Some of the world’s largest and most densely populated cities have air that’s so polluted that people suffer from lung diseases at rates that are significantly above global averages. Birth defects in these cities are also at extraordinarily high levels, as are heart disease and cancer rates.

Many of these cities are among the fastest-growing in the world. And in some, residents burn wood and coal for warmth, releasing additional deadly pollution into the atmosphere.

But which cities have the world’s worst air? To compile such a list, 24/7 Wall St has reviewed several dozen studies on air quality conducted over the past few years, along with data from government websites and private sources. The review examined data about the following pollutants:

• Sulfur dioxide: Produced when fossil fuels are burned and is the primary cause of acid rain. Exposure causes eye irritation, coughing, worsening of asthma and respiratory-tract infections.
• Nitrogen dioxide: Produced by generators, power plants and motor vehicles. It has been shown to cause bronchitis and other pulmonary diseases.
• Particulates: Refers to a variety of small pollutants, including lead, dust, ammonia, soot and pulverized minerals. They’re a leading cause of lung cancer. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), mortality in cities with high levels of particulates “exceeds that observed in relatively cleaner cities by 15% to 20%.”

With that background, here are 24/7′s 10 cities with the worst air quality:

1) Beijing, China (tie)

Beijing’s air quality has become so bad that the city has recently been engulfed in a hazardous haze. As a result, schools have been forced to cancel outdoor activities, and health experts have asked that children, the elderly and people with respiratory ailments stay indoors. The city recorded the world’s highest level of sulfur dioxide concentrations for 2000 to 2005 and has the third-highest level of nitrogen dioxide behind only Sao Paulo and Mexico City. Pollution improved in 2008 because officials banned roughly half of the city’s cars when it hosted the Olympic Games. Of course, the air got worse again after the games left town.

1) New Delhi, India (tie)

According to WHO’s most recent findings, New Delhi ranks second in concentrations in particulates, at a level more than six times higher than what WHO considers safe. According to the Harvard International Review, two in every five of the city’s 13.8 million residents suffer from respiratory illness. The report says the main cause of New Delhi’s air pollution is car exhaust and dust kicked up from overcrowded roads. As a result, construction workers and taxi drivers are most at risk for debilitating illness or even early death.

3) Santiago, Chile

According to WHO, a city’s airborne particulate matter should not exceed 50 micro-grams per cubic meter. In Santiago, an alert is issued when the level hits 200 micro-grams. In 2008, on some days the city reached 444 micro-grams. Additionally, Santiago has the second-highest level of ground-level ozone, according to WHO.

4) Mexico City, Mexico

According to researchers from the University of Salzburg, Mexico City has high concentrations of nearly every major harmful airborne pollutant, including sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides and carbon monoxide. By far the worst problem gripping the city is the massive cloud of smog that hangs over it almost every day. Mexico City has the highest level of ground-level ozone in the world, according to WHO.

5) Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia

In Ulaanbaatar, the annual average particulate matter concentrations are 14 times higher than WHO’s recommended level. The city’s poor air quality has caused high incidences of chronic bronchitis and cardiovascular diseases. A thick smog often blankets the city, and at times daytime visibility is so poor that cars must use their headlights.

6) Cairo, Egypt

The most recent WHO data ranked Cairo as having the second-highest levels of particulates in the world after New Delhi. Another WHO report, issued a few years ago, equated living in the city of 17.8 million to smoking a pack of cigarettes a day. Because Egypt doesn’t use unleaded gasoline, citizens are exposed to high levels of lead every day. On occasion, Cairo is also under what’s commonly called “the black cloud”: a dense, poisonous mass of smoke caused by the seasonal burning of rice ashes by local farmers.

7) Chongqing, China

One of the fastest-growing cities in China, Chongqing has extremely high levels of air pollution because of coal-burning by power plants and industry. The poor air quality is sickening the city’s residents. Studies have found that 4.63% of children under 14 suffer from asthma, although prevalence in girls may be under-reported due to cultural bias. Levels of nitrogen oxide are rising because of vehicle emissions.

8) Guangzhou, China

Guangzhou, a provincial capital, has a population of roughly 12 million and one of the worst levels of particulates in China. Total suspended particles, according to a 2007 study, were worse than in Beijing. Sulfur dioxide levels, according to the most recent WHO data, were second only to Beijing. As industrial production and traffic within Guangzhou continue to increase, more people are suffering from shortness of breath, coughing, dizziness, weakness and nausea.

9) Hong Kong

Hong Kong features excessive levels of nitrogen dioxide, ozone, sulfur dioxide and carbon monoxide. The Air Pollution Index, which rates the likelihood of people getting ill from breathing a city’s air, has recently reached 500, the highest possible level, for multiple parts of Hong Kong. This year saw the worst levels of pollution since 1995, prompting the government to warn people against doing outdoor activities. These levels were 12 to 14 times worse than WHO standards. No wonder a recent Gallup poll has shown that 70% of Hong Kong’s population are dissatisfied with their horrible air quality.

