Hey guys! Welcome to MENA NewsDrops, a weekly newsletter 🗞 delivering clear and concise news on the most important weekly MENA 🌐 events. What better time than the month 🇺🇸 U.S. President Biden was elected to track geopolitical developments in the region?
I am an International Relations 👩🏻🎓 student from SOAS, University of London. My region of interest has always been the Middle East, with an increased focus on regional security during my Master’s 📚.
Despite my passion for the region, which led me to live there for some months and learn Arabic, like many other students I sometimes failed to keep track of the news 😰. There is too much news, and too many outlets, and too much bias 🤯! In addition, the internet is full of interesting articles by think tanks, NGOs, etc., but they are just too long and often end up in our untouched list of ‘Saved’ articles ♻️.
✨Advantages✨ of this newsletter:
Full regional coverage 🌍 - learn about your preferred MENA area whilst always keeping track of the full picture thanks to this newsletter!
Preparing you for the working world 👩🏻💻 - jobs in diplomacy, NGOs, political risk firms, and any other MENA-related dream job you manage to get an interview for, you will be expected to have looked way beyond your country/sub-region of interest. Start now!
Networking 👩🏽🦱🕵🏼♀️🧕🏽👨🏽🏫👩🏼⚖️👩🏾🚒👨🦰- again, it will not always be possible for you to network with an expert of your country/sub-region of interest. By limiting your knowledge to such areas, you will miss out on key networking opportunities. Use this newsletter to make sure you always have discussion points with any MENA expert.
Partied too hard last night 🎊? Have a quick read before your class! - university/college can be extremely hard ! Not having anything to talk about in tutorials/seminars is quite demotivating… and a big reason why many students skip one or two…
⚠️ Warnings ⚠️:
You should absolutely NOT solely rely on this newsletter 📰 - it is here to complement your other knowledge, but no one will deem you well-read on the region just by hearing you blurt out a few headlines.
Is it really giving you the bigger picture 🌆 ? - this newsletter gives you a good general understanding of what is happening weekly in the region. However, there is so much happening outside the MENA that must be taken into account in order to produce a great analysis of developments in the region.
In short, bullet-points are great, there are so many ways to benefit from this, but try to remember they are just bullet-points. Nonetheless, there are definitely more upsides than there are downsides to incorporating this newsletter in your weekly reading 📖, so sign up now so you don’t miss the first issue 🕐.
