There is no better example than Iran. The Iranian government is not a victim of this, they deserve any revealing coverage that comes their way. It’s a country that thrives on its own people’s blood and by executing people at such a fast rate that it’s difficult to be shocked or even shaken by such news anymore. People hear about it so often that it’s numbing. They hear about it mostly because it’s accessible. U.S and Israeli media report it every day as a strategy to empower itself. It’s a brutal psychological war that uses real lives and real personal stories, real people, to give itself more power. The more it happens, the more they celebrate it. It shows from their energetic coverage of such news. For their convenience, such news helps to divert your attention away from their own crimes and their own dirty games that play a big role in today’s political and human rights crisis across our countries. Protesters shot and killed in Saudi Arabia or Bahrain? Move along people, nothing to see here.

Many of my activist friends in Iran share this same feeling. These governments (also oppressive) taking advantage of these activists who risk their own freedoms to expose these stories and who, as a consequence, have to witness these stories being used against them. We all know that the U.S and Israel, and their allies, have no interest in human rights and in us as human beings. They have an interest in their political and economic status, and to maintain Israel’s role as a superpower in the region, one that also thrives on blood and murder. But the U.S regards that as “necessary crimes” for Israel’s “survival,” though Iran and Syria can claim the same thing. They kill for the survival of their current government and current structure and to protect the current people in power. You can justify anything if you try to and sometimes it would even make sense, it just would never be right. Especially if it means you end up putting even more people in danger than they already were, which is what both the U.S and Israel are doing with its narrow coverage.

Some people ask why others are so focused on Israel when there are crimes happening in their own countries or other neighboring ones. The answer is that coverage of these issues gets in the wrong hands all too often. These are powerful hands who call the shots (literally.) In one instance you still want the entire world to know what crimes your government is committing and in another you don’t want to empower occupying and imperialist forces to use that as justice for their interference. A lot of people feel that the latter is an important struggle because the human rights movements feels incomplete without it.

Unfortunately for us, this will happen regardless of our fight against it. That doesn’t mean we can sit back and watch it happen, but we should expose it and discourage it and even refrain from speaking with certain journalists at certain papers and state our reasons why so that they understand that we’re not going to help their agendas that are in direct competition with ours. And our agenda is the simplest demand that is the hardest to fight for: to be free. Free from tyrannical regimes and free from occupying foreign forces.

I have set up an e-petition urging the British Government to recognize the Genocide inflicted upon the Kurdish population by the former regime of Saddam Hussein.

If we get 100,000 signatures than they will debate this cause in the British Parliament, thus please sign and pass on your petition.

http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/25526

I would like to thank you all for the support and for being a friend to Kurdistan.

Laween Atroshi

Feras Baqna, Hussam Al-Drewesh and Khaled Al-Rashed started an online television series based in Saudi Arabia called “We are being cheated.” They posted several episodes on topics that are often not covered by mainstream Saudi television. The last episode was called ‘Poverty’ where many issues were raised regarding Saudi Arabia and increasing poverty, which is ignored by the government. As a result on October 16, 2011 these three young Saudi men were summoned by the Bureau of investigation and Prosecution. They have been detained ever since, without charges, arrest warrant or legal representative.

The online series was started by these three young men because they loved Saudi Arabia and wanted to change aspects of it that were implemented poorly. Highlighting poverty was not to mock Saudi Arabia, but to change the lives of those who are poor by giving them better opportunities. Instead of these three pioneers being applauded, they were met with an iron fist, making the Kingdom appear as ridiculous, even more so than the ban on women driving.

Every country needs an opposition, it will keep the ruling party in check through scrutiny and accountability. Saudi Arabia’s attempts to censor voices of opposition, or concerned citizens will inevitably led to increased frustration and anger. And this particular case sets a precedent for future Saudi youth that their voices don’t matter, and efforts to highlight injustices will be met with scrutiny, which means citizens of Saudi Arabia must campaign for this case, and not allow censorship to continue.

The last video which led to their detainment has been translated to English, but was originally published without the subtitles, and has over one million views since the arrest. You can watch the video below for yourself and be the judge on whether the content was appropriate. If you believe their detainment is unlawful, please support their release campaign and raise awareness.

How can you help?

1. Raise awareness through social networking sites, on Twitter follow the Hashtag #Mal3ob3lena, and post their campaign blog on Human rights groups on Facebook.
2. Make a video on Youtube to show your support.
3. Contact the Saudi Embassy in your country and ask for their release.
4. Get in touch with Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and other relevant organisations to help this campaign grow bigger.
5.  Start a petition.

