he Global Education Dialogue conference of the British Council discussed at length some of the global experiences, best practice, challenges and solutions toward Quality Assurance in Education.
e conference provided a safe space for candid conversations in formal and informal settings, and a unique opportunity to identify and discuss common challenges and share ideas, insights and experiences that might help to overcome these obstacles and to bridge the gap across the international communities.
This article focuses on how the British council created a space to discuss the quality of education with other countries educators. Specifically, the moroccan and egyptian educators worked to learn from the UK about quality higher education.
Oct. 22. As the Egyptian government's crackdown on dissent broadened over the last year, university campuses have increasingly been in the crosshairs as one of the last remaining spaces for dissent. Despite efforts to quell political activity on college campuses, there have been at least 58 protests on college campuses since the first week of classes at the beginning of October. As campuses like Cairo University crack down on security and bans on political activity, Egyptian authorities are also attempting to control the activities of the youth. Sisi reinstated the law of appointing university presidents. The administration knows its weakness is the youth population, since all its support comes from the older generation of Egyptians. However, although he acknowledges there grievances, he basically tells them to stay out of the politics that should be reserved for the older generation. By taking this tone with the Egyptian youth, Sisi risks alienating the population and pushing them to join back in alliances between secular and religous groups.
As Iran develops their cyber warfare tactics, Israel is looking to develop a "digital Iron dome" to combat against it. They believe they need to be on a superpower level as far as cyber space is concerned or else be vulnerable to Iranian attacks.
What a waste of space. All this article says is that, "we must fight ISIS in a way that divides them." It is however my first read that has been about ISIS in Libya, since I was originally more focused on Syria. I would like to see how that turns out, especially since the US is to responsible for this in my opinion. I want to see if the US will wash its hands of this conflict after killing Gaddafi, or if there will be real attempts to stop ISIS in Libya.
Ruth Hanau Santini writes on women's rights in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya in the wake of the Arab Awakening. After female activists played a prominent role in actions leading to the recent leadership changes, Santini argues that women have been marginalized in the political space and their voices sidelined.
Iraq and Syria have become “international finishing schools” for extremists according to a UN report which says the number of foreign fighters joining terrorist groups has spiked to more than 25,000 from more than 100 countrie
monitoring UN sanctions against al-Qaida estimates the number of overseas terrorist fighters worldwide increased by 71% between mid-2014 and March 2015
problem had increased over the past three years and the flow of foreign fighters was “higher than it has ever been historically
risen sharply from a few thousand … a decade ago to more than 25,000 today
The report said just two countries had drawn more than 20,000 foreign fighters: Syria and Iraq. They went to fight primarily for the Islamic State group
ited the “high number” of foreign fighters from Tunisia, Morocco, France and Russia, the increase in fighters from the Maldives, Finland and Trinidad and Tobago, and the first fighters from some countries in sub-Saharan Africa which it did not name. The groups had also found recruits from Britain and Australia.
A military defeat of the Islamic State group in Syria and Iraq could have the unintended consequence of scattering violent foreign terrorist fighters across the world
while governments are focusing on countering the threat from fighters returning home, the panel said it was possible that some may be traumatised by what they saw and need psychological help, and that others may be recruited by criminal networks.
The number of countries the fighters come from has also risen dramatically from a small group in the 1990s to more than 100 today — more than half the countries in the world
foreign fighters who travelled to Syria and Iraq were living and working in “a veritable ‘international finishing school’ for extremists”, as was the case in Afghanistan in the 199
an urgent global security problem” that needed to be tackled on many fronts and had no easy solution
With globalised travel, it said, the chance of a person from any country becoming a victim of a foreign terrorist attack was growing “particularly with attacks targeting hotels, public spaces and venues
It said the most effective policy was to prevent the radicalisation, recruitment and travel of would-be fighters.
one of China’s main strategic regional projects was the economic region (or belt) of the 21st century Great Silk Road and the Maritime Silk Road, which intends to create a wide area of Chinese economic presence from China’s western borders to Europe
clearly comprises the countries of Western Asia (i.e., the Middle East)
Chinese leader opened the Sixth Ministerial Meeting of the China-Arab Cooperation Forum on June 5 in Beijing
energy cooperation; infrastructure construction and creation of favorable conditions for trade and investment; and high-tech domains of nuclear energy, the space rocket sector and new energy sources
suggested that the creation of a free trade zone between China and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) be accelerated
China supports the peace process and the establishment of an independent Palestinian state within the borders of June 4, 1967, with East Jerusalem as its capital, "enjoying full sovereignty."
