CULF 3331: "Middle Eastern Revolutions"

More information on the Kurds' background and political struggle for an autonomous state. Kurds are fighting IS ever since IS attacked their ranks in Iraq, however more than 160,000 were displaced into Turkey. Turkey refused to allow Kurds to defend themselves- pulling PKK out of peace negotiations with Erdogon.

Interesting article covering one of Lebanon's refugee camps for Palestinians called Ain-al-Hilweh , providing security and free healthcare until now. UNRWA is suffering from a deficit of more than $100m last year trying to maintain this refugee camp.

Palestinian refugees in the camps protesting on the health system changes after charging for treatment.

Women and girls as young as 11 have been systematically raped by fighters for the Islamic State, which has made sex slavery a pillar of its self-proclaimed caliphate. The New York Times interviewed 21 women and girls in Iraq who recently escaped Islamic State captivity, examined the group's communications and talked to terrorism and religious experts for a chilling report by Rukmini Callimachi, a correspondent who covers Islamic extremism.

The Yazidi religious minority community in Iraq says 3,500 of its women and girls are still being held by the so-called Islamic State (IS), many being used as sex slaves. A few have managed to escape and here tell their harrowing stories. One day in August, Hannan woke to find her family frantically packing.

More than 900 Mauritanian women have been trafficked to Saudi Arabia in 2015, where they are trapped working in jobs they did not sign up for, a local activist has told Middle East Eye.

This article provides a counter argument to statements that US military officials are making about ISIS "spreading like cancer" through the Syrian refugees. Maybe the reason they seem to support ISIS is because all the US is doing is making enemies.

Completely off topic regarding the Middle East. However, the proposed plan is in line with market liberalization. Since we just covered that in class, and this applies perfectly, I figured I would save it.

I fear that this article might hold some truth. Aleppo has been a fighting zone in the past couple of weeks, and with the regime retaking control, the fear has been that the city will fall under siege. Aleppo is my hometown, and I am interested to compare what I read to what I hear from people back there.

The war in Syria is costing the lives of many, but theres plenty more that is being lost. Syria is a country that has been continuously inhabited for a very long time. Civilizations have left their marks on the architecture there and there are many great archaeological sites. At the center of Aleppo, lies the great mosque, known for its 1000 year old minaret. The article is about the minaret being lost due to the fighting in the city.

It is crazy to think that as horrible as Osama Bin Laden was, he may not have been as bad as ISIS is right now. The new documents released showed directives from Bin Laden to behave in manners opposite to what ISIS currently does.

This article takes a look at how the media- particularly in Western countries- has affected what is commonly known as islamophobia. Many people in America has strong prejudices against people who identify with the Islamic faith, and much of this is because they only hear negative attitudes about them from news media outlets. One interesting thing that I found about this article was the fact that it related these trends in media coverage to 9/11

This article discusses media coverage of Islam related to emotions. It talks about how negative messages about Islam tend to strike and emotional cord with people, which is why they are used more often in media.

This article from the Global Research Center for Globalization looks at the relationship with Islam and it's negative portrayal in the media. This is an important view because it looks at this relationship from both points of view.

This article from the Global Research Center for Globalization looks at the relationship with Islam and it's negative portrayal in the media. This is an important view because it looks at this relationship from both points of view.

If three decades of violent repression and despotic rule were kindling for the Egyptian revolution, social media was both a spark and an accelerant for the movement. Did social media like Facebook and Twitter cause the revolution? No. But these tools did speed up the process by helping to organize the revolutionaries, transmit their message...