Group items tagged

This is a study that provides statistics from different locations around the world for sexual harassment. Among those included are the US, Egypt, and Canada.

A terribly interesting article--these are in many ways the reasons I choose not to focus on Israel and Palestine; it's so, so difficult to negotiate the discourses and feelings tangled up in this conflict.

No one knows how Giulio Regeni was murdered, or by whom. But from the moment the body of the 28-year-old Italian graduate student was found on the side of the road in a Cairo suburb, suspicion has fallen on Egypt's security services. The Middle East Studies Association has now issued a security alert for study and research in Egypt.

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.

This looks super interesting, but I can't get the link to open. Thanks for writing a thorough summary of it!

Author Heba Elsayed gives a preview of the study she conducted to observe the lower middle class in Cairo. Elsayed describes Cairo as a microcosm of globalization in urban centers. She describes the unique role of Cosmopolitanism in analyzing trends of globalization. She focuses on the lower middle class who, she says, plays the biggest role in incorporating multiple viewpoints in daily life rather than practicing exclusivity like the upper middle class. In addition, she describes cosmopolitanism in terms of internal heterogeneity, describing an 'onion model' of the world, in which the local and national form the core and inner layers and the international and global form the outer layers. She also mentions that nation-states can no longer be regarded as the primary reference point for global citizenry.

Jabeur Khachnaoui, a terrorist of the attack on the Bardo museum had an older brother who at the same time was attending a rally against terrorism on the other side of town. The two brothers grew up in a family with three other siblings in Tunisia's impoverished southwest. They were close but ended up deeply divided in their outlooks.

This is an interesting article concerning Minister Naftali Bennet. He will empowering Eastern Jewish Cultural Studies within the general curriculum. This would be a way to de-stigmatize Judaism and help with interfaith commuication

This article discusses how women have been treated differently since the beginning of time. Things began to change once women began to stand up for themselves in protests. 

Egypt's tradition of was not initially oppressive. The 1973 war in the Middle East introduced Egyptians to Wahhabis values.

About Mozn Hassan, the founder of Nazra for Feminist studies. The global fund for women advocates for equality.

The hack into Sony Pictures by North Korea will most likely be studied by other nations seeking to engage in cyber deterrents and pressures. Cyber security experts believe that the hack will set a precedent that Iran is probably studying, observing the US response.

Equality does not mean justice for women in Egypt, according to some.

A survey ranked Egypt 22nd, dead last, among all Arab states for women's rights. Categories vary from women in politics, women's rights, and domestic violence with women.

This was an article (originally published by the Independent, however, I found it on their website via my first article from the BBC) by the International Center for the Study of Radicalization and Political Violence of London. The article suggests, allowing fighters to return home safely and enroll in a De-radicalization program would be more beneficial than current policies of severe punishment (prison, stripping of citizenship, etc.). The authors contend current repercussions for fighters returning to their home countries leave them trapped and isolated and prison sentences often lead to further radicalization. Overall this article really captured my attention in its non-conventional proposal for governments to handle these situations.

Under King Abdullah, Saudi Arabia has modernized key aspects of the Saudi justice system and also other aspects. so this article talks about the crisis might happened when king Abdullah dies.