A court in Unaiza upheld the marriage on condition the groom does not have sex with her until she reaches puberty.

Justice Minister Muhammad Issa said his ministry wanted to put an end to the “arbitrary” way in which parents and guardians can marry off underage girls.

But he did not suggest the practice would be abolished.

Human-rights groups oppose such marriages, which they say are often motivated by poverty.

For full article, visit:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7999777.stm

A 50-year old Saudi man has agreed to divorce his 9-year-old bride, media reported on Thursday, after the marriage drew international criticism.

The decision, reported by newspapers Alwatan and Al-Riyadh, came after months of court hearings, criticism from the United Nations and an international media frenzy about Saudi Arabia’s human rights practices.

“This is a good step and I think the man did it because he was in a lot of pressure from everyone,” Wajeha Al-Huaider, founder of the Group for Women’s Rights in Saudi Arabia, told Reuters by telephone.

For full article, visit:
http://www.reuters.com/article/oddlyEnoughNews/idUSTRE53T6D820090430

“When I got married I was scared,” remembers 10-year-old Nujood Ali. “I didn’t want to leave my family and siblings.”

At an age when girls in the West still play with dolls, Nujood found herself married to a man three times her age. But in her home country of Yemen — a deeply conservative Middle East Muslim nation — this situation isn’t uncommon.

Yemeni lawyer Shada Nasser had long opposed the practice of early marriage when, in April 2008, she got a chance to do something about it.

For full article, visit:
http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/meast/09/26/heroes.shada.nasser/index.html

Thanks to Roy Beck for this article.
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Forty years ago this morning, I was visiting with Milton Berle in his hotel room near Grand Rapids, Michigan, sharing our reactions to watching the moon landing in the middle of the night. That evening, we met again over a giant bowl of potato salad at a backyard picnic as Congressman Gerald Ford dipped along with us and excitedly recounted his phone call from Pres. Nixon minutes after the moon walk.

This is why kids aspire to be news reporters. You never know what you might be doing when something big happens.

IF WE COULD PUT A MAN ON THE MOON, THEN . . . .

For full article, visit:
http://www.numbersusa.com/content/nusablog/beckr/july-20-2009

Even in the 1930s, Woody Guthrie warned America in a Dust Bowl song that the California dream could not be had on the cheap. Yet relative to other places, the state has historically been a pretty good bargain, with a low-cost, enviable higher education system, subsidized energy and an abundance of services for those down on their luck.

But three decades of staggering population growth combined with three high-impact recessions, budgeting by ballot box, federal mandates, an unusual tax structure and the rising cost of social services have finally produced disastrous results, and the ramifications are reaching across every aspect of life in this state.

For full article, visit:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/22/us/22calif.html

Thanks to Gretchen Pfaff of CAPS for this editorial.
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OP-ED FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Press Contact:
Rick Oltman
Californians for Population Stabilization (CAPS)
415- 215-9550, 805-564-6626
www.CAPSweb.org

Crazy From The Heat
An overcrowded California is running out of water and leadership

By Mark Cromer

As California heads into high summer, those sweltering weeks that burn like a fever from mid-July well into September, there is no indication that our state or federal leadership has yet to truly grasp the environmental catastrophe the Golden State now faces.

Perhaps, as the saying goes, they are “crazy from the heat.”

Consider that less than two months ago, Sen. Dianne Feinstein took to the Senate floor and introduced a so-called farm bill—known as AgJOBS—that would legalize millions of illegal immigrant field workers and their families and, even more amazingly, set the stage to import millions more exploitable laborers to work in grueling conditions.
Continue Reading »

Thanks to Marianne Ward for this article from the Guardian.
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The world’s pre-eminent climate scientists produced a blunt assessment of the impact of global warming on the US yesterday, warning of droughts that could reduce the American south-west to a wasteland and heatwaves that could make life impossible even in northern cities.

In an update on the latest science on climate change, the US Congress was told that melting snow pack could lead to severe drought from California to Oklahoma. In the midwest, diminishing rains and shrinking rivers were lowering water levels in the Great Lakes, even to the extent where it could affect shipping.

For full article, visit:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2009/feb/26/drought-us-climate-change

Thanks to Leah Durant for sending me this article.
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Water shortages, which used to be limited to the dry western states, now plague just about the entire United States. Even regions that once seemed to have limitless supplies of water are facing predictions of shortages and imposing water restrictions on residents.

The Associated Press reported in October 2007 that, “An epic drought in Georgia threatens the water supply for millions. Florida doesn’t have nearly enough water for its expected population boom. The Great Lakes are shrinking. Upstate New York’s reservoirs have dropped to record lows.”

For full article, visit:
http://www.milforddailynews.com/opinion/x50027850/Erbe-Immigration-and-drought

Thanks to Jack Martin of FAIR for alerting me to his new report entitled “Immigration, Energy and the Environment,” the pdf of which can be downloaded at http://www.fairus.org/site/DocServer/energy_enviro.pdf?docID=2941.
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Energy Use, CO2 Emission and Immigration

Energy consumption is a factor of both per capita use and population size. Population size includes the issue of immigration. U.S. energy consumption and the resulting environmental impact of the production of greenhouse gasses has been steadily increasing in total amounts even though per capita consumption has been decreasing.

U.S. energy consumption increased by about 34 percent from 75.8 quads (quadrillion [1015] BTUs) in 1973 to about 101.5 quads in 2007. Over this same period, per capita energy consumption decreased by 6.4 percent. The reason for the increase in energy consumption is due to the 43.1 percent increase in the U.S. population.

For full article, visit:
http://www.fairus.org/site/News2/641056848a>

Thanks to Roy Beck for this email introducing Quality-of-Life Maps for all U.S. counties (3,141 counties). You can find out the population growth of any county and how it compares to other counties. See http://www.numbersusa.com/content/maps