North+Africa+and+the+Middle+East

=north Africa and the Middle East=

The development of an increasingly integrated global economy marked especially by free trade, free flow of capital, and the tapping of cheaper foreign labor markets.
__Pros:__
 * __Pros/Cons of Globalization (General) (2)__**
 * Creates a worldwide market for the companies and for the people there is more access to products of different countries.
 * There is a steady cash flow into the developing countries, which gradually decrease the dollar difference.
 * There is more influx of information between two countries, which do not have anything in common between them.
 * There is cultural intermingling and each other is trying to know about the other’s cultural preferences.
 * Since we share financial interests, corporate and governments are trying to sort out ecological problems for each other.

Cons:
 * Developed countries are losing jobs as countries outsource to undeveloped countries for cheap labor.
 * There is pressure on people in developed countries; they fear their jobs will be outsourced.
 * Threat of corporates ruling the world because there is a lot of power, which is invested in them due to globalization.
 * For nations that are at the receiver’s end are also giving up the reins in the ends of a foreign company which might again lead to a sophisticated form of colonization.


 * __Globalization in the Middle East and North Africa__**

Generally for this area Globalizations fairly Neutral maybe Skewing a little bit to the positive side. Countries in this area are not consistant with the amount of wealth that they have, meaning that some of the countries in this area are very rich from oil and have a usefu government while other countries are very poor and have a poorly set up government. From our readings it seems as though much of the middle east is self-sufficient in that they neither outsource their work and no work is outsourced to them. While the middle east is not really affected by the work aspect of globalization they are being impacted by the cultural aspect of it. People of the middle-east are being "westernized" which means essentially they are becoming more and more like western countries such a Europe and the Americas. This "westerning" is being attributed to technology and the flow of information into these areas. Depending on how you look at this idea of westernizing will depend on whether you think globalization is good or bad for this area.
 * __Politics, International law and Organizations__

General Information - The area of the middle-east and north Africa is in a weird situation when it comes to politics. Some of the areas are in good condition in terms of government, but many of the governments in this area are corrupt or just not functional or some just don't even exist. One example of as very corrupt government would be Iran, one example of a non-functional government would be Iraq. Then there is always the situation in Israel where while they do have a functional government they are essentially hated by everyone. So overall just a weird political situations in middle east and north africa ranging from corruption in Iran to well set up fair government in United Arab Emirates.

__Articles__ ** An article that was found on News trust titled What Carter missed in the Middle East tells about a visit the former president made in August of 2009. The article talks about different changes that have been happening with Israel and Palestine becoming more peaceful along with other countries. To read the full article you can find it [|here].

__Yemen Journalist murdered by local mafia__ This article was written by the Yemen Time Magazine, this article provide a lot of informations about a yemen journalist by the name of Mohammad Al-Rabue’ that was murdered by mafia and his sons were blame for the murder. For more information about this article and also about Yemen Time (click here) http://www.yementimes.com/defaultdet.aspx?SUB_ID=33612

__Israeli police clash with protesters in West Bank__ I found this article in //Al Arabiya News Channel//, the article doesn't tell who is the author but this talked about how some of the things going on the West Bank of Israel and how the police and the politics handle it. This give some information about the country is handling the issue "Israel has completed 413 kilometers (256 miles) of the planned 709-kilometer (435-mile) barrier, according to U.N. figures. When completed, 85 percent of the wall will have been built inside the West Bank, leaving 9.5 percent of the territory and 35,000 Palestinians between the barrier and the Green Line that marks the 1967 border with Israel." according to this article.

__Egypt: Social Entrepreneur Sherif el Ghamrawy__ I find this great video about how a local social entrepreneur Sherif el Ghamrawy is designing a vacation camp according to strick ecological standars, simple huts from materail, no air-conditioning, low energy consumption and water uses. His using recycle material for this project. http://en.sevenload.com/shows/Global-3000/episodes/GAkido4-GLOBAL-3000-Egypt-Social-Entrepreneur-Sherif-el-Ghamrawy

__Israel: Energy Independence__ I found an article that talked about how Israel is moving closer to energy independence because of a huge natural gas reserves off the country's central and northern Mediterranean coast. Supposedly there may be enough gas there that Israel may be able to become an energy exporter. A link to this article is [|here]

__The Energy Tower Dubai, United Arab Emirates__

__Egyptian Environment News__ This site seems to have a semi-reliable source of news about and on the environment of Egypt. It is well worth the look seeing that one of the articles that is up on it is about how there is bacteria in the air and too much of it is getting into the spices of Egypt. It has many other educational about the environment articles as well. Found link here