…Just don’t stay silent.

Because of the Japan nuclear crisis, set in motion by a 9.0 Richter Scale earthquake last week, world trade markets have been reeling, setting off unstable prices in foreign currencies, insurance markets, and nuclear technologies. The quake which has either killed or left unaccounted for some 15,000 people, could put millions more in peril should the nuclear situation deteriorate.

As I’ve said before – there is no insurance against nuclear reactors: you can buy insurance for your homes, you can buy it for your cars (there are tons of places online nowadays for cheap car insurance quotes), but there is no insurance to protect us against a nuclear disaster.

The world witnessed what happened at Chernobyl in the Ukraine in the 80s, and those of us who are older, saw the US disaster at Three Mile Island (links to Wikipedia). I implore all Mideast Youth bloggers and readers to push for reforms that stops the proliferation of nuclear energy development, for weapons and for power. As a child of the 70s, I grew up with fears that the Russian President Mikhail Gorbochev would nuke America and Canada (during the Cold War). And some say the world came “that close” to a full on nuclear war back then.

Countries like Turkey, Israel, Iran, Egypt and Jordan are far too unstable, politically and geologically, for nuclear energy of any kind. As we see news of the tragedy in Japan unfold, countries like Australia are offering uranium to the United Arab Emirates. The thought that such an unstable Middle East is pursuing nuclear energy with enthusiasm and no shame gives me nightmares.

Do we want to build a world that answers all our materialistic greed in the here and now?

Or one that our grandchildren will prosper in?

As the Arab world moves into the realm of a potential renaissance, please rethink the issue of nuclear, and can all existing programs that are on the table. If Japan – one of the world’s leaders in earthquake technologies, and like the Swiss – very organized – can’t keep its nuclear facilities in check, I only hazard to guess how idiotic it would be to build a nuclear plant in the midst of uprisings and fault lines. For more reading, Rola, over on Green Prophet gives a very good argument why the Middle East can’t risk investing in nuclear.

When Last Prophet of God Muhammad (Peace Be upon Him) left Makkah in 622 AD, towards Madina making it the first Welfare state of Islam, it was obvious that He would face resistance from his opponents. This opposition took the shape of war in 624 AD, which came to be known as Battle of Badr. That’s why this small town stores 1400 years long history.

Thanks to my job, I got a chance to visit this town. After visiting sites in Madina we left towards Red Sea town of Yanbu, we took small detour on our way to Badr. The Battle field is still preserved where all the martyrs are buried. Because of intense security we were not able to take pictures of graveyard, but there proudly stands a monument with the names of martyrs engraved on it. I am honoured to have visited this historic place

Take for instance, the state of women in Saudi Arabia. The country’s guardianship system is creating a block for women when it comes to making their own decisions. For doing humane things like studying, working or even opening their own bank account, women need to ask the permission of the closest male relative. Not only is this stamping over the essence of being human, but it is disrupting the very place of a women in the society. Society has forever held that men are at a higher position than women, but how does that give them the right to determine whats right and wrong for a women? Isn’t this world supposed to be all about equality, freedom, acceptance and understanding? Jeremy Rifkin, an author and a social thinker, claims that empathy is our greatest tool. Its our invisible hand, which moves this society along. If we don’t understand the plight of others, how are we going to understand and accept, help and support?

If Saudi Arabia claims to continue enforcing women-demeaning rules, there is some hope in the form of activist and feminist Wajeha al-Huwaider. Being a resident of the country herself, she compares the situation of the women in Saudi as that of caged birds. There have been talks about changing the face of women rights amongst the authorities but none that have actually been implemented. Wajeha al-Huwaider also insist that its easier to remain silent and take no action, as many of the women are afraid to voice their opinion. This would probably explain why a group of Saudi women launched a campaign that went against Al-Huwaider, claiming that they are perfectly fine with their male guardians making decisions for them and view this as an Islamic Law.

Whenever anyone voices an opinion, there are bound to be people who don’t necessarily agree. But what matters is that you know you’re doing what you believe in, and if you believe you’re going to change the face of the world, then maybe you are.

View CNN article here.

We care about corals, an indicator species to global warming, and an integral part of the marine life ecosystem. That’s why all the construction development in the Gulf (with or without a debt hold) scares us.

