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allieggg

http://mgt.guc.edu.eg/wpapers/005mohamed_hamdy2008.pdf - 2 views

DIIGO_FILE_HOME/4xj2f/byi0

watsa cronyism nepotism guanxi social norms middle east

shared by allieggg on 05 Oct 14 - No Cached
  • Jordanian survey, 87% of the respondents wanted to eradicate wasta.
  • Cunnigham and Sarayrah (1994) suggest that the modern oil boom in the Arab world may have perpetuated wasta by reducing the need for hard work.
  • human resource departments in the Arab world depend heavily on subjective assessment tools such as unstructured interviews.
  • ...21 more annotations...
  • most Arab economies suffer from very high levels of unemployment. Good jobs are scarce. This motivates applicants to use every mean possible to improve their chances of being hired.
  • For example, sons of police and military officers are given preference in admission to the Egyptian police academy or military college, respectively.
  • study conducted by Whiteoak, Crawford and Mapstone (2006) showed the young UAE citizens believed that wasta is more useful than do their older citizens. This finding may imply that wasta is strengthening rather than diminishing in Arab societies. Commenting on the spread of wasta in Egypt, a senior bank official told one of the authors that up to 25% of his staff were hired only because of their wasta.
  • many top governmental positions are reserved for members of the ruling families or members of their supporting tribes
  • First, to maintain their grip on authority, Arab political regimes tend to place close confidants in key positions even if they are not the most qualified for such positions.
  • In Syria, the key argument made in favor of selecting Basher Al Asad as the country’s president was that he was the son of the late president Hafez Al Asad.
  • study conducted by Kilani and Sakija in Jordan showed that 90% of the respondents believed that they would use wasta in the future.
  • In the Quran, Muslims are instructed that “the best that you can hire employee is one who is competent and trustworthy” (Quran, 28, 26). Prophet Mohamed is also reported to have said “He who is in a leadership position and appoints knowingly a person who is not qualified to manage, than he violates the command of God and His messenger”. He also stated “when a person assumes an authority over people and promotes one of them because of personal preferences, God will curse him for ever”.
  • Rising to high levels requires important connections. Receiving important privileges or benefits is contingent upon using the right connections.
  • Intercessory wasta on the other hand, involves someone intervening on behalf of a client to obtain an advantage or 2overcome a barrier from an authority figure. It is this type of wasta that affects hiring decisions.
  • Those who are supported by strong others will not be put down or rejected. Only the unconnected or unsupported are punished.
  • people who are related to important others (especially in government) are fortunate as they will have their demands or needs fulfilled. People serve those that are related to important people.
  • People tend to serve those that they know. Without knowing anybody, you will have difficulty getting the service you want.
  • The turban symbolizes a senior respected person. If you know a senior person, your demands will be meet. Similar to the second proverb
  • Intermediary wasta is utilized to facilitate the resolution of intergroup or interpersonal conflicts. In this system, wasta improves human relations and reinforces social norms.
  • Intermediary wasta is utilized to facilitate the resolution of intergroup or interpersonal conflicts. In this system, wasta improves human relations and reinforces social norms. Intercessory wasta on the other hand, involves someone intervening on behalf of a client to obtain an advantage or 2overcome a barrier from an authority figure. It is this type of wasta that affects hiring decisions.
  • feed feelings of injustice and frustration among those who are qualified for the job but do not have a wasta. Wasta is also different from the more popular nepotism and cronyism. While nepotism involves hiring of relatives and friends, wasta is not restricted to such groups and may involve strangers
  • may lead to poor job performance and economic decline.
  • Indeed, wasta is blamed for Arab world’s poor economic performance and brain drain (Al Maeena, 2003; Cunnigham & Sarayrah, 1994). Kilani and Sakijha (2002) stress that wasta is becoming a burden on its seeker, its granter and the government.
  • Arab wasta has been compared to the Chinese concept of guanxi. Both wasta and guanxi use social networks to influence the distribution of advantages and resources. However, while guanxi is based on Confucian ethics which focus on strengthening collective ties (Hutchings & Weir, 2006a; Hutchings & Weir, 2006b); wasta violates Muslim ethics which prescribe hiring the most qualified.
  • Wasta plays a critical role in hiring and promotion decisions in Arab organizations. Before applying to a position, applicants may seek out a wasta to improve their chances of being hired. A person with poor qualifications but a strong wasta will be favored over a person who is more qualified but does not have a wasta. Because many people may apply with wasta, the applicant with the most important wasta often gets the position.
  • allieggg on 05 Oct 14
     