**__Globalization Links__**
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[] http://www.worldpress.org/ @http://www.albawaba.com/ @http://www.metimes.com/ http://www.alarabiya.net/

World-Newspapers.com
 * __Kool Place To Get All Of The News Sites Of Middle East / Other Parts Of The World.__**

The International Telecommunication Union’s 2010 Information & Communication Technology (ICT) Development Index in 159 countries ranked Lebanon in 82nd place worldwide and 9th among 19 Arab countries. Lebanon also ranked in 26th place among 28 upper middle income countries. This is a good chance for them to rank up their technology to help their country and maybe others. __Economy__**
 * __Science and Technology__

The economy in North Africa and the middle east do differ from each other. In North Africa is mostly consists of the trade industry and the resources of the people in Africa. The farming, product making and anything else that people make in Africa. It all depends on that right now. Africa is the worlds poorest continent. There isnt much that they can do, nor is there anything that as a country they can ask for from other countries. The middle East is another story. They have many other countries in it that are each going through their own problems. Through the past few years oil has been the main thing that people were fighting about. In 2008 is it was a time for both the Middle East and Africa going through external environment growths. They were both going through major finance problems. Of course Africa can't get out of it but the Middle East did somethings that were able to help their countries.

__**Trading**__

Recently (2003) the Middle East for initiative permission and a plan of graduated steps to be able to trade and invest with the US and with others in the world. This is to increase everything that is going on with their economy and with the eventual goal of a regional free trade agreement. Trading to them is really important now that they have it. They are lucky that they got the chance to get it and are able to bring their own products to be able to be all around the world.

Health care in North Africa is very poor. This link below shows and explains some of the issues that North Africa are going through with their health care. They are low on money so t hey cant afford to pay doctors. They dont have as much education as we do so they dont have as much doctors. Hospitals are barely "hospitals" [|link] Outside countries, such as the ones in Europe, are trying to aid North Africa by starting hospitals there. In contrast, Saudi Arabia has a total of 124 hospitals, also these hospitals being more state of the art. The following link shows the evolution of Algeria's health care system and also where outside people came from to help: []
 * __Health Care__**

__**Security and Terrorism**__

Israel would be the perfect example for this topic. Everyone wants to take over Israel and will do anything that they can to get into there. Their security is great. They have military all over the borders and always fighting for their country. Not too much have been going on with someone trying to bomb them, but there are always outside plans to get it done.

Iraq and Iran are another example of terrorism. We (US) have been fighting with them for many years now and they still wont give up. They have attacked us and we have attacked them, but the thing is what will happen next. Our security isnt that great if they got into our land and attacked us.

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North Africa has had an increasing activity of local extremist that are coinciding with the global terror web. Fundraisers and recruiters have been linked and subjugated to violent acts that occur in North Africa. Due to the location and the strategic points and the abundance of hydro carbon resources extremism in North Africa mainly effects national security interest.

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 * = = || =**[[image:http://www.amideast.org/images/spacer.gif width="1" height="15"]]Education**= || [[image:http://www.amideast.org/images/spacer.gif width="20" height="8"]] ||
 * ^  || =News & Events: Current Events

AMIDEAST Offers Scholarships for Study Abroad in the Arab World
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 * "Washington, DC, March 30, 2010** — AMIDEAST is pleased to announce the launch of a scholarship initiative that will enable more American college students to live and study in the Arab world. Beginning this summer, the new AMIDEAST Arab Heritage Fund Scholarship Program will provide a limited number of need-based scholarships for participants in AMIDEAST’s summer, semester, and academic-year study abroad programs in Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, and Morocco."

_Summary_ This article explains that the AMIDEAST is launching multiple scholarship and training programs for students to study abrord to the Ararbic countries. This will allow both the education and training from students within, or traveling to the Arabic Countries in order to persue and education. Other Coorperations such as McDonald's is also getting involved to help bring education to the countries and provide education for all whom live in the Middle East nd North Africa.

http://www.amideast.org/whats_new/press_releases/current/press_releases_mar_30_10.htm

Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_in_the_Middle_East_and_North_Africa

This website is for Africa in general, but has headlines for the topic of education/(or something else) for each country: http://allafrica.com/education/

MEET (Middle Eastern Education through Technology is an organization dedicated to bringing the Israeli and Palestinian youth together. Their view is that propaganda, politics and tragedy and personal interactions is the origin of the relationship they share today, but this can be overcome by understanding each other's traits and beliefs. With technology, both sides can create a new source of communication to become global partners. - http://meet.mit.edu/different.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/16/world/africa/16somalia.html - This article tells of how the Somalian Islamic insurgent group Shabab has ordered the exclusion of school bells in Somalian schools. The reason was because of the bells likeness to church bells. Bras, soccer and radio stations were also outlawed.