Some hopeful news: a group of coral, located near the Persian Gulf off-shore Safaniyah oil field, was in danger of being destroyed by an oil pipeline being laid in the area where they were located.

But the oil company relocated them.

The coral reef or assemblage was discovered only 100 meters offshore in the Safaniyah oil field, said to be one of the largest offshore oil fields in the world, and now producing as much as 350,000 barrels of oil a day from 25 wells.

Being right in the way of a trench being dug for a new oil pipeline, an ARAMCO spokesman said that the excavation would have destroyed the corals and it was decided to move them to another location after trying to protect the coral by using a process known as mitigation measures which are often to lessen the environmentally destructive impact of various construction projects on the natural surroundings.

The coral assemblages were moved by special contracting companies, Reef Ball Australia and Reef Ball USA, who are specialized in relocating natural coral formations as well as constructing new artificial reefs for the growing of new coral assemblages.

The project took three weeks to complete and moved over 500 small colonies of coral to a new areas 700 meters away and a similar distance from the beach. Other marine life species, including fish and invertebrates were moved as well.

The operation was said to have occurred during a cuttlefish breeding season, which resulted in cuttlefish eggs being deposited in a number on unusual places, including concrete coral bases, diving gear, coral transfer baskets, and coral colony tags found in the nursery area.

Marine biological experts, working with ARAMCO, the Saudi state-owned oil company, said the transfer operation saved the corals from certain destruction; and that new artificial concrete bases installed to the coral to attach themselves to will help preserve the coral population in the area.

With this project taking place in the Persian Gulf, and virtually in so large an off-shore oil field, it appears that oil companies like ARAMCO are trying to preserve area marine life, while drilling and extracting the very substance that is contributing the most to global warming.

With this in mind, we can all wonder for how long coral formations and other marine life will be able to remain in bodies of water like the Persian Gulf, especially due to all the other environmental problems this area has, as we’ve covered a number of times on Green Prophet. This is especially true in light of all the commercial construction projects currently going on in places like Dubai and Abu Dhabi, also located in the Persian Gulf.

Photo via www.cache.eb.com
::www.offshore-mag.com

Read more on corals:
Corals Cope With Rising Sea Temperature By Eating High Protein Jellies
Jellyfish Invade Lebanon
Corals Will Melt If CO2 Levels Double
New Research Ship To Paint Red Sea Green

(This post was written by Maurice Picow, a writer for Green Prophet, the only news site dedicated to covering the environment in the Middle East.)

The situation has gotten so bad that many stores either ran out of chicken or had to turn people away without honoring the coupon.

Why America’s most popular female talk show host would offer such a deal is beyond the comprehension of most sane people, including those who are against the killing of millions of innocent fowl to satisfy the hunger of these people. The following piece, taken from a website, called www.Kentuckyfriedcruelty.com sums it up well: KFC suppliers cram birds into huge waste-filled factories, breed and drug them to grow so large that they can’t even walk, and often break their wings and legs.

At slaughter, the birds’ throats are slit and they are dropped into tanks of scalding-hot water — often while they are still conscious. It would be illegal for KFC to abuse dogs, cats, pigs, or cows in these ways.

In addition, it’s now becoming evident that many of these factory farms feed their chickens arsenic, mixed in with chicken feed, as both a growth stimulant as well as to kill parasites.

Fast food chicken establishments are now open in many parts of the Middle East, including: Bahrain. Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Syria, and the UAE. The arsenic issue is not limited solely the USA, as it has been revealed that small quantities of arsenic were fed as a growth stimulant to chickens in Israel from 2003 to 2006.

Although officially discontinued in 2006, the damage done by three years of eating chickens laced with arsenic has most likely left arsenic residues in many people, which one day could cause cancers and other health problems.

Israel has a very large and well developed poultry industry, with more than 700 poultry farms producing more then 400,000 tons of chicken meat a year.

Chicken is one of the country’s main sources of animal protein; and Israelis are the second largest world chicken consumers, averaging 36 kg per person per year. Much Israeli poultry is also raised on large farms, which also supplies eggs to large supermarket chains.

Due to Jewish Kashrut dietary laws, chickens have to be ritually slaughtered, which many say is much more humane than the American example noted above. That still doesn’t eliminate the problem of feeding hormones and other growth supplements to chickens that between 2003 and 2006 included arsenic as well.