, why shouldn’t Russia and China in the current situation — given the proximity of their interests and positions — undertake joint initiatives to unblock the peace process, while initiating steps to "introduce this activity within an institutional framework?
, the unilateral efforts by US Secretary of State John Kerry to promote the Israeli-Palestinian peace process are not bearing fruit
Russia is interested in using this unprecedented convergence with China in its operations on the Middle East arena, where Moscow has in many ways already been acting in unison with Beijing
, the Middle East Quartet is one of few international platforms where Russia can constructively engage with the United States and the EU
China's growing economic cooperation with Arab countries not a cause for concern in Moscow, but it is also viewed in a very favorable light
will not one day replace the United States as the security guarantor for the transportation routes of these resources
Moscow’s and Beijing’s interests converge in the joint countering of terrorism, extremism and separatism
. Among the militants from radical groups fighting against government troops in Syria, there are people hailing not only from Russia and Central Asia (fewer in numbers to those coming from Arab and Islamic as well as Western countries), but also from the Uighur minority in China.
recently, Beijing came under harsh criticism from Ankara for its actions in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region against the Uighur population, which the Turks believe to be their next of kin
. Disappointed by the failure of EU accession, the Turkish leadership has even started talking about the desire to join the SCO as an observer
Ankara expresses its willingness to cooperate with China in the fight against terrorists and condemns the separatism coming from some groups in Xinjiang
There is no doubt that a comprehensive strategic partnership, in which Russia and China would act in concert along the political consensus reached by their two leaders, would in the short term
According to both, this convergence is neither a union nor a tournament of predators, but a very pragmatic integrationist instrument of protection and projection of interests by the two powers, including in the Middle East.
the Middle East was not the focus of the talks between the two leaders
roughly 50 agreements ushering in a period of unprecedented convergence between the two countries
seems to allow the two parties to seek further coordination in their actions
Such consensus includes Syria, despite Beijing’s lesser involvement on this issue, relative to Moscow; Iran, within the P5+1 (the five permanent UN Security Council members plus Germany) negotiations with Tehran over its nuclear program; the fight against terrorism and extremism; the creation of a weapons of mass destruction-free Middle East; the condemnation of external intervention and the strategy of "regime change" as well as the push for "color revolutions;" the policy to reach a settlement in the Middle East; and relations with the new Egyptian regime and with respect to the Sudanese issues.
Twitter app called The Dawn of Glad Tidings, or just Dawn.
way to keep up on the latest news about the jihadi group.
Once you sign up, the app will post tweets to your account
spaced out to avoid triggering Twitter’s spam-detection algorithms
organized hashtag campaigns
repetitively tweet hashtags at certain times of day so that they trend on the social network.
ISIS hashtag consistently outperforms that of the group’s main competitor in Syria, Jabhat al-Nusra, even though the two groups have a similar number of supporters online.
ISIS also uses hashtags to focus-group messaging and branding concepts, much like a Western corporation might.
ISIS does have legitimate support online—but less than it might seem.
Author J.M. Berger discusses ISIS's strategy on Twitter, comparing their highly skilled techniques on this platform to the likes of a P.R./ marketing team working for a Western corporation. Berger goes on to discuss programs that automatically post tweets to users accounts, an app they developed that provides updates, and an intricate system able to surpass Twitter's spam and security teams.
users consent to allowing ISIS to post to their social-media accounts. To avoid Twitter’s spam-detection algorithms, Berger noted, the app even spaces out its posts.
27,000 Twitter accounts that mentioned the ISIS positively.
40,000 tweets in a single day,
700,000 accounts discussed the terrorist group.
ISIS tries to get its content to trend globally.
using a #worldcup2014
“When an account gets shut down, a new one is immediately created, and they use other guys to promote the [new] account,” Truvé tells me. “It’s kind of a whack-a-mole thing.”
“The volume of those tweets was enough to make any search for ‘Baghdad’ on Twitter generate the image among its first results,” Berger noted, “which is certainly one means of intimidating the city’s residents.”
, propaganda has one crucial deficiency: It’s not the truth.
Author Jillian Melchoir relates recent participation in groups like ISIS as spawning a new type of modern warfare. Melchoir continues, describing ISIS's presence on Twitter where they regularly get their content to trend globally for example hijacking popular hasthags like #worldcup2014.