best way to combat the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamist groups is through eradication. According to general Khalifa Haftar, these groups are to blame for the destruction in Libya. This article claims that many Libyans are on Hafter's side and would like to see this plan come to fruition.

George Orwell, the author of the famous novel 1984, is trending on Twitter after a student was arrested while carrying a copy of the book. Egyptian on social media seized on the perceived irony of the situation and a well known journalist remarked, "that the book is now more popular than ever in Egypt." The reports however may be false and the Giza Security Directorate, General Mahmoud Farouk says the novel had nothing to do with the arrest. Instead it is reported that the student was carrying materials supportive of the IS. The charges against the student remained unclear.

In this Office of the Historian publication, US involvement in the peace process of Israel and its neighbors is described in general. Touching on the Oslo and the Camp David accords, this article sketches a brief outline of the events occurring on the attempted road to peace.