Nations of the World!

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Nations of the World!

• http//www.youtube.com/watch?vNC1qkLn6IRIfeature
  related

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Lebanon

• Beirut formerly the
• Paris of the Middle East
• Reduced to rubble after
• Civil War throughout the 1980s
• 70 Muslim, 30 Christian. Why?
• Large Shiite population tied closely to Iran
• - Hezbollah

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Lebanon

• Religions
• Confessions
• 17 separate religious and
• ethnic groups officially
• recognized
• Leadership positions
• dependent on religious
• majorities

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Syria

• Shiite government allied with Iran, but Syria
  has a Sunni majority
• Lost the Golan Heights to Israel in 1967
• Syria is still officially at war with Israel over
  this key Hezbollah leader assassinated by
  Israel February 2007.
• Current civil war an attempt to overthrow Shiite
  ruler of Sunni majority

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Egypt

• The Nile!
• True or FalseOil is the most
• important resource in determining
• where people live in the Middle East?
• Important in Arab world in population,
  international relations, mediation between
  Palestine and Israel, and location
• Suez Canal won in the Suez Crisis 1956
• Muslim Brotherhood currently a threat to
• secular government
  

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Sudan

• Formerly controlled by
• Great Britain Egypt
• Civil War major disparities between the North
  South
• Millions of refugees
• Drought, poverty, famine, violence
• Push to impose Islamic Law
• South Sudan created in 2011

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Iraq

• Baath Party ruled from 1958 to 2003 (Saddam came
  to power in 1979)
• 2nd largest oil reserves in the world
• Infrastructure has been nearly ruined due
  Saddams neglect and U.S. invasion
• Large Kurdish minority in
• northwest operates nearly
• autonomously

Iraq Video
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Kurds

• Largest non-Arab Muslim minority group
• Worlds largest ethnic group without a home
• Own language culture
• Harsh treatment by others
• Mostly Sunni Muslim
• Allied with U.S.

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Turkey

• Founder Ataturk
• Old Ottoman empire post WWI
• Largest economy and most westernized of all
  Middle Eastern countries
• Secular government and military, but a strong
  fundamentalist movement in Turkey

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Turkey

• - Kurds non-Arab, Sunni people that are a
  nation without a country (Kurdistan)
• - Large Kurdish minority involved in
  guerrilla skirmishes with Turkish government
• Turkey is on both Asia Europe improving its
  treatment of Kurds in an effort to try to join
  the European Union.

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• Whirling Dirvishes

• Sufi Islam
• Spiritual
• Mystical component of Islam
• Brotherhoods organized around a spiritual leader
• Dance is an act of love and faith
• Ottoman culture roots