    Compiled by faculty members at the German University in Cairo, this working paper series addresses the effect that watsa has on competence and morality in Middle Eastern economics and society. The authors define watsa as, "the intervention of a patron in favor of a client to obtain benefits and/or resources from a third party." In simpler terms it is a system of social networking in Arab culture in which family and social ties play a significant role in the attainment of economic advantages and resources, largely in the hiring process in businesses and organizations. A person applying for a job seeks out watsa to increase their chances of getting hired. Comparable to nepotism and cronyism, but is not restricted to friends and associates, watsa can also involve strangers linked through some social web of people. Watsa runs somewhat parallel to a Chinese concept of guanxi, based on Confucian ethics and focusing on strong collective ties. While guanxi is a part of Chinese ethics it actually defies Muslim ethical values, which advocates hiring the person most capable. In a Jordanian survey, 87% of respondents want watsa eradicated. While we know that unemployment in the Arab region is widespread, we can assume that this motivates people to do anything they can to improve their chances of obtaining a job. However, the practice of watsa as a whole is actually degrading the economic systems in the Arab sates even further. The article explains the linkage between watsa and poor job performance, economic decline, and the festering of injustice and frustration among the masses in Arab countries.
  • micklethwait on 07 Oct 14
     
    This looks super interesting, but I can't get the link to open. Thanks for writing a thorough summary of it!
tdford333

Drone Strike in Yemen Said to Kill Senior Qaeda Figure - NYTimes.com - 1 views

www.nytimes.com/...en-killed-in-drone-strike.html

drone strikes yemen

shared by tdford333 on 15 Feb 15 - No Cached
  • Drone Strike in Yemen Said to Kill Senior Qaeda Figure
  • Jan. 31, destroyed a car in Shabwah Province, in southern Yemen, killing four of its members who were inside. One of them, the statement said, was Harith al-Nadhari, an ideologue who had publicly praised the attack on the French satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo.
  • Houthi fighters forced the resignation of President Abdu Rabbu Mansour Hadi on Jan. 22
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • The Houthis, though bitter enemies of Al Qaeda, have publicly opposed American drone strikes in Yemen. But they have apparently done nothing to interfere with the strikes since they took de facto control last month, and the American military has said the strikes will continue.
  • Mr. Nadhari praised their actions and said that France would face further attacks if it did not halt its “aggression against the Muslims.”
zackellogg

Qatar asks senior Muslim Brotherhood leaders to leave country - 0 views

www.theguardian.com/...od-leaders-leave-country-morsi

egypt Muslim Qatar

shared by zackellogg on 06 Oct 14 - No Cached
  • zackellogg on 06 Oct 14
     
    This article discusses Qatar's reasons for asking the Muslim Brotherhood to leave the country. According to this article, many leaders of the Brotherhood have agreed to leave the Gulf state for the time being.
  • micklethwait on 07 Oct 14
     
    That is a huge surprise, as Qatar become something like a foreign sponsor for Morsi's presidency and floated a lot of loan offers to Egypt to ensure the success of his administration. (It didn't work, but that's another story.)
cbrock5654

