long history of political animosity; this is a history that continues until our present day.
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As Syria Devolves Further, Allies Criticize American Policy - The New York Times - 0 views
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It really frustrates me that the US is often very outspoken about rights, freedom and democracy. Yet time and time again, I have seen that politics are nothing more than a pursuit of interests. The US continues its "ambiguity" of action in Syria, essentially furthering the spread of chaos. Now Turkey, and important US ally is frustrated that the US has been siding with alleged Kurdish terrorist groups.
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How long can Saudi Arabia afford Yemen war? - Al-Monitor: the Pulse of the Middle East - 14 views
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Yemen's treasury was burdened by the costs of unification such as paying for southern civil servants to move to the new capital, Sanaa, and paying interest on its massive debt. On top of its other economic challenges, Yemen was to absorb the shock of 800,000 returnees and their pressure on the already weak job market. With their return, the estimated $350 million a month in remittances
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Civil war broke out in the summer of 1994 in what could be interpreted as a symptom of economic failure.
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By 1995 the Yemeni government implemented a program of macroeconomic adjustment and structural reforms with support from the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund and reduced spending on defense and civil service and cut subsidies. The Yemeni economy started showing signs of recovery and stability.
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Masood Ahmed, director of the IMF’s Middle East and Central Asia Department, wrote in 2012 that “fiscal sustainability will be an issue” for Gulf Cooperation Council countries. In its 2012 regional economic outlook, the IMF recommended to “curtail current expenditures while protecting the poor” as a response to the risk of declining oil prices.
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Policies to cut spending were unlikely to be introduced in a monarchy like Saudi Arabia, especially after the Arab Spring, where tax-paying citizens along with non-tax-paying Bahrainis and next-door Yemenis went out on the streets to claim their rights in shaping the policies that govern their daily lives. The risk of people demanding more political rights was growing and cutting spending was not the optimal strategy for the kingdom.
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As the kingdom continued its generous fiscal policy by providing more benefits to its citizens in response to the people’s dissatisfaction with the economic and political situation, it ran a deficit of 3.4% of GDP in 2014 due to a fall in oil revenues.
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The kingdom's economic reforms of raising gas and diesel prices, cutting fuel subsidies in half and supporting the introduction of a GCC-wide value-added tax might ease the pressure of sustaining a war for nine months and perhaps longer. These structural reforms were long overdue and their introduction at this time is revealing.
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CIG pg. 120 -> "We live in a world with many layers of linkages between countries. Nations will exchange goods and services through trade and will engage in cross-border investments from bank loans to setting up businesses. Each of these linkages can serve as a transmission mechanism in a time of crisis."
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the political inclusion of the taxpaying citizen. It's a price the kingdom is now willing to pay, as we have seen Saudi women not only
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and suffered an uprising fueled by anger at economic failure. The Saudi economy is trying to absorb
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As they introduce revenue-collecting mechanisms, they should also reform mechanisms of capital transfer to the public to minimize the gap between the rich and the poor, as it is known that the poor are the most affected by tighter revenue-collecting policies. Otherwise, the Saudi war on Yemen will mark the beginning of an economic downturn that will surely spill over onto its political system in the long run.
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"So the young revolutionaries fight on, until all their demands are met and they are free to build their State: a state founded on social justice and equality between all citizens where Saleh's reign is just a page in the history books." pg 129
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CIG pg. 116 -> "Globalization, in the shape of freer trade and multinational investments, has been generally a force for good and economic prosperity. But it has also advanced, rather than harmed, social agendas"
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But it became apparent that Saleh was not going to leave me to my own devices. He declared war in mid-1994, occupying the South and defeating the Socialist Party. Everything was finished, or so I believed. Its property stolen by the regime, the paper shut down, and once more I found myself broken, defeated and without hope. Worse, I was a known employee of the Socialist Party through my work at the paper. In the region where I lived agents for the regime had been hunting down and detaining anyone who had belonged to the Socialist Party or getting them fired from their jobs. Although I had not been a party member myself, just worked at a party newspaper, the regime made no distinction. My mother intervened, however, and hid me. She wouldn't let me out of the house. My mother always protects me. (2013-12-31). Diaries of an Unfinished Revolution: Voices from Tunis to Damascus (p. 115). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
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Civil War: in 1994 Jamal currently in high school, describes the times as a world, when the color of his skin would define him. The Civil War, "interpreted as a symptom of economic failure", was evident in the reading when Jamal described the lack of jobs as a college graduate, members of the socialist party were completely shut out when Saleh took the presidency, depriving hard workers the ability to integrate into the economy.
