CULF 3331: "Middle Eastern Revolutions"

This article by the BBC news talks about the recent banning of social media in Turkey. The interesting thing that this article points out is that social media was banned when it was near an election. The fact that they control the flow of information to the citizens around election time is extremely significant, because not being able to communicate about the elections can greatly impact the results.

This article describes a more recent incident with banning social media that happened in Saudi Arabia. It talks about how the government did this in order to "curb the spread of violence" but there are still violent actions being taken because of the ban.

This article from The Guardian describes what happened when Mubarak tried to shut down social media in the Egypt in 2011. It touches on many issues such as the protests following this event and the relation to censorship and freedom of speech.

This Washington Post article discusses how several world leaders, particularly in the Middle East, have tried to ban the internet and or social media and how they have fail. By looking at several examples such as Mubarak in Egypt, Ben Ali in Tunisia, and now the government in Turkey, it is easy to see patterns and trends that go along with censorship in the government.

A bit over a year ago, Saudi Arabia declared war on the U.S. oil industry. This week brought new signs that the Saudis might at last be winning. Some quick background: Saudi Arabia has long played …

This is linked to another page that I saved. There was an agreement to send more humanitarian aid to Syria, where needed. However, Aleppo has been a location of turmoil of late and it is excluded from the list.

So now the Russians are accusing the US of interfering in Syria. Honestly, keeping up with these reports is ridiculous. The supposed "world powers" are constantly aiming falsified accusations at each other. If you're a "world power" shouldn't you at least have ethos?

Progress regarding Syria has been made. Diplomats from around the world met in Munich, Germany where they agreed that there needs to be a "cessation of hostilities" and that more humanitarian aid needs to be provided to civilians.

This article provides laws that protect women as well as those whom only protect men. It shows the sexism between the laws for different genders.

Describes how the laws in Egypt are an enemy to Women's Rights. Egypt is ranked as the worst of 22 Arab states with regards to women's rights.

This article gives a brief description of laws and rules set in Egypt for women. 

Egypt has a marriage law that requires foreign men to pay a set amount to the woman's family in order to marry her. This is now being seen as a legalized form of prostitution where the women gets nothing but a divorce.

" Hezbollah captives held in Syria by the al-Qaida affiliated organization, Jabhat al-Nusra, have spoken against Hezbollah's involvement in the military conflict in Syria, claiming that it is not clear why the organization takes part in a war that has nothing to do with Lebanon."

ISIS runs a help desk that gives information to jihadis when they need it. This must be shut down

As oil prices plunge, and ISIS get less income, they are finding new ways to fund their activities. One such way is through drug smuggling into the US, from South America.

First hand Account of Yazidi women who escaped from ISIL captiviy. These women went through enough, to give one an insight into the brutality of ISIL.