Turkey's Clumsy Politics and the Kurdish Question - 0 views

www.aljazeera.com/...rdish-q-20149297242780917.html

ISIL Turkey Kurdistan ISIS PKK Kurds

shared by cbrock5654 on 13 Oct 14 - No Cached
  • cbrock5654 on 13 Oct 14
     
    This is an opinion piece written by Cegniz Aktar, Senior Scholar at the Istanbul Policy Center, a director at the UN, and one of the leading advocates of Turkey's integration into the EU. In this piece, Aktar argues that Turkish politician "fearing the birth of a Kurdish nation-state more than anything but eager on the other hand to assert their regional supremacy, are ending up by alienating all three Kurdish communities" in Iraq, Syria, and Turkey. He is referring specifically to President Ankara making a speech comparing the PKK to ISIL, a few days after stating that the PKK should be fighting ISIL rather than Turkey. Even though the Turkish government has been an economic partner of the Iraqi Kurds, they have offered them no military support, and have also preventing Turkish Kurds from joining the fight against ISIL. The Turkish government's fear of a sovereign Kurdish state is leading to extremely poor diplomatic outcomes.
kristaf

Jordan Arrests Muslim Brotherhood Official Over Criticism of United Arab Emirates - NYT... - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...herhood-zaki-bani-rushaid.html

#Jordan #MuslimBrotherhood #UAE

shared by kristaf on 23 Nov 14 - No Cached
  • kristaf on 23 Nov 14
     
    According to the article "Mr. Bani Rushaid was arrested on charges of harming relations with a friendly country." The arrest of Mr. Bani Rushaid took place in Jordan because the Muslim Brotherhood's senior leader criticized the United Arab Emirates. Rushaid, had apparently stated that the United Arab Emirates had been "sponsoring terrorism" and "questioned the legitimacy of its rulers." 
katelynklug

President Sisi's Worldview - 0 views

www.washingtoninstitute.org/...president-sisis-worldview

Sisi washington institute Egpyt economy

shared by katelynklug on 21 Nov 14 - No Cached
  • katelynklug on 21 Nov 14
     
    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.
cramos8

US Airstrikes Kill Three Top ISIS Leaders in Iraq - 0 views

abcnews.go.com/...story

ISIS Iraq war politics revolution

shared by cramos8 on 22 Feb 15 - No Cached
  • cramos8 on 22 Feb 15
     
    Three senior ISIS leaders have been killed in recent weeks by U.S. airstrikes inside Iraq, including the terror group's right-hand man, the Pentagon confirmed. The news comes as the American commander leading the U.S. effort against ISIS in Iraq and Syria says coalition efforts are having a "significant impact" on the terror group's operations.
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.
wmulnea