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This paragraph, while not highlighted, is important to the idea of globalization and why the war is not stopping. There is a flow of revenue from these oil prices that Yemen is reliant on, but they are also competing with countries that produce higher amounts of oil. This would have happened during the time Sanaa was in College writing scathing articles
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Heat-Seeking Missiles in Syria: The SA-7 in Action with Rebels - The New York Times - 0 views
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ISIS' Astounding Views of Jesus and the End Times - Charisma News - 0 views
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Truce, Cease-Fire and Armistice: The Legal Nuances - The New York Times - 0 views
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A New York Times article talking about the differences as far as legal terms between a truce, a cease-fire, and an armistice. I think that it's an excellent article to include because there's a lot of mixing and matching of these three terms by media sources when in actuality they are very different.
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U.S. Weaponry Is Turning Syria Into Proxy War With Russia - The New York Times - 0 views
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Violence Erupts in Greece as Migrants Try to Cross Into Macedonia - The New York Times - 0 views
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A New York Times article on the violence in Greece between Syrian refugees and the Macedonian border guards. The article talks about the Europeans not being able to come to a consensus on what to do with refugees. Additionally the page has a video of the protesters attempting to break through the barricade, which in response Macedonian authorities indiscriminately fired tear gas into a crowd including small children.
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Day 2 of Syrian Partial Truce Is Marred by Violence - The New York Times - 0 views
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Breaking News, Analysis, Politics, Blogs, News Photos, Video, Tech Reviews - TIME.com - 1 views
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Gender equality? It doesn't exist anywhere in the world - LA Times - 1 views
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t's been more than 100 years since the world began observing International Women's Day, and yet no country has achieved full gender equality.
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About two-thirds of countries in the developing world have achieved gender equality in primary education according to U.N. data, but the progress is less substantial at the secondary school level.
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In Africa and South Asia for example, boys remain 1.55 times more likely to complete secondary education than girls, according to World Bank data.
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Even when girls make it into the classroom they still “continue to face particular risk in chaotic conflict settings,”
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n Pakistan, for example, the Taliban has declared war on girls' education, and frequently attacks educational institutions
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“They don’t translate into greater equality in the labor market,” said Sarah Gammage, director of gender, economic empowerment and livelihoods at the International Center for Research on Women. “Around the world women have disproportionately been part of the informal economy.”
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hey are typically responsible for providing care services for family members, Gammage said. Other duties include child rearing, cooking, and other household chores. It is work for which they are not paid. Women perform three times more unpaid work than men, according to the U.N.’s 2015 Human Development Report.
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eing able to make decisions, such as voting, owning land, and deciding whom to marry “is where we see the most significant difference between the least developed and developed countries,” said Varia.
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In Saudi Arabia, women are not permitted to drive and cannot open bank accounts without their husbands' permissio
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Honor killings, the traditional practice that allows the slaying of a family member who is believed to have brought dishonor on a family, claims thousands of women’s lives every year in South and Central Asia.
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This article is a response to International Women's Day, saying that gender equality doesn't exist in the world. In the middle of the article, they show a chart of the gender gap between men and women. Egypt is last in the chart.
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This article goes into depth about the inequality in the Middle East which extends to today. This looks at the ideas of democratization which would promote higher education. Greater rights for women. and improve infant morality rates
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Has the New York Times Just Provided Proof of Muslim Brotherhood Influence Operations i... - 0 views
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This article discusses the growing suspicions that have risen from the Muslim Brotherhood. According to many, the Muslim Brotherhood has an active influence on the Obama Administration.
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Ironically, the Muslim Brotherhood has come to be seen by some in the State Department as a force of moderation in contemporary Islamist politics. You should look at the recent New York Times op-ed criticizing Sisi for cracking down on the Brotherhood.
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Bahia Shehab: A thousand times no - YouTube - 0 views
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Egyptian art historian and graffiti artist, Bahia Shehab, discusses how she was first commissioned for an art piece in 2010 called "A Thousand Times No" that consisted of the way the word "no" had been represented in history over different continents in different art works. This later translated into her graffitiing the word all over Egypt as a way to speak out again the dictators and the violence that she witnessed.
