In Brief...
World News Review

Contributors: Cecil Maranville and Darris McNeely

• Drought Threat Looms Large Over North America
• Killer Floods in the Caribbean
• Islam Crowding Christianity out of Europe
• Does Anyone Care?

Drought Threat Looms Large Over North America

NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association, is predicting continued drought in virtually every Western state of the United States and in many of the states on the High Plains. Additionally, summer forecasts predict drier-than-average conditions for the Pacific Northwest, likely meaning drought for Washington and parts of Oregon.

Western Canada also labors under an extended drought. British Columbia is looking down the barrel of the worst drought since the Great Depression. Accumulated precipitation for lake levels in the province were close to the lowest figures of the 1920s. And the huge Okanagan Lake is as low as it was in the early 1900s.

During the time of great expansion into the American West, little thought was given to there not being enough water to meet the needs of the burgeoning population. To be sure, there were contentions over sharing water, but all thought there was enough to go around. In 1922, Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming signed the Colorado River Compact, designed to share the water of the system proportionally. Along with a subsequent treaty with Mexico, it required the availability of 8.23 million acre-feet of water annually.

Any damming of the river was not to interfere with this figure, calculated by hydrologists at the time. But they miscalculated—greatly overestimating the water available in the system by more than double. In 1956, Congress authorized building the massive Glen Canyon Dam on the Colorado River, just above Lees Ferry, the halfway point between the Upper and Lower Basin regions.

The dam, which took as much concrete as it would take to build a four-lane highway from Phoenix, Arizona, to Chicago, Illinois, created the second-largest man-made lake (behind Lake Mead, also on the Colorado system) in the country, Lake Powell. The Colorado River Compact required the dam to release 8.23 million acre-feet of water a year, based upon the theory that the snow melt and tributary collections would deliver that much to Lake Powell.

In reality, the lake received less than half of that amount in most years, so it released over twice what it took in. That worked for many years, as long as the states did not use their allotments. But now, all the states on the system are demanding their full allotments and Lake Powell cannot meet the demands. It has dropped to 40 percent of its top capacity, exposing cliffs 10 stories high.

Congress may soon have to step in to resolve the growing "water war"—legal wrangling over distribution rights. An imposed federal solution isn't likely to leave any party happy.

The American West grew more in the past 20 years than ever before, but those were wet years, part of what turns out to be an unusual wet cycle. Comparing those 20 years to the last 800 years, scientists tell us that the wet cycle was a fluke. The climate patterns of the West typically feature extended drought conditions, punctuated by rare wet periods. So the abundance of rainfall during the 20th-century development of the West was an anomaly, rather than the rule.

Tree ring studies enable scientists to analyze the water patterns as far back as A.D. 900. Looking at dry versus wet years between 900 and 1300, research reveals that only a few times did water levels come anywhere near what they were in the 20th century.

In other words, the drought now hitting the West is actually the norm; the wet period was abnormal.

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Killer Floods in the Caribbean

In a related story, the opposite weather extreme is ravaging the Caribbean nations of Haiti and the Dominican Republic. Floods triggered massive mud slides that buried entire towns. As of this writing, the final death toll is not yet in, although the skies are clear again over this two-nation island of Hispaniola.

The official death toll was just under 1,000, nearly equally divided between the countries, when Haitian officials announced that the town of Mapou, about 30 miles outside the capital of Port-au-Prince, may have another 1,000 dead in it alone.

Thousands are without homes and the essentials of life. The generous Americans and Canadians are again coming to the aid of the impoverished Haitians with water and food relief. Haiti's bankrupt government is hard-pressed to provide normal services to its 8 million citizens, much less to deal with a tragedy like this.

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Islam Crowding Christianity out of Europe

At the same time that the Vatican is pressing for recognition—and power—for Christianity in the new Europe, European nations are becoming increasingly Islamic. Those who profess Christianity are practicing it less and less. Presently, more Muslims worship in their British mosques than members of the Church of England do in their churches.

Author Oriana Fallaci, in a new book, La Forza della Ragione ("The Force of Reason"), warns: "Europe becomes more and more a province of Islam, a colony of Islam."

European Christians are having fewer children than ever—not enough to sustain their numbers. Common in Western nations, they have their children later in life, and women are having an average of 1.5 children each. However, to sustain a population a birthrate of 2.1 children per woman is required. So, old Europe is dying out.

Of course, workers are needed to pay taxes and maintain the economy, so Europe is bringing in millions of immigrants. Approximately 1.6 million are needed every year to keep the working population even. But if Europe wants to maintain the current ratio of workers to retirees, with more of its aging population retiring all the time, it will have to bring in a staggering 13.5 million immigrants every year.

Many of those are Muslims. They join the 20 million Muslims now in Europe, about 5 percent of its population. Muslims tend to have their children when young, and to have many of them, in contrast to the native Europeans. Birthrates and immigration will put the Muslim population of Europe at 10 percent by 2020.

If people then begin to flee areas with sizable Muslim populations, as has happened in other regions, Europe could be majority-Muslim within decades. Time will tell whether that will happen, but the sure consequence is that Muslim views will have an increasing influence on EU policy decisions. That will translate into even stronger pro-Arab and anti-Israel stands, as the EU takes a greater hand in foreign affairs than it has for many years.

Source: Daniel Pipes, "Europe en Route to Islamic Takeover," Chicago Sun-Times, May 12, 2004.

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Does Anyone Care?

Described as "the worst humanitarian crisis in the world," it goes on today with few taking any serious note. In western Sudan the Arab-dominated government is trying to purge the Darfur region of black Africans. Up to a million people have fled their homes, many to neighboring Chad, seeking protection and shelter from marauding militia.

In the past year the border town of Tine has seen its population double as refugees have poured out of Sudan, fleeing Arab militiamen mounted on horses and camels who are waging a campaign of ethnic cleansing against their black neighbors.

There is an ethnic divide between Arabs and black Africans. Considered a sideshow only a year ago, this crisis is now too tragic to be ignored.

Many could only watch as the Janjaweed (as the militiamen are known) executed members of their families. Most lost their possessions when their houses were burned down. All were exhausted after walking for days through the desert.

Now they have collapsed in towns along the border in one of the most destitute regions of Chad, which is itself among the world's poorest countries.

Relief money channeled through the United Nations has disappeared. Aid workers from other agencies have accused the UN of inefficiency and perhaps worse. "What is going on here is very dark," said one Western aid worker at a non-UN agency.

Sudan has experienced sporadic and halfhearted attention from the West. An older civil war between the Muslim north and Christian south resulting in the enslavement of the latter by the former brought attention, and resulting pressure, from America's influential religious lobby.

Because of Sudan's ties to Osama bin Laden and his terror network, the country drew the attention of America after terrorist bombings in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998. In response former U.S. President Bill Clinton ordered a suspected munitions factory bombed.

However, no effective solution from the United Nations, United States or any Muslim nation has halted the civil wars and the resulting famines that have affected the lives of millions.

Ironically, last month African countries elected Sudan to serve on the UN's human rights commission.

Sources: Economist and Financial Times.

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