Strife in Libya Could Presage Long Civil War - NYTimes.com - 1 views

www.nytimes.com/...libyan-unrest.html

shared by wmulnea on 21 Sep 14 - No Cached
  • Salah Badi, an ultraconservative Islamist and former lawmaker from the coastal city of Misurata.
  • Mr. Badi’s assault on Libya’s main international airport has now drawn the country’s fractious militias, tribes and towns into a single national conflagration that threatens to become a prolonged civil war. Both sides see the fight as part of a larger regional struggle, fraught with the risks of a return to repressive authoritarianism or a slide toward Islamist extremism.
  • the violence threatens to turn Libya into a pocket of chaos destabilizing North Africa for years to come.
  • ...37 more annotations...
  • Ansar al-Shariah, the hard-line Islamist group involved in the assault on the American diplomatic Mission in Benghazi in 2012
  • Their opponents, including the militias stocked with former Qaddafi soldiers
  • The ideological differences are blurry at best: both sides publicly profess a similar conservative but democratic vision.
  • an escalating war among its patchwork of rival cities and tribes.
  • Motorists wait in lines stretching more than three miles at shuttered gas stations, waiting for them to open. Food prices are soaring, uncollected garbage is piling up in the streets and bicycles, once unheard-of, are increasingly common.
  • Tripoli, the capital and the main prize, has become a battleground
  • The fighting has destroyed the airport
  • Constant shelling between rival militias has leveled blocks
  • Storage tanks holding about 25 million gallons of fuel have burned unchecked for a month
  • with daily blackouts sometimes lasting more than 12 hours.
  • many Libyans despaired of any resolution
  • In Benghazi, Libya’s second-largest city, the fighting has closed both its airport and seaport, strangling the city.
  • the rush toward war is also lifting the fortunes of the Islamist extremists of Ansar al-Shariah, the Benghazi militant group.
  • The United Nations, the United States and the other Western powers have withdrawn their diplomats and closed their missions
  • “We cannot care more than you do,” the British ambassador, Michael Aron, wrote
  • Until now, a rough balance of power among local brigades had preserved a kind of equilibrium, if not stability
  • the transitional government scarcely existed outside of the luxury hotels where its officials gathered, no other force was strong enough to dominate. No single interest divided the competing cities and factions.
  • But that semblance of unity is now in tatters, and with it the hope that nonviolent negotiations might settle the competition for power and, implicitly, Libya’s oil.
  • In May, a renegade former general, Khalifa Hifter, declared that he would seize power by force to purge Libya of Islamists, beginning in Benghazi. He vowed to eradicate the hard-line Islamists of Ansar al-Shariah, blamed for a long series of bombings and assassinations.
  • General Hifter also pledged to close the Parliament and arrest moderate Islamist members
  • he has mustered a small fleet of helicopters and warplanes that have bombed rival bases around Benghazi, a steep escalation of the violence.
  • moderate Islamists and other brigades who had distanced themselves from Ansar al-Shariah began closing ranks, welcoming the group into a newly formed council of “revolutionary” militias
  • a broad alliance of Benghazi militias that now includes Ansar al-Shariah issued a defiant statement denouncing relative moderates like the Libyan Muslim Brotherhood. “We will not accept the project of democracy, secular parties, nor the parties that falsely claim the Islamic cause,”
  • the general’s blitz has now stalled, it polarized the country, drawing alarms from some cities and tribes but applause from others.
  • the loudest applause came from the western mountain town of Zintan, where local militia leaders had recruited hundreds of former Qaddafi soldiers into special brigades
  • the rival coastal city of Misurata, where militias have allied with the Islamists in political battles and jostled with the Zintanis for influence in the capital
  • the Misurata and Islamist militias developed a reputation for besieging government buildings and kidnapping high officials to try to pressure the Parliament. But in recent months the Zintanis and their anti-Islamist allies have stormed the Parliament and kidnapped senior lawmakers as well.
  • the newly elected Parliament, led at first, on a seniority basis, by a member supportive of Mr. Hifter, announced plans to convene in Tobruk, an eastern city under the general’s control.
  • About 30 members, most of them Islamists or Misuratans, refused to attend,
  • Tripoli’s backup airport, under the control of an Islamist militia, has cut off flights to Tobruk, even blocking a trip by the prime minister.
  • a spokesman for the old disbanded Parliament, favored by the Islamists and Misuratans, declared that it would reconvene in Tripoli
  • In Tobruk, a spokesman for the new Parliament declared that the Islamist- and Misuratan-allied militias were terrorists, suggesting that Libya might soon have two legislatures with competing armies
  • Each side has the support of competing satellite television networks financed and, often, broadcast from abroad, typically from Qatar for the Islamists and from the United Arab Emirates for their foes.
  • Hassan Tatanaki, a Libyan-born business mogul who owns one of the anti-Islamist satellite networks, speaking in an interview from an office in the Emirates. “We are in a state of war and this is no time for compromise.”
  • Fighters and tribes who fought one another during the uprising against Colonel Qaddafi are now coming together on the same side of the new fight, especially with the Zintanis against the Islamists. Some former Qaddafi officers who had fled Libya are even coming back to take up arms again.
  • “It is not pro- or anti-Qaddafi any more — it is about Libya,” said a former Qaddafi officer in a military uniform
  • Beneath the battle against “extremists,” he said, was an even deeper, ethnic struggle: the tribes of Arab descent, like the Zintanis, against those of Berber, Circassian or Turkish ancestry, like the Misuratis. “The victory will be for the Arab tribes,”
  • andrea_hoertz on 21 Sep 14
     
