scholarly journals How coronavirus disease 2019 entered Africa and the Middle East: a case study from Egypt

2020 ◽  
Vol 114 (10) ◽  
pp. 715-717
Author(s):  
Nourhan M Khattab ◽  
Sten H Vermund ◽  
Yifei Hu
Keyword(s):  
Middle East ◽  
North Africa ◽  
Index Case ◽  
Contact Tracing ◽  
Global Business ◽  
Face Surface ◽  
Business Travel ◽  
Viral Spread ◽  
Viral Testing

Abstract Background We report the first person with SARS-CoV-2 in Egypt. Methods We interviewed the index case and contacts. Results The 36-year old man was healthy when he traveled on business to Wuhan, China in January 2020. Upon his return to Cairo, he became ill, went to work, and subsequent autochthonous viral spread occurred. Conclusion We linked SARS-CoV-2 importation to global business travel. The extent to which physical distancing, hand/face/surface hygiene, mask use, viral testing/contact tracing, restricted travel, small gatherings, and/or stay-in-residence mandates will be implemented and limit further spread in the Middle East and North Africa remains to be seen.

Press Propaganda and Subaltern Agents of Pan-Islamic Networks in the Muslim Mediterranean World prior to World War I

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Odile Moreau
Keyword(s):  
Middle East ◽  
World War I ◽  
North Africa ◽  
World War ◽  
Subaltern Studies ◽  
Resistance Movements ◽  
The Press ◽  
Mediterranean World ◽  
History Of

This chapter explores movement and circulation across the Mediterranean and seeks to contribute to a history of proto-nationalism in the Maghrib and the Middle East at a particular moment prior to World War I. The discussion is particularly concerned with the interface of two Mediterranean spaces: the Middle East (Egypt, Ottoman Empire) and North Africa (Morocco), where the latter is viewed as a case study where resistance movements sought external allies as a way of compensating for their internal weakness. Applying methods developed by Subaltern Studies, and linking macro-historical approaches, namely of a translocal movement in the Muslim Mediterranean, it explores how the Egypt-based society, al-Ittihad al-Maghribi, through its agent, Aref Taher, used the press as an instrument for political propaganda, promoting its Pan-Islamic programme and its goal of uniting North Africa.

Muslim Notables, French Colonial Officials, and the Washers of the Dead

2021 ◽  
Vol 39 (1) ◽  
pp. 9-33
Author(s):  
Augustin Jomier
Keyword(s):  
Middle East ◽  
North Africa ◽  
Arabic Language ◽  
Legal Framework ◽  
Male Domination ◽  
The Road ◽  
Legal Discourses ◽  
French Colonial ◽  
The Dead

For many decades, scholars of gender and women’s history in the Middle East and North Africa have challenged prevailing visions of an unchanged patriarchy, showing how patriarchy was transformed in relation to colonialism, and how some women struggled against it. To the contrary, this article aims to challenge our understanding of women’s agency, taking Mzab as a case study. It explores the ways in which women of this Berber speaking region, inhabited by Ibadi Muslims and conquered by the French in 1882, contributed to the colonial reinforcement of male domination. Reading together works of ethnography, colonial administrative files, legal disputes, and Arabic-language newspapers, this article shows that, together with the colonial legal framework, other informal legal discourses and institutions shaped women’s condition. Down the road, forms of patriarchy and notions of gender shifted.

scholarly journals Improving Capacity Development for Threatened Maritime and Marine Cultural Heritage Through the Evaluation of a Parameter Framework

2019 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 409-427
Author(s):  
Katherine Recinos ◽  
Lucy Blue
Keyword(s):  
Middle East ◽  
Cultural Heritage ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
North Africa ◽  
Capacity Development ◽  
The World ◽  
The Future ◽  
Development Initiatives

Abstract Maritime cultural heritage is under increasing threat around the world, facing damage, destruction, and disappearance. Despite attempts to mitigate these threats, maritime cultural heritage is often not addressed to the same extent or with equal resources. One approach that can be applied towards protecting and conserving threatened cultural heritage, and closing this gap, is capacity development. This paper addresses the question of how capacity development can be improved and adapted for the protection of maritime cultural heritage under threat. It asserts that capacity development for maritime cultural heritage can be improved by gaining a more comprehensive and structured understanding of capacity development initiatives through applying a consistent framework for evaluation and analysis. This allows for assessment and reflection on previous or ongoing initiatives, leading to the implementation of more effective initiatives in the future. In order to do this, a model for classifying initiatives by ten parameters is proposed. It is then applied to a number of case studies featuring initiatives in the Middle East and North Africa region. This is followed by a discussion of how conclusions and themes drawn from the examination and evaluation of the case study initiatives can provide a deeper understanding of capacity development efforts, and an analysis of how the parameter model as a framework can aid in improving capacity development for threatened maritime cultural heritage overall.

