Jun 24
Foreign Policy’s annual Failed State Issue came out today, along with their 2013 Failed State Index, uses twelve social, economic, and political indicators to analyze nations and then ranks them accordingly, with 120 being the worst possible score a state can receive. The states are then separated into five categories: critical, in danger, borderline, stable, and most stable. …
May 20
It’s been a while since I’ve written about the Arab Spring, mostly because it’s not really the “Arab Spring” anymore. Egypt, Syria, Libya, and others, have been struggling for two years now, and there is little hope that the conflict will be resolved any time soon, particularly in Syria. The violence in Syria has …
Jul 09
If you were wondering why I missed my post last week, it’s because I was one of the million+ people who lost power during the storm that hit the east coast on the 29th. I was without power for 6 days–almost 7–which meant no internet, no television, no air conditioning, and, since our house has well …
May 10
For those of you that don’t know, the Pew Research Center conducts surveys on public opinion (among other things) with the goal of providing information on the issues, attitudes, and trends shaping America and the world. One of their most recent publications as part of their Global Attitudes Project, the branch of the center that …
Apr 19
It’s pretty easy to forget that the Arab Spring is more than just Egypt, Libya, and Syria; those three countries dominate the news, particularly Syria, while the other countries involved in the movement are largely ignored. So today I’ve decided to devote a post to Bahrain, which has been mostly out of the media since …
Mar 15
I had every intention of writing a follow-up piece to my much-discussed post on sustainable tourism in the Sinai Peninsula today, but while I was looking for news sources I came across something that I found very interesting: Holy Land tourism. So responsible tourism in Egypt will just have to wait for a another day, I …
Mar 08
Today, March 8th, is International Women’s Day, and in honor of this event the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars released a special report on how women have fared in the Arab Spring. They asked a variety of women to comment on the events, and a surprising number of them were not very positive. Women …
Feb 02
Two weeks ago I wrote about a burgeoning responsible tourism initiative in Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula and how it could benefit the Bedouin community and Egypt as a whole. Today, while I was on the elliptical (which I do about once every month or so… I like to stay healthy.) I happened to flip to CNN …
Jan 19
I’ve written a fair amount about Egypt and the Arab Spring over the course of my internship, but today I’m going to write about something a little different from the usual discussion of politics, revolution, and violence: responsible tourism. Can it take root in Egypt? Or is there too much conflict? The Sinai Peninsula is …
Dec 22
After reading parts one and two of this series on the Arab Spring, you hopefully have a better grasp on what some of the major moments of the movements were, how the revolutionaries in various countries drew inspiration from each other, and the difficulties of transitioning to a democracy. So, for this post, I thought …