    Article explains the civil war that is erupting in Libya. Islamist extremists are trying to take over the country and towns and tribes of Libya are choosing sides. Tripoli has been the biggest battle ground and its airport was destroyed.
  • wmulnea on 11 Apr 15
     
    This NYT article gives an excellent outline of the prominent factions fighting in Libya, and the purpose and goals of those factions as of Aug, 2014.
  • wmulnea on 11 Apr 15
     
    This NYT article gives an excellent outline of the prominent factions fighting in Libya, and the purpose and goals of those factions as of Aug, 2014.
ralph0

Isis 'war minister' targeted in Syria had been in Georgian army | World news | The Guar... - 0 views

www.theguardian.com/...yria-had-been-in-georgian-army

isis usa war minister syria

shared by ralph0 on 10 Mar 16 - No Cached
  • ralph0 on 10 Mar 16
     
    This article talks about a senior figure of ISIS by the name of Tarkhan Batirashvili. It turns out, one of the big figures at the head of ISIS is far from Syrian, as he is a Chechen that served in the US-trained Georgian army.
cguybar

The Muslim Brotherhood Struggles in a New Egypt | TIME - 0 views

time.com/...m-brotherhood-egypt-sisi-morsi

muslim brotherhood Middle East politics

shared by cguybar on 06 Apr 16 - No Cached
  • cguybar on 06 Apr 16
     
    Discusses the leadership role in the Muslim Brotherhood, and how it has changed overtime due to many of the senior leaders being jailed. Gives the affects of these actions relative to the Brotherhood rather than anything else in the country.
diamond03

Egypt's deep-seated culture of sexism - 1 views

www.middleeastmonitor.com/...-deep-seated-culture-of-sexism

egypt culture sexism women's rights

shared by diamond03 on 22 Sep 14 - No Cached
  • Don't worry, women have smaller brains than men."
  • in the Qur'an
  • od's right given to men to command women."
  • ...32 more annotations...
  • "Women overstate the problem
  • harassment
  • gently to ask why they thought it was OK to do it.
  • 99.3 per cent
  • nearly all of the Egyptian women
  • a sleaze-ball while she was pre
  • reported sexual harassment on a too regular basis. One even reported being whistled at by a sleaze-ball while she was pre
  • regular basis. One even reported being whistled at by a sleaze-ball while she was pre
  • deep-rooted culture of male sexism that pervades Egyptian society was clear.
  • sexual harassment law needs to be defined better
  • gender very much defines your experience of walking the streets of Egypt.
  • Twenty-eight per cent of Egyptian women reported being victims of domestic violence
  • UNESCO estimates that a third of Egyptian females will still be illiterat
  • married off at the age of just twelve or thirteen
  • experienced some form of sexual harassment
  • president Adly Mansour approved a new sexual harassment law
  • men are required to report incidents to their local police station, taking the assailant with t
  • described the law as "weak and unclear.
  • nds are too often dismayed when the
  • senior officer simply calls the husband, who takes the woman home
  • Egypt as the worst country for women's rights among twenty-two Arab League states.
  • In the short-term, the
  • propose anonymity for women
  • formed protection squads
  • Tahrir Bodyguard,
  • civil society group
  • President Al-Sisi was elected on a patronising notion of gender.
  • 2011 uprising;
  • Al-Sisi saw the role of a good Egyptian housewife as "encouraging men and children to work
  • Al-Sisi is less about burning the bra and more dousing it with dishwater.
  • His popularity amongst women's rights activists wasn't helped given that he also presented himself as a stereotypical masculine man
  • time for him to step up to the mark on women's rights.
  • diamond03 on 22 Sep 14
     
    Women in Egypt continue to fight for their rights. They continue to be abused even with laws that aim to protect them. 
cbrock5654

