Excerpts: Saudi anti-food crisis plans .Myanmar devastated Qatar citizenship
6 May 2008

+++ARAB NEWS (Saudi) 6 May '08:"Kingdom Takes Steps to Check Price Rise"P.K.
Abdul Ghafour
QUOTE:"investment opportunities in
agriculture, cattle and fisheries in other countries"
EXCERPTS:
Saudi Arabia yesterday(5 May) adopted a series of important measures, which
included plans to invest in agricultural and livestock projects in foreign
countries, and establish a holding company to manage such projects, to curb
rising commodity prices and ensure food security.
... Cabinet ... urged the Ministry of Commerce and Industry to prepare a
comprehensive study on the Kingdom's future food requirements.
The new measures come after inflation in the Kingdom hit a new record of 9.6
percent last month. Saudi Arabia has already cut customs tariffs on food
such as frozen poultry, dairy products and vegetable oils from 20 to five
percent.... .Spelling out long-term measures to curb prices ... the
ministries of agriculture and commerce and industry would present within two
months a report to the Cabinet of a comprehensive survey it is conducting on
investment opportunities in agriculture, cattle and fisheries in other
countries.
. . .
+++ARAB NEWS (Saudi) 6 May:"Over 10,000 Die in Myanmar Cyclone" Agence
France
Presse
QUOTE: more than 10,000 people... killed
...and tens of thousands more mayalso have died"

EXCERPTS:
YANGON, 6 May 2008- Myanmar said yesterday that more than 10,000 people had
been killed in the cyclone that tore into the Southeast Asian nation at the
weekend, and tens of thousands more may also have died.. . .
"We will welcome help ... from other countries, because our people are in
difficulty," Nyan Win said.
The United Nations said hundreds of thousands of people had been left
homeless when the storm, packing winds of 190 km per hour, ripped through
the countryside, destroying entire villages in its fury.
Thousands of buildings were flattened as the furious cyclone also ripped
power lines to shreds, uprooted trees that blocked key roads and disrupted
water supplies in the main city and former capital, Yangon.
"I haven't seen anything like this in my whole life," said one elderly
resident.
Nargis struck Myanmar late Friday around the mouth of the Ayeyawaddy
(Irrawaddy) River, about 220 km southwest of Yangon, before hitting the
country's economic hub.
. . .As aid agencies struggled to rush emergency supplies of food and
water into the country, the ruling junta vowed to press ahead with a
referendum this weekend on a new constitution.
But that was before the release of the dramatic death toll, announced on
Myanmar television, which like all media in the nation, under military rule
since 1962, is strictly controlled by the government.
The announcement came as aid organizations were battling the devastation on
the ground and the difficulties of getting supplies and personnel into one
of the world's most isolated nations.
. . .he UN said it was ready to send emergency aid to Myanmar, and was
considering making an urgent appeal.

+++Saudi Gazette 6 May '08:"Qatar reverses law banning dual citizenship"
QUOTE:"some 5,700 people who had previously
been stripped of their Qatar nationality had it restored"
DOHA - Qatar has reversed a law banning dual nationality and a decision to
strip thousands of tribesmen of their citizenship on the grounds that they
also held Saudi nationality, a state-backed watchdog said on Monday.
"Some 5,700 people who had previously been stripped of their Qatari
nationality have had it restored," the secretary general of the National
Human Rights Commission, Ali bin Samikh Al-Merri, told AFP. The figure
represents the great majority of the 6,000 or so members of the Al-Murra
tribe who had had their citizenship taken away.
Merri said that the process of restoring the tribesmen's citzenship had
begun in 2006
==========
Sue Lerner - Associate, IMRA