Arsenic was also fed to pigs being raised in Israel, also as a growth stimulant. Free-range chicken, under the Teva Off brand are now available in Israel it’s doubtful but KFC franchises will use them, due to their smaller size and higher costs.

One reader of her site wrote: “I found it interesting that Oprah would promote KFC after doing a show about the horrors of factory farming.”

::free KFC at Oprah Winfrey

This post was first written by freelance journalist and blogger Maurice Picow at the world’s only Middle East focused environment news site and blog Green Prophet - www.greenprophet.com.

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has long been thought of as a country
where white gowned sheikhs drive luxury American, German, and Japanese cars along desert highways at break-necked speeds from one city or village or another, and then simply dump their car in the desert when it has outlived its usefulness.

Now, it appears that this mode of transportation may finally be augmented by a network of high speed commuter trains, which will be built alongside major highways, and will connect the country’s two holiest cities, Makkah (Mecca) and Medinah with the country’s largest port city, Jeddah.

A joint venture agreement singed between the London based Foster + Partners architecture and planning company, and the Buro Hapold engineering consulting giant (also headquartered in the UK) to design the fast commuter train network, which will connect the Kingdom’s holy sites with a four station train capable of reaching speeds up to 300 km per hour.

The project will be designed to make it easier for religious pilgrims to reach Makkah and Medinah, by an alternative and fast means of transport, other than buses and private vehicles, especially during the annual Hajj pilgrimage, when as many as 3 million pilgrims descend on the country in a short period of time.

With an environmental aspect as fragile as that in the desert Kingdom, when summer temperatures reach as high as 50 degrees C; and passenger congestion during the Hajj making it very difficult for many pilgrims to reach the holy sites in time to perform their obligatory religious rites, the trains will be a welcome addition and will be much better for the environment, with less gasoline and diesel vehicles on the road.

The design of the four stations will be such as to allow required
separation between male and female travelers, as well as allowing more comfort for all. It is hoped that this new mode of transportation will encourage more cross cultural ties between the pilgrims who come from all over the world. Women will have a much more comfortable means to reach the holy sites, not being able to drive within the Kingdom.

The project, which costs SR 6.65 billion, will be completed within two years from the commencing date. It will operate by 35% of its capacity during 1431 AH. Hajj season and fully during 1433 AH. Hajj season, according to Haj Information.

Both Foster + Partners and Buro Hapold have offices in many parts of Middle East, including the UAE, Egypt, and Kuwait, as well as in the Kingdom. The unique architectural station designs being planned will use a modular approach, enabling faster delivery and erection on site.

Where the women will sit on the trains themselves will obviously be
considered; especially for those coming from less strict Islamic
environments, such as America and the UK.

Have any tips for green Haggees? If so, write about them in the comments section. Hajj this year is in November.

::Archicentral

This post first appeared on Green Prophet, the only environment news site focused on the entire Middle East. Please contact the site of you are interested in writing on Green Prophet. We are looking for writers from the Middle East. www.greenprophet.com

As African nations sell and lease its land, and birthright, to the world’s super-powers, and arguably “dangerous” countries like Saudi Arabia who support Islamic fundamentalism, we are seeing a brand new kind of neo-colonial land-grab, and it scares me.

I’d reported on Galten’s Jatropha seeds for biofuel here, and also on the Israeli conglomerate Ormat, Evogene and Leviev in Namibia planting castor seeds for biofuel, and came out thinking, naively perhaps, that land development for biofuels in Africa was a beautiful thing: Israel doesn’t have much arable land, and the projects create jobs for Africans as well.

Israel is not the only Western country buying into Africa:

• Britain‘s Sun Biofuels plans to grow about 5,500 hectares of jatropha in Tanzania. The company also grows jatropha in Ethiopia and has similar projects in Mozambique.
• Sweden‘s Sekab Group, one of Europe’s leading ethanol producers, plans to produce 100 million litres of ethanol a year in Tanzania by 2012 at a cost of $200 – $300 million.
• British-based energy firm CAMS Group said in September it planned to produce 240 million litres of ethanol a year from sweet sorghum in Tanzania at a cost of up to $600 million.
• British biofuel company, D1-BP Fuel Crops is also actively planting Jatropha in Swaziland and Zambia, and also has plantings in Madagascar.
• In November 2008, South Korea’s Daewoo Logistics secured a 99-year lease on 1.3m hectares of land, an area roughly half the size of Belgium, from the government of Madagascar. (This equals about half of Madagascar’s arable land!)
• Flora EcoPower of Germany, through a local subsidiary, of 8,000 hectares in Oromia province in Ethiopia for the cultivation of castor seeds.

