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Ed Webb

UN calls on Israel to open nuclear facilities - 0 views

  • The U.N. General Assembly overwhelmingly approved a resolution Monday calling on Israel to quickly open its nuclear program for inspection and backing a high-level conference to ban nuclear weapons from the Middle East which was just canceled.
  • 174-6 with 6 abstentions
  • Those voting "no" were Israel, the U.S., Canada, Marshall Islands, Micronesia and Palau
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  • not legally binding
  • Israel has long said there first must be a Mideast peace agreement before the establishment of a Mideast zone free of weapons of mass destruction. The region's Muslim nations argue that Israel's undeclared nuclear arsenal presents the greatest threat to peace in the region
  • While the United States voted against the resolution, it voted in favor of two paragraphs in it that were put to separate votes. Both support universal adherence to the NPT, and call on those countries that aren't parties to ratify it "at the earliest date." The only "no" votes on those paragraphs were Israel and India.
Ed Webb

Iraq war costs U.S. more than $2 trillion: study | Reuters - 1 views

  • The U.S. war in Iraq has cost $1.7 trillion with an additional $490 billion in benefits owed to war veterans, expenses that could grow to more than $6 trillion over the next four decades counting interest, a study released on Thursday said
  • The war has killed at least 134,000 Iraqi civilians and may have contributed to the deaths of as many as four times that number, according to the Costs of War Project by the Watson Institute for International Studies at Brown University.
  • Excluded were indirect deaths caused by the mass exodus of doctors and a devastated infrastructure, for example, while the costs left out trillions of dollars in interest the United States could pay over the next 40 years.
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  • When security forces, insurgents, journalists and humanitarian workers were included, the war's death toll rose to an estimated 176,000 to 189,000
  • The report also examined the burden on U.S. veterans and their families, showing a deep social cost as well as an increase in spending on veterans. The 2011 study found U.S. medical and disability claims for veterans after a decade of war totaled $33 billion. Two years later, that number had risen to $134.7 billion
  • the United States gained little from the war while Iraq was traumatized by it
  • the $212 billion reconstruction effort was largely a failure with most of that money spent on security or lost to waste and fraud
Ed Webb

Egypt wheat stocks dwindle, sufficient for 89 days - News - Aswat Masriya - 1 views

  • Egypt's strategic stocks of wheat have fallen to 2.207 million tonnes, enough to last 89 days, a cabinet report said on Wednesday, as the top global importer struggles to ensure supply through an economic and political crisis.
  • the government also upped its projection of the local harvest to more than 9 million tonnes - a number that would exceed the current record of 8.523 million tonnes in 2009/10, according to U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) estimates
  • The Egyptian cabinet's forecast for its upcoming harvest is also above the USDA's crop estimate of 8.5 million tonnes, released last week.
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  • Egypt normally buys strategically to ensure that it has wheat stocks equal to at least six months' consumption in its silos. It relies heavily on imports to feed its 84 million people; half of the wheat they consume is imported."This is lower than they historically have carried in the past," a European trader said, commenting on the new figures. Shipments expected from the United States in the coming weeks will help maintain the current levels, the trader added."However, I think Egypt's private buyers or GASC need to buy an additional 800,000 to 1 million tonnes of wheat for shipment before the end of May when their local crop becomes readily available, to keep an adequate level of stocks."
  • weak Egyptian pound has pushed up the cost of wheat imports paid for in dollars
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