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BBC News - Russia and China veto UN move to refer Syria to ICC - 0 views
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Russia and China have vetoed a UN Security Council resolution that would have referred the conflict in Syria to the International Criminal Court (ICC
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More than 60 countries supported the French-drafted text calling for an investigation into alleged war crimes being committed by both sides
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It is the fourth time Russia and China have blocked Western resolutions relating to the situation in Syria
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The 13 other members of the Security Council voted on Thursday in favour of the draft resolution, which condemned the "widespread violation" of human rights and international humanitarian law by Syrian government forces, as well as abuses by "non-state armed groups
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France put forward the draft after the collapse of the UN-sponsored peace talks in Geneva in January and February, and amid growing horror at atrocities committed by both sides, reports the BBC's Barbara Plett Usher in New Yor
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The Syrian government had called the resolution "biased" and an effort to "sabotage any chance of peaceful settlement of the Syrian crisis led by the Syrian people themselves
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US envoy Samantha Power said that because of Russia and China's decision "to back the Syrian regime no matter what it does, the Syrian people will not see justice
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Syria is not a party to the Rome Statute, the treaty establishing the ICC. Unless the government ratifies the treaty or accepts the jurisdiction of the court through a declaration, the ICC can only obtain jurisdiction if the Security Council refers the situation there to the court
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Russia and China once again veto a resolution that would have lead to an investigation by the International Criminal Court (ICC) of Syrian governments possible violation of human rights, and international humanitarian law. This is the fourth time both countries have vetoed resolutions relating to the situation in Syria.
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Saudi Women Right to Drive Activists Tap Twitter - 0 views
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This article, from the Times, discusses the transition seen in Saudi Arabia after the death of Kind Abdullah. It specifically discusses the story of a woman, named Loujain Al Hathloul, who drove illegally and was stopped by police. The police took her passport and refused to let her drive. She took to Twitter about the experience as she sat for about a day in her car until she was arrested.
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Libya Plunges Deeper into Chaos After Parliament Declared Unconstitutional | TIME - 0 views
time.com/...rt-parliament-unconstitutional
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Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the Middle East's 30 year war » The Spectator - 0 views
www.spectator.co.uk/...armageddon-awaits
proxy wars leadership polarization US Saudi Iran the middle east war
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There are those who think that the region as a whole may be starting to go through something similar to what Europe went through in the early 17th century during the Thirty Years’ War, when Protestant and Catholic states battled it out. This is a conflict which is not only bigger than al-Qa’eda and similar groups, but far bigger than any of us. It is one which will re-align not only the Middle East, but the religion of Islam.
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Either way there will be a need for a Treaty of Westphalia-style solution — a redrawing of boundaries in a region where boundaries have been bursting for decades.
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But for the time being, a distinct and timeless stand-off between two regional powers, with religious excuses and religiously affiliated proxies will in all probability remain the main driver of this conflict.
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‘Saudi Arabia is the custodian of the Two Holy Mosques and the birthplace of Islam. As such, it is the eminent leader of the wider Muslim world. Iran portrays itself as the leader of not just the minority Shiite world, but of all Muslim revolutionaries interested in standing up to the West.’
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‘Saudi Arabia will oppose any and all of Iran’s actions in other countries, because it is Saudi Arabia’s position that Iran has no right to meddle in other nations’ internal affairs, especially those of Arab states.’
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Saudi officials more recently called for the Iranian leadership to be summoned to the International Criminal Court in The Hague for war crimes. Then, just the month before last, as the P5+1 countries eased sanctions on Iran after arriving at an interim deal in Geneva, Saudi saw its greatest fear — a nuclear Iran — grow more likely. And in the immediate aftermath of the Geneva deal, Saudi sources darkly warned of the country now taking Iranian matters ‘into their own hands’. There are rumours that the Saudis would buy nuclear bombs ‘off the shelf’ from their friends in Pakistan if Iran ever reaches anything like the nuclear threshold. In that case, this Westphalian solution could be prefaced with a mushroom cloud.
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This article touches on an array of ideas but for the sake of my research I focused on the "Thirty Years War" section. Douglass Murray from The Spectator conveys the perspective that the Middle East is likely to be going through a similar 17th century European 30 years war, when Protestant and Catholics launched a full fledged war against one another. This means that religious war in the Middle East is so much bigger than just al-Qaeda and similar groups. The conflict will re-align the region, but also the entire religion of Islam. Douglass says the outcome would call for a Treaty of Westphalia-style solution, redrawing boundaries of a region where they've been bursting for decades. For the time being the drivers of the conflict is a standoff between the two regional powers and their affiliated proxies, Saudi Arabia and Iran.
