Group items tagged

This is an article with pictures of Aleppo, my hometown. I know most of these places, and the pictures are surreal. I cannot believe the level of destruction that has affected the city.

In the following link there are multiple images as well as informative texts. Olivia Arthur, and photographer, traveled to Saudi Arabia to teach a photography class. The images seen are a few of the pictures she took while there. Arthur discusses the difficulties she faced, many of the women did not want to be photographed or have their faces showing, Arthur had to get creative with her pictures. She also states that there is a discrepancy with women's rights when it comes to what economic class you are in.

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. 

I thought this article was interesting in contrast to today's viewings on women's rights in Egypt. Women in ancient Egypt had similar and nearly all the same rights as men, which is quite the opposite today.

This article talks about how women were in ancient Egypt. Women were given rights although a little disproportionate but they were treated well. Women had rights to own property, divorce their husbands, and inherit the property their deceased husbands owned.

Women in ancient Egypt were on the same level as men as pictured by art and contemporary manuscripts. The division was found within socioeconomic status, not gender.

This article provides a detailed outline of the battle against ISIS in Iraq and Syria through the use of maps, charts, and photographs to allow readers to visualize areas where fighting is taking place. Several maps provide locations of ISIS controlled territory, locations of airstrikes, and locations of ISIS controlled oil refineries. It was really helpful to see different maps outlining this information because I often hear about this conflict on the radio or television programs and it can be hard to understand the scope of the conflict without any visual aids. I really appreciated the effort to show in detail the specific locations.

This article outlined the fight against ISIS in Syria and Iraq providing detailed maps, charts, and photos to present a more clear picture of where violence and air strikes are occurring.

Very funny pictures!

This article highlights the Egyptian Revolution and its ties to social media. We have discussed Khaled Said in class and this article talks about the image of his dead beaten body appearing on Facebook and how it inspired Wael Ghonim, born in Egypt, living in Dubai, and many others to become activists in the revolution.

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. 

This artifact is a picture of an article titled "The Writings on the Wall," a piece about Hend Kheera, an Egyptian street artist, who grew in popularity during the revolution. She speaks about the focus of her work and what it means for the future.

This article is partly a news report and partly a discussion of gender equality in the PKK. On October 27, rumors began to spread on social media that a Kurdish female fighter known by the pseudonym Rehana may have been beheaded by Islamic State militants in Kobani. Rehana became the face of the PKK's female fighters after a picture of her making the victory sign was retweeted hundreds of times on Twitter. An image of a beheaded woman whom IS fighters claim to be Rehana was posted on pro-IS social media sites on the 27th, but it is impossible to verify whether the photo is genuine. The author goes on to discuss the complicated history of gender equality in the PKK. Currently, the group has the largest female militia in the world, and has a history of feminism rooted in it's founder Abdullah Ocalan's ideology. However, the author cites claims made by Berfu Kiziltan about how while the PKK has historically recruited women as well as men, in its early days, recruitment was sometimes by force. The author also mentions the PKK's history of female suicide bombers, as well as a recent suicide bombing in Kobani carried out by a female PKK soldier.

Women2Drive is a group related to a national campaign trying to bring awareness and make a change in the laws in Saudi Arabia forbidding women to drive. They hope that by spreading social awareness they will make a change. Women2Drive encourages Saudi women to post pictures of themselves behind the wheel to help advocate.

This Facebook page is called" The Global coalition for the Egyptian women's union. " The page was created to gain support and to create a global network. Some stories are shared within the timeline as well as some pictures.

Evidence reveals that North Korea and Iran may be working together in cyber warfare after an attack on Sony Pictures. A scientific and technology cooperation was signed between the two countries after attacks on Iran's nuclear program.

A new pole shows that Hamas support is decreasing in the region. Over 10% more of the population have decided not to support Hamas, but they still hold the majority over Fatah in the Palestinian political picture.

The rivals in the political picture in Palestine are Fatah and Hamas. Their opposing ideas now share the governing power.

The question asked is, "Does the March 18 Tunis attack signal that Tunisia will be the next Arab Spring state to be swallowed by violence and repression?" The answer is no. The attack was shocking and like I said in the article it has damaged the country's tourism industry which is a huge part of Tunisia's economy. The bigger picture of this article is the neighboring states of Tunisia. Libya is in a worse state where a lot of terrorist attacks are going on or the terrorists are coming from Libya into Tunisia. Tunisia can never have true security until Libya's situation is addressed.

Awesome article about the recent Russian bombing of Syria and how it affects the big picture. This article has some time-lapse maps with territories highlighted on it. It is very helpful in better understanding how current events are affecting the territories being controlled.