= __Education In Morocco__  =

In morocco the education system is free up until the age 15. However many females do not attend school if they do they drop out its at a early age to take care of the home life. Education is valued highly in morocco regarding males but disregarded when it comes to females. Morocco also has a somewhat strong higher education base. The university's are usually attended by males. The problem with the education in morocco is that it's very sexist this needs to be worked on. http://newstrust.net/stories/1340103/toolbar?ref=mp

="North Africa: Development and Reform in a Changing Global Environment"= ==__[|Journal of Third World Studies]__, __[|Fall 1998]__ by __[Weston F Jr|Cook, Weston F Jr]__==

URL : [] Dirk Vandewalle's has collection of various essays and papers explaining the many forms of reformation that is taking place in areas within North Africa. It Continues to give current and past introduction of how hostile the history of North Africa. IT continues to explain the current influence that the European economics has in North Africa and how much of a necessity it is to exploit it in order to have the world of economics and materials function

ttp://www.mepd.org/: The link above leads to the Institute of Middle East Peace and Development. The non- profit organization focuses on building peace agreements and bonds between Israel and Arab leaders, specifically the Israel and Palestinian dispute currently ongoing now.

Watch This!

Morocco has a lot of different development problems. In the video above it explains some of the many problems with Morocco and what could be done. [|This is a article] that discusses one of the way they are trying to solve some of the devopment problems.

The official language in Northern Africa is Arabic, but they also speak Berber. Religion is mainly Muslim being the most popular with Christian and Jewish religion as secondaries.

http://www.africaguide.com/culture/events.htm The url will take you to a website that tells you of African cultural events. The events are categorized by Western, Eastern, Southern and Northern Africa and by country.

http://www.wsu.edu/~dee/CIVAFRCA/ISLAM.HTM Short work on how Islam expanded into Africa.

Human Rights
Article 24 "Everyone has the right to rest and leisure, including reasonable limitation of working hours and periodic holidays with pay."

An extensive Google search on free time in the Middle East reaped nothing so I'm going to say that there none. But there is a slavery problem in the Middle East and I'm going to guess that slaves don't get very much free time, but that's a whole nother human rights violation.

These peeps don't get no leisure... ===[|Enslaved because of their size, young boys are trafficked into the UAE and forced to ride camels for sport.]===

[[image:2009_IsraelOPC_Destruction.jpg link="http://www.iabolish.org/slavery_today/country_reports/ae.html"]]
Thousands of homes are being destroyed by Israeli forces. Satellite imagery and eyewitnesses are stating that this is unnecessary.
 * Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.



After a period of relative political openness from 2004-2005 that provided the Egyptian civil society and human rights movement with more space and freedom to conduct their activities, the situation of human rights defenders has suffered a serious setback since the spring of 2006. In May of that year, the Egyptian authorities launched a__campaign__ of arrest and repression against Egyptian young bloggers who utilize the Internet to expose human rights violations and the widespread use of torture by the police in Egypt. The crackdown on the bloggers has been followed by a succession of repressive measures taken by the government in what appears to be a growing clampdown on the Egyptian independent human rights community.



=Gender =

= = North Africa and particularly the Middle East is not a very good place to be a women. Practices like female genital mutilation, forced marriage and young ages, and a general disregard for women is common. They also tend to be underrepresented in the government and not very visible in the public sphere. Much of the area is not made up of cities but of small villages where tradition rules and oppressive regimes rule which leads to them being generally [|restricted].

Islamic women are the leading consumers of cosmetics in the middle east. They buy many of these products more than any other country's women population in the world. Some people really don't know why, yet some say that their loyalty to their religion is the cause. http://newstrust.net/stories/1474645/toolbar?ref=mp

These article discuses about the role that women play in the Middle East and how not all the rules that this culture follows are religious but societal. I think one thing that we must remember is that a lot of religions including the catholic religion has lots of restriction on women and men. The reason for the picture is because I feel like this is an issue that will never be resolved

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/globalconnections/mideast/questions/women/index.html