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Ben Affleck's Attack on 'Islamophobia' Inspires One Muslim Woman To Write An Open Lette... - 0 views
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After the heated argument Ben Affleck had with Real Time host Bill Maher, people are still debating the topic of Islam in the world. A Muslim woman named Eiynah has entered the discussion, and directed her opinion of the often archaic nature of Islam in an open letter to Affleck, which was posted on Pakistan Today : Dear Ben, I am writing to you today as a woman who was born and raised in Islam. This topic is interesting because liberals in the West are so annoyed by the rhetoric that comes from bigoted sources; while Affleck was standing up for what he believes in, the writer suggests he should have gone about it in a different way. It's just also unfortunate that many are quick to judge and condemn a faith even though other faiths have had just as many problems (and have supported immoral practices) throughout history. However its still important to bring up and try to make solutions for human rights crisis that take place based on Sharia law.
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After the heated argument Ben Affleck had with Real Time host Bill Maher, people are still debating the topic of Islam in the world. A Muslim woman named Eiynah has entered the discussion, and directed her opinion of the often archaic nature of Islam in an open letter to Affleck, which was posted on Pakistan Today : Dear Ben, I am writing to you today as a woman who was born and raised in Islam. This topic was interesting because liberals in America have to deal with bigoted rhetoric all the Time and its frustrating. While the author of the letter was proud of Affleck for standing up for Islamic people and what he believes is right, she suggests he just go about it in a different way because discussions of human right violations in the Middle East should still be called out.
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Drone Strike in Yemen Said to Kill Senior Qaeda Figure - NYTimes.com - 1 views
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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.
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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.
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Mr. Nadhari praised their actions and said that France would face further attacks if it did not halt its “aggression against the Muslims.”
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Turkish Military Evacuates Soldiers Guarding Tomb in Syria - NYTimes.com - 0 views
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The Turkish Army sent armored troops deep into Syria late Saturday on a rescue mission, to recover the remains of a major historical figure and to evacuate the guards at his besieged tomb
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The tomb of Suleyman Shah, grandfather of the founder of the Ottoman Empire, is 20 miles south of the Turkish border, but it has been considered Turkish territory under a 1921 treaty with France
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there were no clashes during the mission and only one casualty, a soldier who was killed in an accident
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He said Turkey notified the Syrian government, rebel leaders and the coalition forces fighting the Islamic State about the operation.
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Turkish flag was lowered, and the tomb and security station were destroyed to prevent any possible use by extremists.
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clashes were likely to erupt nearby between forces of the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL, and Kurdish troops known as pesh merga, and that the tomb could become a target.
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“The Suleyman Shah tomb has been a point of vulnerability for Turkey for a long time, and with this operation, such weakness has been eliminated
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crisis discouraged Turkey from joining the United States-led military coalition conducting strikes against the Islamic State, though Turkey has cooperated with the United States in other ways,
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in accordance with the 1921 treaty, a new tomb for Suleyman Shah was being established in a part of Syria that is under Kurdish control
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when conditions in Syria permitted, the tomb would be moved back again to the site that was evacuated, near the village of Karakozak
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Tensions have mounted around the tomb since March, when the Islamic State took control of the surrounding area and began threatening to destroy the tomb unless guards there lowered the Turkish flag.
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The militant group raided Turkey’s consulate in Mosul, Iraq, last June and seized 46 Turks and 3 Iraqis as hostages; they were released three months later on terms that were not disclosed
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“The Islamic State could have used the presence of the tomb as leverage in case of any confrontation with Turkey
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Turkey has lobbied intensively for international military action in Syria, including no-fly zones and a presence on the ground to strengthen the more moderate Syrian rebel groups who are fighting both the extremists and the Syrian government.
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Syrian government issued a statement on Sunday calling the military operation a “flagrant aggression” because Turkey did not wait for permission from Damascus to mount i
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Mr. Ulgen, the analyst, said the choice of route was a sign of some improvement in relations between the Turkish government in Ankara and the Syrian Kurds, whom the Turks have regarded with deep suspicion.