Now I am not a huge follower of crazy conspiracy theories, but something has me a little paranoid about new and aggressive land buying and leasing in Africa, especially when I hear countries like Saudi Arabia (15 of the 19 9/11 hijackers were Saudis), are buying up land in Sudan for agricultural development. Gulf nations are cash-heavy, but water-poor and are looking to secure food and fuel resources on Africa’s land for the coming decades.

It’s Like The Gold Rush

New patterns of land use in Africa, and what’s being called an aggressive “land-grab” according to AfricaAsia.com, opens up some serious questions for environmentalists and policy makers to think about. I’m not mongering doom and gloom: the results could be good too: It’s possible that agricultural development for food and biofuels in countries like Sudan, Egypt and Ethiopia could create more political stability and wealth for its indigenous people.

But I hazard to guess that sharing the profits equally with the Africans isn’t really on the landlords’ minds.

I fear, the only ones who’ll be reaping the big rewards, like coffee and diamond exporters mainly do, will be the big companies doing the colonizing. It is also likely, inevitable, and quite scary that some of these massive players will take their political points of view and baggage with them too.

Consider some of the Middle East players:

• In August 2008, Al-Qudra Holdings of Abu Dhabi said that it was looking to acquire 400,000 hectares of land in Asia and Africa, with Sudan a likely candidate, for the cultivation of corn, rice and cattle. The company already farms 1,500 hectares in Morocco and Algeria.
• Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have already acquired substantial holdings in Sudan.
• The Abu Dhabi Fund for Development alone is set to cultivate some 30,000 hectares of land in the north of Sudan.
• Hadco, of Saudi Arabia, is investing more than $96m in Sudan to lease 10,000 hectares on the banks of the Nile, near Khartoum, to produce wheat, vegetables and fodder.

According to AfricaAsia.com there have been similar investments in Mozambique, Uganda and Zimbabwe. And Ethiopia’s Prime Minister, Meles Zenawi, has been actively soliciting Middle East investment countries, describing himself as “very eager” to attract further land deals.

Here at Green Prophet, I work to give fair “green” value and criticism to all countries in the Middle East; the fact that countries like Saudi Arabia who support the Taliban and al Qaeda, are also buying land in Africa for agricultural development, deeply worries me.

InformationClearinghouse.net (in general highly critical of Israel, the US and the West) comments:”Backed by their governments and bankrolled with huge trade and investment profits and budget surpluses, the newly emerging neo-colonial economic powers (ENEP) are seizing control of vast tracts of fertile lands from poor countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America, through the intermediation of local corrupt, free-market regimes.

“Millions of acres of land have been granted – in most cases free of charge – to the ENEP who, at most, promise to invest millions in infrastructure to facilitate the transfer of their plundered agricultural products to their own home markets and to pay the ongoing wage of less than $1 dollar a day to the destitute local peasants.

“Projects and agreements between the ENEP and pliant neo-colonial regimes are in the works to expand imperial land takeovers to cover additional tens of millions of hectares of farmland in the very near future. The great land sell-off/transfer takes place at a time and in places where landless peasants are growing in number, small farmers are being forcibly displaced by the neo-colonial state and bankrupted through debt and lack of affordable credit. Millions of organized landless peasants and rural workers struggling for cultivatable land are criminalized, repressed, assassinated or jailed and their families are driven into disease-ridden urban slums. The historic context, economic actors and methods of agro-business empire-building bears similarities and differences with the old-style empire building of the past centuries.”

The above point-of-view may be a bit extreme (and the site insanely anti-Israel), but what I would like the commentary above and this post to do in general, is to encourage more people, reporters and environment bloggers to look with a critical eye at what’s happening in Africa with regards to foreign land leases, investments and development. It’s worrisome to think that without any controls, the massively rich nations will be getting richer and stronger, while the Africans and the weaker ones . . . you know already how this story ends.

For a great background piece on what’s happening with water in Madagascar, and the region in general, read Green Prophet’s interview with film producer Courtney Nichols.

::Reuters
::Africasia.com

More on biofuel:
Galten’s Jatropha seeds for Biofuel
Ormat, Evogene and Leviev in Namibia Planting Castor Seeds for Biofuel
Green Energy or Greenwash In Israel

(Image credit: treesftf)