Turkey and the PKK: How to deal with Syria's Kurds - 0 views

www.economist.com/...-unsettles-government-how-deal

PKK ISIS Turkey ISIL

shared by cbrock5654 on 13 Oct 14 - No Cached
  • cbrock5654 on 13 Oct 14
     
    This is a news report by The Economist about the Turkish government's reaction to ISIL's assault on Kobane, a Kurdish town in Syria on the border of Turkey. This town is one of three enclaves that are governed by the Kurds. Turkey ceded the area to PKK control, but PKK leaders claim that by not assisting in the fight, the Turkish government is supporting ISIS, because it has a deep-rooted fear of any Kurdish autonomy.
  • cbrock5654 on 13 Oct 14
     
    A SENIOR commander of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), a rebel group that has been fighting for Kurdish self-rule inside Turkey since 1984, declared on...
alarsso

Syria's beleaguered Christians - BBC News - 0 views

www.bbc.com/...world-middle-east-22270455

syria civil war middle east religion Christians

shared by alarsso on 15 Apr 15 - No Cached
  • Christian men have been fighting in the multi-layered conflict - either alongside Kurdish militias or alongside relatively secular rebel factions, or government forces.
  • 10% of Syria's 22 million people.
  • Greek Orthodox Church,
  • ...16 more annotations...
  • Christians have long been among Syria's elite
  • The founder of the Baath Party
  • was a Christian, and Christians rose to senior positions in the party, government and security forces
  • not seen to have any real power compared with their Alawite and Sunni colleagues.
  • large proportion
  • Sunnis also tolerated or supported the Assads,
  • guarantors of stability
  • When pro-democracy protests erupted
  • many Christians were cautious and tried to avoid taking sides.
  • Melkite Greek Catholic Patriarch Gregorios III Laham said last year that more than 1,000 Christians had been killed, entire villages cleared, and dozens of churches and Christian centres damaged or destroyed.
  • This has led some Christians to express support for President Assad,
  • if President Assad is overthrown, Christians will be targeted and communities destroyed as many were in Iraq after the US-led invasion in 2003.
  • concerned by the coming to power of Islamist parties in post-revolutionary Egypt and Tunisia.
  • Other Christians are believed to be assisting the opposition.
  • Syrian National Council, whose leader
  • is from a Christian family.
  • alarsso on 15 Apr 15
     
    Thsi article explores the state of Christians in Syria. Patriarch Gregorios and Bishop Ibrahim add to this discussion.
cramos8

The rise and rise of Libya's rogue general - 0 views

www.aljazeera.com/...e-general-150304054937973.html

ISIS politics war revolution libya

shared by cramos8 on 08 Mar 15 - No Cached
  • cramos8 on 08 Mar 15
     
    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.
nfyffe

Iran forces kill PJAK terrorists: Cmdr. - 2 views

www.presstv.com/...rces-kill-pjak-terrorists-cmdr

shared by nfyffe on 28 Sep 14 - No Cached
  • nfyffe on 28 Sep 14
     
    Iranian military troops have killed a number of terrorists from the so-called Party for Free Life of Kurdistan (PJAK) group seeking to cross the western borders into the country, a senior Iranian commander says.
mpatel5

After airstrikes, questions abound over fate of ISIS leader - 0 views

www.cnn.com/...index.html

ISIS leader; al-Baghdadi Iraq US Iran

shared by mpatel5 on 11 Nov 14 - No Cached
  • mpatel5 on 11 Nov 14
     
    (CNN) -- He's enemy No. 1 in the fight against ISIS. But after waves of airstrikes by both Iraq and U.S.-led coalition forces, questions abound over whether the terror group's leader was hit. Iraq's Ministry of Interior said the Iraqi air force wounded ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and killed a number of his senior leaders in an airstrike on the Iraqi town of Al-Qaem on Saturday.
nfyffe

Iran general helped Iraq's Kurds battle IS group - 1 views

www.washingtonpost.com/...4-8042-aaff1640082e_story.html

shared by nfyffe on 29 Sep 14 - No Cached
  • nfyffe on 29 Sep 14
     
    TEHRAN, Iran - A top Iranian general and 70 of his forces were on the ground in Iraq this summer, helping Kurdish fighters defend the regional capital Irbil against Islamic State militants, a senior commander from Iran's Revolutionary Guard said Wednesday.
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