Muslim Notables, French Colonial Officials, and the Washers of the Dead

2021 ◽  
Vol 39 (1) ◽  
pp. 9-33
Author(s):  
Augustin Jomier
Keyword(s):  
Middle East ◽  
North Africa ◽  
Arabic Language ◽  
Legal Framework ◽  
Male Domination ◽  
The Road ◽  
Legal Discourses ◽  
French Colonial ◽  
The Dead

Abstract For many decades, scholars of gender and women's history in the Middle East and North Africa have challenged prevailing visions of an unchanged patriarchy, showing how patriarchy was transformed in relation to colonialism, and how some women struggled against it. To the contrary, this article aims to challenge our understanding of women's agency, taking Mzab as a case study. It explores the ways in which women of this Berber speaking region, inhabited by Ibadi Muslims and conquered by the French in 1882, contributed to the colonial reinforcement of male domination. Reading together works of ethnography, colonial administrative files, legal disputes, and Arabic-language newspapers, this article shows that, together with the colonial legal framework, other informal legal discourses and institutions shaped women's condition. Down the road, forms of patriarchy and notions of gender shifted.

Water governance benchmarking: concepts and approach framework as applied to Middle East and North Africa countries

Water Policy ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 16 (6) ◽  
pp. 1121-1139 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lucia De Stefano ◽  
Mark Svendsen ◽  
Mark Giordano ◽  
Brent S. Steel ◽  
Bridget Brown ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Middle East ◽  
North Africa ◽  
Local Governments ◽  
Water Governance ◽  
Mena Region ◽  
Legal Documents ◽  
Official Policy ◽  
Current Water ◽  
And Performance

The world water crisis is a crisis of governance, as has been aptly stated. Yet how does one solve a crisis of governance? Water governance comprises complex nested and interlocked sets of decisions about water. It is inherently political, and is ultimately the responsibility of national, regional and local governments, working with their own citizens and with each other, to make improvements. In this context, there is a critical need in nearly every country to assess whether current water governance structures and practices are suitable and are delivering the desired results and, if not, where they fall short. When such assessments are made regularly and for several countries, it is possible to compare water governance status and performance both among countries and in a single country over time. This paper presents an approach to establishing a system of benchmarking water governance from content analysis of official policy and legal documents and a stratified set of stakeholder opinion panels. The approach assesses both the functions involved in water governance and the processes employed in making decisions. Six countries of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region (Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, Oman, Turkey and Yemen) comprise a case study to show how this approach works.

Explaining Terrorism: Leadership Deficits and Militant Group Tactics

2015 ◽  
Vol 69 (2) ◽  
pp. 311-342 ◽  
Author(s):  
Max Abrahms ◽  
Philip B.K. Potter
Keyword(s):  
Middle East ◽  
North Africa ◽  
Research Strategy ◽  
Principal Agent ◽  
Principal Agent Problem ◽  
Group Violence ◽  
Drone Strikes ◽  
Second Intifada ◽  
Militant Groups

AbstractCertain types of militant groups—those suffering from leadership deficits—are more likely to attack civilians. Their leadership deficits exacerbate the principal-agent problem between leaders and foot soldiers, who have stronger incentives to harm civilians. We establish the validity of this proposition with a tripartite research strategy that balances generalizability and identification. First, we demonstrate in a sample of militant organizations operating in the Middle East and North Africa that those lacking centralized leadership are prone to targeting civilians. Second, we show that when the leaderships of militant groups are degraded from drone strikes in the Afghanistan-Pakistan tribal regions, the selectivity of organizational violence plummets. Third, we elucidate the mechanism with a detailed case study of the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, a Palestinian group that turned to terrorism during the Second Intifada because pressure on leadership allowed low-level members to act on their preexisting incentives to attack civilians. These findings indicate that a lack of principal control is an important, underappreciated cause of militant group violence against civilians.

scholarly journals Middle Kingdom Enters Middle East

2021 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
pp. 177-201
Author(s):  
Toufic Sarieddine
Keyword(s):  
Middle East ◽  
North Africa ◽  
World System ◽  
The United States ◽  
World Systems ◽  
Middle Kingdom ◽  
Maritime Silk Road ◽  
Western Hegemony ◽  
World Systems Analysis

Through the lens of world-systems analysis, this research argues that Beijing is creating a miniature world-system overlapping with the United States-led world-system via its Belt Road Initiative (BRI). Although China has not yet become a core power, its BRI seems to possess the qualities of a new world-system in the making, within which China enjoys hegemonic traits such as economic and military might and capable alternative institutions. This BRI-bound world-system consists of BRI participant states whose areas and processes are being molded to better fit China as core and hegemon; a phenomenon known as peripheralization. In the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), the Maritime Silk Road Initiative (MSRI) appears to be peripheralizing Arab states into this BRI-bound world-system through China’s growing economic dominance of the region and promotion of new modi operandi. After arguing the emergence of the BRI-bound world-system and establishing China’s peripheralization capacity, Lebanon is taken as a case study of a peripheral MENA state to illustrate how predominant Western hegemony can hamper China’s peripheralization apparatus, forcing it to choose areas/processes of the highest immediate relevance for focused peripheralization efforts.

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