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https://www.reuters.com/articl...

https://www.arabianbusiness.co...

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Qatar also has food subsidies, but they're decreasing them to spend the money getting ready for the World Cup in 2022. But they import 40% of their food from Saudi Arabia, so see above.

I just did some googling, looking for more information about their plans and found this which is quite interesting. It puts the plan in a somewhat different light, and answers many of comments made here.

A key reason for this iceberg towing plan is specifically local environment modification. All those desalinization plants are pumping bring into the coastal waters, and the icebergs are going to be allowed to melt in open water to counteract the increased salinity and restoring the ecological balance in those coastal waters. And through feedback effects they anticipate that is will modify the local climate, creating a cool air layer (basically an artificial inversion effect) and increasing rainfall.

I guess you've never been to the UAE or Abu Dhabi.

Well... firstly, they live in a waste land. You can't grow crops there, the soil is no good. Currently all their food is imported from overseas. If there's ever an energy crisis due to peak oil, big populations in these countries will quickly become unsustainable.

Secondly, these projects are all 4 years out of date property boom hype, like this...

http://gizmodo.com/5065406/the-plans-for-the-155+mile+high-skyscraper-in-you-guessed-it-dubai ...the eco city is just yet another pie in the sky property development, all of which after some research you'll find are probably already canned. The only one of these super projects ever to see the light of day is a massive flop...

http://www.arabianbusiness.com/occupancy-levels-rise-as-burj-khalifa-celebrates-first-birthday-371164.html

No, this is CVac from an Australian company. It takes the patients own immune system and tries to train it to attack ovarian cancer. Prima BioMed Info and Dubai PR about this. It sounds like a promising idea and prelim results look hopeful.

HPV is common in the states now. I know my mother's chemo doctor recommends both boys and girls get it.

Dubai is allowing a treatment in their country that does that. http://www.arabianbusiness.com/new-ovarian-cancer-treatment-approved-in-dubai-403287.html My mother has been fighting ovarian for 3 years and if it didn't cost a few hundred thousand for this treatment they'd have another client.

The notion that "anybody can make it in the US if they work hard" is a fairy tale.

Seriously. Be born rich. That's the way to go.

The notion that the notion is a fairytale is a fairytale. People love to blindly spread memes like this because they enjoy feeling sorry for themselves, but it simply isn't true:

Rags To Riches Billionaires: "Almost two-thirds of the world's 946 billionaires made their fortunes from scratch, relying on grit and determination"

That doesn't mean everyone can end up a billionaire, but it's simply false that this notion that 'anyone can make it' is a fairytale; it's borne out on practically a daily basis. If you open your eyes and look, you'll find true-life rags-to-riches story under every second stone you turn --- especially in the USA, but also these days frequently in places like China. But yeah, not everyone is born hard-working, I guess, so keep sitting and feeling sorry for yourself and you'll definitely ensure that nothing ever changes for you.

Rags to Riches CEOs

7 greatest celebrity rags to riches stories

Rags to Riches

Entrepreneur takes women from rags to riches

Rags to Riches billionaires

Asian American Rags to Riches Sagas

Case Study: From Rags to Riches (Brenda French)

Cordia Harrington: From Rags to Riches Success Story

Local cosmetics magnate reveals rags-to-riches life story

China: A rags-to-riches story to dream about (Yan Huiyan)

China’s paper magnate is a rags-to-riches story, literally

Rags to riches: Bill MacAloney: from orphan to successful business owner to CBA

From rags to riches: Filipino weavers trade up

Etc. etc. blah blah ... I could go on pasting these stories in here all day. Nothing worse than listening to whiny losers feeling sorry for themselves that they weren't born rich.

We should constantly live in fear of tribal men in caves 8000 miles away at all times.

Osama isn't tribal.

He's medieval.

His family made its fortune in heavy construction for the Saudi royal family. Net worth $7 billion.

Chicken feed. Prince Alwaleed alone is worth $18 billion. No Saudi whatever his merit or ambition can climb higher so long as his family rules.

Do I have to tell you how this story ends?

Neither is it psychologically insignificant that building the iconic mosque or royal palace was where the bin Ladens began.

Osama has spent his entire life on the outside looking in.

Close but no cigar.

Rich List 2009 - 7# The Bin Laden Family

Every night, the stuff is pumped out of municipal septic tanks by a half-mile long convoy of trucks, which then dump it in nearby storm drains. It all ends up on the beach.

By my count, we are probably dealing with as many as eight, maybe even nine, unexplained cut or damaged undersea cables within the last week, and not the mere three or four that most mainstream news media outlets in the United States are presently reporting. Given all this cable-cutting mayhem in the last several days, who knows but what there may possibly be other cut and/or damaged cables that have not made it into the news cycle, because they are lost in the general cable-cutting noise by this point. Nevertheless, let me enumerate what I can, and keep in mind, I am not pulling these out of a hat; all of the sources are referenced at the conclusion of the article; you can click through and look at all the evidence that I have. It's there if you care to read through it all 1) one off of Marseille, France 2) two off of Alexandria, Egypt 3) one off of Dubai, in the Persian Gulf 4) one off of Bandar Abbas, Iran in the Persian Gulf 5) one between Qatar and the UAE, in the Persian Gulf 6) one in the Suez, Egypt 7) one near Penang, Malaysia 8) initially unreported cable cut on 23 January 2008 (Persian Gulf?)

The article includes the following links as references to document the above list of believed cuts:

1) http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?c=JPArticle&cid=1202064573279&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
2) http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/business/?id=24186
3) http://www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArticle.asp?xfile=data/theuae/2008/February/theuae_February121.xml&section=theuae
4) http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=080202132053.iohfg5ob&show_article=1
5) http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/02/04/2153455.htm
6) http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5i03tUdyj8wf2Xa9P4trWEjqAJdyQ
7) http://www.arabianbusiness.com/510132-internet-problems-continue-with-fourth-cable-break?ln=en
8) http://www.globalresearch.ca/PrintArticle.php?articleId=7980
9) https://confluence.slac.stanford.edu/display/IEPM/Effects+of+Fibre+Outage+through+Mediterranean
10) http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/meast/02/01/internet.outage/?iref=hpmostpop
11) http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/02/04/technology/cables.php
12) http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/31/business/worldbusiness/31cable.html?_r=2&oref=slogin&oref=slogin
13) http://www.infoworld.com/article/08/01/31/Cut-cable-disrupts-Internet-in-Middle-East_1.html
14)

http://news.google.com/news?oe=utf-8&um=1&tab=wn&hl=en&q=UAE+dollar&btnG=Search+News

I don't really know what to think about this one (I'd be lying if I said I did). I can't readily assume it is sabotage. There is the update in the article which claims the UAE is relatively unaffected. However, the Iraq war is historical precedence for the currency policies of oil-exporting nations being related to major events.

For those who care to look: Iraq, euros