Middle East unstable

Nothings going off there YET. But say Russia has another drought and fires, USA has lower than normal crops, el Nina causes droughts/floods down there... inflation pushes the prices up as well as petrol prices... what will that do to food prices in those places this year?


From last week:

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/0dd506b6-1e7e-11e0-87d2-00144feab49a.html

Arab states act to restrain food costs

By Heba Saleh in Cairo

Published: January 12 2011 20:15 | Last updated: January 12 2011 20:15

Libya, Jordan and Morocco have taken measures to control food prices in the wake of violent protests in Tunisia and Algeria fuelled by anger over unemployment and poverty.

Libya has abolished taxes and custom duties on locally produced and imported foods such as wheat-based products, rice, vegetable oil, sugar and infant milk.

The government in Jordan cut taxes on fuel and some foods, and Morocco introduced a compensation system for importers of soft milling wheat aimed at keeping supplies stable as global prices rise.

Tunisia, one of the most tightly controlled countries in the Arab world, has suffered a month of rioting by youths angry at high unemployment. Neighbouring Algeria also erupted in riots for three days after prices of basic commodities such as oil and sugar rose steeply. The Algerian authorities hastened to reverse the increases to prevent further shows of public anger.

The Jordanian government said this week it was cancelling a special sales tax of 6 per cent on kerosene and diesel and it reduced the tax on petrol from 18 to 12 per cent. It also allocated more funds to state-run food providers that will reduce the cost of staples such as sugar, rice and poultry.
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Sounds like it could happen to any one of those countries.
 
Found this post on another forum, thought it was brilliant:

paulxx said:
The Tunisian revolution.

All those years ago Gill Scott-Heron sang "The revolution will not be televised". Well maybe so, but it is certainly being relayed to the world via the internet.

Events are taking place so quickly in Tunisia that western imperialism and their puppets in the mainstream media are struggling to keep up. I watch about five news channels and it's interesting to note that the most reactionary coverage on Jan 14th and 15th was from the BBC! who were screaming "VIOLENCE" and "LOOTING" while forgetting to point out that it was the police who were doing the violence and looting.

Meanwhile the workers were setting up neighbourhood self-defence committees to protect themselves from the police attacks. Works committees and school and college committees are also being set up. These are the embryonic soviets of the revolution. They still need to be spread thoughout Tunisia and linked together at neighbourhood, city and national level into a Constituent Assembly to run the country democratically but this already happening very quickly.

The old gang of murderers and thieves who comprised the previous regime and who are clinging to power shouting "UNITY GOVERNMENT" should all be ejected from office and brought to trial for their crimes. Just because they've quit their old party means nothing. If they are left in office it will be a case of "Out with the old and in with the...Old". In other words nothing will change. At the moment it looks as though the tunisian workers are not being fooled by these western backed scoundrels.

US and French imperialism have fully backed, funded and equipped the murderous Ben-Ali regime. It was only when it was clear that Ben-Ali was doomed that Obama and Sarkosy started muttering about "support for the people". It is certain that these two presidents will be manouvering behind the scenes to defeat the revolution.

For the last 20 years western imperialism has been holding up Tunisia as a shining example of a peaceful arab democracy despite the fact that it was no such thing; it was a brutal dictatorship. Only 18 months ago the west gave the Ben-Ali regime a Peace Award for having the most stable regime in the arab world. On Jan 15th the tunisian workers told the west where they can shove their Peace Award!

Already there exists a state of dual power in Tunisia between the remnants of the old regime and the workers committees.

The most important question now facing the revolution is the question of the workers' leadership.
If the Tunisian workers can develop a revolutionary leadership then we could see a socialist Tunisia. If the old guard or the reformists, who are at the head of the trade unions at the moment, manage to take the lead then the revolution will be defeated, but only temporarily. The genie is out of the bottle and there is nothing that western imperialism or the old RCD gangsters can do to put it back.

And what is happenning in Tunisia is spreading across the arab world. There is not a single ruling class from Casablanca to Cairo that will be sleeping easily in their beds tonight.

There is unrest, uprisings and revolutions taking place on every continent. All over the world the tectonic plates of revolution and reaction are reaching a state of tension that cannot be tolerated. Something will have to give, and soon.

The Tunisian workers and youth are showing the way!



Vive le revolution tunisien!

Foward to socialism!
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kwerk said:
Tunisia gets a new government
Lebanon gets a new government
Protests, riots and self-immolation in Algeria, Morocco and Egypt now.

They say the protests are in large part about food prices. The USA released a statement saying food prices will be going UP this year. Will there be another drought in Russia this year?

How will 2011 turn out for the middle east? Rising food and petrol prices, unemployment, etc. Imagine if Libya or Egypt got overthrown and extremists were able to fill the vacuum.

Could there be a domino affect? Would it spill over to Europe?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/...-rise-after-US-cuts-crop-stock-forecasts.html
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if you mean even more immigrants trying to enter EU then yes of course.
 
Tefal said:
Israel may disagree.
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Where are Jews to go then? to Muslims they have no home, Jews and Muslims have fought thousands of years simply because of what their Koran says.

Europe's not exactly safe any more, when I see all these pictures of posting asking for another holocaust it's quite frightening.

Big door on Europe saying "People of Jewish faith **** off! Islamists welcome"
 
kwerk said:
I'll go by America's definition. Their "Middle East Partnership Initiative" is head-quartered in Tunisia.

http://mepi.state.gov/where-we-work.html

Where We Work

* Algeria
* Bahrain
* Egypt
* Israel
* Jordan
* Kuwait
* Lebanon
* Libya
* Morocco
* Oman
* Qatar
* Saudi Arabia
* Tunisia
* United Arab Emirates
* West Bank and Gaza
* Yemen
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Which doesn't include Syria, Iraq or Iran.
 
Well, not sure if this needed a new thread or not - but Egypt has been cut off from the internet completely. Also a video of a protester being shot has been released, reminded me of the Iranian protests last summer.

Was reading this on Reddit.
 
God you get some serious retards on this forum, complete waste of spcae narrow minded igits.

We could learn something from them, they actually stand up and fight for something they believe in. We're getting our pants pulled down with petrol prices for example and do nothing about it!..oh, actually we seem to do the right british thing i guess, form a orderly queue and complain.
 
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