CULF 3331: "Middle Eastern Revolutions"

This article, written by Joana Saba, talks about Aya Tarek's life and explores her reasons for becoming a part of the art scene in Egypt. While Tarek did not originally consider herself (or her art) a part of the revolution, she discuss how her ideas of politics has changed and how it can be as simple as "walking down the street."

This artifact focuses on Aya Tarek, a 24 year old Egyptian graffiti artist, who discusses how she began her journey into the art scene and what she believes in. An avid supporter of the revolution, Tarek also talks about how important it is to fight not only for the causes you believe in, but also for who you are.

This is the first indication that I got that shows that there is a separate provincial government in Northern Iraq that has almost full autonomy. They also have a stronger combat force than the Iraqi government.

This article talks about how Egypt recently started creating a controversial buffer zone by blowing up homes along the boarder. This move was the beginnings of a soon to be 500 meter buffer zone, if all goes to plan. This border is used for gangs to smuggle arms to and from Gaza.

This articles discusses the issue of the Muslim Brotherhood being a terrorist group. More specifically, it focuses on how the U.K is dealing with the Muslim Brotherhood in their own country. The Muslim Brotherhood is not allowed in Saudi Arabia but is allowed in the U.K. This article explains why.

After the city of Kobani had all but been lost, people had given up. But after a rejuvenated effort by airstrikes, and the Kurdish fighters, it is now getting more support. Iraqi Kurdish fighters of the peshmerga fighters have now entered through Turkey. They bring with them several weapons.

The Egyptian government has ordered the forced evacuation of homes along the 9 mile border with the Gaza strip. The homes will be demolished to make room for a 500 yard wide buffer zone between Egypt and Gaza that includes water-filled trenches to stop tunnel diggers. This buffer zone is designed to stop the flow of arms and militants from Gaza into Egypt which authorities believe are responsible for the rise in terrorism in the Sinai peninsula. This is primarily a response to the October 24th terrorist attack that killed 31 soldiers in eastern Sinai.

You can run this through Google Translate if you're interested. It's an article about Egypt demolishing a band of homes along the border with Gaza at the city Rafah.

On Thursday, FSA rebels advanced into Kurdish and Christian neighborhoods in Aleppo, Syria, in a daring attempt to capture the city. Initial reports based on FSA claims and somebody's friend who spoke to someone in Aleppo on the phone had the rebels taking 90 percent of the city and cooperating with Kurdish militias, but less than a day later these claims were revealed to be false.

THE scourge of ISIS - a female Kurdish warrior who was credited with killing 100 jihadists - may have herself died in the desperate battle to prevent the city of Kobani falling into extremist hands. But her sisters-in-arms fight on.

Looks like fun.