Despite efforts of the Ministry of Health, Saudi Arabia remains a country where smoking cigarettes is prevalent. In 2006, Dr. Abdullah Al-Baddah, the Ministry's anti-smoking chief, said that Saudis inhale 40,000 tons of tobacco smoke annually in 15 billion cigarettes. He pointed out that Saudi Arabia ranks 23rd in the world for the percentage of its population that smokes. This is in spite of a royal decree issued to ban smoking in all government institutions and buildings. The only time one will truly observe a noticeable absence of men smoking cigarettes is during the holy month of Ramadan. Why is it that many men can forsake from smoking during one month each year but once Ramadan has finished, return back to the smoking habit? Anti-smoking clinics have been opened in various cities in the Kingdom as part of the Health Ministry's efforts to encourage smokers to give up the bad habit. The ministry regularly organizes public programs that aim at creating awareness among Saudis and residents of the hazards smoking causes to a person's health. In June 2009, Purity, a local Saudi charity, launched an innovative anti-smoking campaign. Due to the high costs associated with marriage, Purity initiated its program with the catchy incentive “Kicking the habit is on you, and marriage is on us,” meant to entice young grooms to give up smoking. Purity's aim is to create a smoke-free family as one-third of Saudi school children live in homes with smokers, according to a 2007 health survey. – americanbedu.com Puzzled Barack Obama now joins two other US Presidents who received the Nobel Peace Prize while in office, Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson. Roosevelt won for his actions ending the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-05; Wilson won for his efforts to found the League of Nations following WWI. Jimmy Carter won the prize in 2002, long after he'd left the presidency, for his efforts toward peace in the Middle East. I confess, I am deeply puzzled by what led to awarding Obama the Peace Prize. Nominations for the award closed a matter of weeks after his January inauguration. Other than announcing his aspirations and winning the election in 2008, I'm hard put to name anything that he has accomplished that promotes world peace. Well, he did give a speech in Cairo pledging a new start in US relations with the Islamic world. Perhaps I'm mistaken in expecting accomplishments however; perhaps aspirations are enough. No, it is clear: aspirations are enough. – xrdarabia.org Third prez Yesterday, Ankara and Yerevan inked a friendship protocol in Zurich – closing a century-old chapter in Turkish-Armenian enemity over the last century's first holocaust in which estimated 1.5 million Armenian Christians were killed by the “Crypto-Jewish” leaders of the Turkish Army. Ironically, Senator Hillary Clinton and Senator Barack Obama – during their election campaign promised the one million US-Armenian citizens that if elected – they would recognize the Armenian genocide as “holocaust” – but the citizens were reminded by the Israeli lobby, Anti-Defamation League's president Abraham Foxman that the word “holocaust” is reserved for the Jewish mass-killings only. Abe cooperated with Kemalist Army in 2007 to kill the ‘Armenian Genocide Bill' in the Congress to hide Jewish involvement in this WW I ‘false flag' operation for which Turkish Muslims are being blamed till today. President Obama shed crocodile tears while attending Jewish holocaust memorial ceremonies in April 2009 – but did not mention the Palestinian Holocaust carried out by the Zionazi state just a few months earlier. Obama just became the third US President to receive Nobel Peace Prize for serving the cause of Israel. – rehmat1.wordpress.com No kidding? With the continuing debacles in Iraq, Pakistan, Palestine, Honduras and Afghanistan, you've got to be kidding me. Only eight months into his presidency in which he's caved in to the Israeli regime on illegal outposts and overseen the corporate transfer theft of TARP funds, not to mention a litany of other failures and broken promises (close Guantanamo, anyone?), and Barack Obama is awarded a Nobel peace prize? As Tom Lehrer remarked when Henry Kissinger was given a Nobel, political satire has died today.
