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Archive for 05/17/2011

The Middle East’s Looming Hunger Crisis

05/17/2011 Leave a comment

“When you can’t eat, nothing else matters.

And it is this side of the ‘Arab Spring’, the sweeping rise in food prices, which the international media appear to have underreported in their Middle East coverage this year. With the media’s focus on religion and politics, it is now almost forgotten that fear of hunger, perhaps more than unemployment and political oppression, brought people on to the streets in Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen and Syria, to topple rulers. More importantly, the crippling cost of food is continuing to increase the inability of the Middle East’s substantial number of poor to feed themselves and their families.

Rising food prices, a chief source of the Middle East’s spreading misery, are reaching record levels. According to one report, grain prices alone were 71 percent higher worldwide in April than they were for the same month last year. In the United States, corn and wheat have “roughly doubled” the past 12 months. This food inflation has had serious consequences for the Middle East’s poor and for the destitute in other developing countries as well. Besides threatening the well-being of those already leading marginal existences, the price hikes have increased the number of poverty-stricken by millions.”  Read more.

Categories: Famines and Crop Destruction

Sharia Creep Down Under: Muslims to Push for ‘Moderate Variety’ of Sharia Law in Australia

05/17/2011 Leave a comment

‘Moderate variety’ of Sharia?  What exactly is that suppose to be?  Let’s see… Don’t stone women to death for adultery, just give them a few dozen lashes, or a couple hundred if the accusation is probably true?  Maybe she’ll die that way instead?  Don’t cut off a thief’s hand for stealing, only his finger?  Instead of there needing to be four male witnesses to substantiate a woman’s rape allegation, maybe there only needs to be two or three?  If it’s proven that she was raped, don’t give her 200 lashes for having premarital sex, give her 100 instead and/or a reduced prison sentence?  If someone converts from Islam to Christianity, don’t behead them, figure out a more ‘humane’ way to end their life?  

Give them a little now, and they’ll want a lot more later.  Sharia is the Islamist’s drug to which we must ‘Just Say No’ …

By Patricia Karvelas – “THE nation’s peak Muslim group is using the Gillard government’s re-embracing of multiculturalism to push for the introduction of sharia in Australia, but it says it would be a more moderate variety of Islamic law that fits with Australian values.

The Australian Federation of Islamic Councils, in a submission to a parliamentary inquiry into the government’s new multiculturalism policy, argues that Muslims should enjoy ‘legal pluralism’.

In an interview with The Australian, the organisation’s president, Ikebal Adam Patel, who wrote the submission, nominated family law and specifically divorce as an area where moderate interpretations of sharia could co-exist within the Australian legal system.” Read more.

Categories: Anything Else, Radical Islam Tags:

Spitting Saudi Woman Faces Hate-Crime Charges, Procedures Initiated to Have Her Deported to Saudia Arabia

05/17/2011 2 comments

Maybe she’ll learn to respect non-Muslims and the freedoms given to her in Saudi Arabia while driving to the nearest Walmart in Mecca.  Oh, wait.  Non-Muslims aren’t allowed in Mecca.  Women aren’t allowed to drive in Saudi Arabia.  Or be out in public without a male relative.  Or be uncovered.  And worst of all, there’s no Walmart...

By J.D. GALLOP – “A 21-year-year-old woman faces hate-crime charges after police said she repeatedly spit at a Walmart customer who told her she entered the wrong door and later proclaimed that ‘Americans are pushing us around.’

… Police said the incident started when Al-Doaifi attempted to roll a shopping cart into the store and struck the exit door.

A customer told her she was using the wrong door, prompting Al-Doaifi to spit in the person’s face before turning and walking on into the store to go shopping, police said.

‘Her actions were directed at random people based on their ethnicity and that’s according to her own statement,’ Yvonne Martinez, spokeswoman said.

… ‘She’s also had an incident with one of her Florida Tech professors,’ Martinez said.

‘She also spit at the professor. They have initiated procedures to have her sent back to Saudi Arabia.'”  Read more.

Categories: Anything Else, Radical Islam

Earthquakes Recorded Under Buzzards Bay, Massachusetts

05/17/2011 Leave a comment

“People in several Southeastern Massachusetts communities reported feeling a small earthquake Sunday night that experts say was centered under Buzzards Bay.

The 2.1-magnitude temblor was recorded at 8:39 p.m. under the bay, 12 miles off Woods Hole and 11 miles from Bliss Corner in Dartmouth, according to the US Geological Survey website.

The USGS collected 10 reports on its website from people who felt the quake. Reports came in from Dracut, Abington, Randolph, Falmouth, Pocasset, Fairhaven, Fall River, Raynham, as well as Little Compton and Providence, R.I.”  Read more.

Categories: Earthquakes

‘Dustbowl Britain’ – Drought Will Lead to Crop Failures and Higher Food Prices

05/17/2011 Leave a comment

By David Derbyshire – “The near-drought that has created dustbowl conditions in parts of Britain is expected to stretch into June and crop failures look set to drive up the price of food.

The Met Office forecasts a fortnight of warm, mostly dry weather from this weekend, scuppering the hopes of gardeners and farmers desperate for rain.

In East Anglia the soil is as hard as concrete, while in Essex some farmers have seen only half an inch of rain since February. The parched conditions have provoked fears of hosepipe bans, forest fires and food price rises.” Read more.

What will happen if there is a drought? – “Water agencies and authorities have been meeting the government to discuss plans for dealing with a drought in the UK. After the hottest April for over 100 years, and provisionally the warmest April in central England for more than 350 years, levels in many rivers and reservoirs are below average.” Read more.

Categories: Famines and Crop Destruction Tags:

Unusual Tropical Fish Washes Up on Albany Beaches in Australia

05/17/2011 Leave a comment

“The Department of Fisheries says a strong Leeuwin Current is causing an unusual species of fish to wash up on Albany’s shores.

Dozens of oceanic sunfish have been found dead on Goode Beach and at Frenchman’s Bay.

The sunfish is native to tropical and temperate waters.

The department’s senior research scientist Dr Kim Smith says a strong current is dragging large numbers of sunfish to cooler, southern waters.

‘This time of year is associated with the Leeuwin Current flowing across the South Coast at its strongest,’ she said.”  Read more.

Categories: Mass Animal Deaths