10) Kabul, Afghanistan

Because of the war in Afghanistan, the nation’s capital has been flooded by refugees from the surrounding countryside. According to an NPR report, Kabul’s infrastructure is designed for about 500,000 residents, but it now supports more than 5 million. The overcrowded city is full of wood-burning stoves, and gas-powered generators are commonly used to supply electricity that a war-ravaged grid cannot provide. Cars use leaded gasoline, and residents sometimes burn plastic tires to stay warm. As a result of the increasingly high levels of dangerous particulates in the air, President Hamid Karzai has declared a state of emergency in the capital city. According to the director for the Ministry of Public Health, “Air pollution is a huge problem here, it leads to so many diseases — respiratory diseases, allergies, miscarriages and even cancer.”

[Via 24/7 Wall St, Daily Finance]

The population of the World is reaching a staggering 7 Billion inhabitants this week, marking a critical time for us to consider the conservation of natural resources to ensure a sustainable planet for future generations before sucking up all the good out of it. Experts are already releasing their estimates of the population growth till the end of the century. One forthcoming United Nations report estimates that the number may reach 15 billion – more than double current levels, and 5 billion more than what was previously predicted. So what does this mean for our planet and its resources?

The first billion people accumulated over a leisurely interval, from the origins of humans hundreds of thousands of years ago to the early 1800s. Adding the second billion took another 120 or so years. Then, in the last 50 years, humanity more than doubled, surging from three billion in 1959 to four billion in 1974, five billion in 1987 and six billion in 1998. This rate of population increase has no historical precedent.

Joel E. Cohen, a mathematical biologist and the head of the Laboratory of Populations at Rockefeller University and Columbia University, the author of “How Many People Can the Earth Support?, wrote,

“If we spend our wealth — our material, environmental, human and financial capital — faster than we increase it by savings and investment, we will shift the costs of the prosperity that some enjoy today onto future generations. The mismatch between the short-term incentives that guide our political and economic institutions and even our families, on one hand, and our long-term aspirations, on the other, is severe.”

“We must increase the probability that every child born will be wanted and well cared for and have decent prospects for a good life. We must conserve more, and more wisely use, the energy, water, land, materials and biological diversity with which we are blessed.”

Human demands on earth have grown enormously, though the atmosphere, the oceans and the continents are no bigger now than they were since the beginning of humanity.  Already, more than a billion people live without an adequate, renewable supply of fresh water!

The United Nations Population Division anticipates 8 billion people by 2025, 9 billion by 2043 and 10 billion by 2083. India will have more people than China shortly after 2020, and sub-Saharan Africa will have more people than India before 2040.

Will earth withstand the whopping growth in population rates? Will humans be instinct in 100 years? let us know what you think of earth’s sustainability in the comments section below

[Via Discovery] [Photo by JustinMN/Flickr.com]

JEANS are trousers made from denim. Some of the earliest American blue jeans were made by Jacob Davis, Calvin Rogers, and Levi Strauss in 1873. Starting in the 1950s, jeans, originally designed for working people, became popular among teenagers.

The word “jeans” comes from the French phrase bleu de Gênes, literally the blue of Genoa. Jeans fabric, or denim, originated independently in two places; The French town of Nîmes, from which ‘denim’ (de Nîmes) gets its name, and From Dongari Killa in India, from which the name dungarees was derived.

Denim trousers were made in Chieri, a town near Turin, Italy, during the Renaissance and were popularized in the 19th century. These trousers were sold through the harbor of Genoa, at that time the capital of the independent Republic of Genoa an important naval and trading power. The Genoese Navy required all-purpose trousers for its sailors that could be worn while swabbing the deck and the denim material met this need. These trousers were laundered by dragging them in nets behind the ship, and the sea water and sun would gradually bleach them to white.

Also, Jeans (at the time known as “dungarees”), along with light-blue stenciled “cambric” shirts, became part of the official working uniform of the United States Navy in the first part of the 20th Century. A working uniform was selected to protect traditional uniforms from being soiled or torn in the ship’s rugged working environment, leaving them for ceremonial occasions. They were first issued in 1901.  The same type of uniform consisting of jeans and chambray tops was issued as prison uniforms in some correctional facilities mainly because of the durability and low-maintenance of denim which was deemed suitable for the rugged manual labor carried out by inmates.

Nowadays, everyone wears jeans, but it’s not every day we think about what it takes to make that pretty blue color. In south China’s Xintang township – AKA the world’s jeans capital - More than 100,000 people worked in jeans industry that comprised about 3,000 companies in 2010. About 40 percent of all jeans in the United States come from the township.  With a whopping 260 million pairs of jeans produced annually, production comes at a high cost.

Walking along the shore of the Pearl River Delta in Xintang, China, piles of trash – many of which contain scraps of blue denim – are found. The Pearl River Delta is at the center of much of China’s manufacturing industry. Its banks are lined with thousands of factories that produce huge amounts of waste, much of which gets funneled into the delta. And as the blue jeans capital of the world, a large number of the wastewater pollution comes from the production of the beloved blue textile. The satellite images of the water stained blue are particularly disturbing. 

Arguably, the industry provides jobs for people who might otherwise not have one. But residents of Xintang pay a hefty toll with the destruction of their habitat and health.  The process to create those sexy whitewashed denims requires several chemically intensive washes, with cadmium, lead, and mercury used for fabric printing and dyeing.  In tests conducted in water and sediments surrounding the factories, traces of cadmium, chromium, mercury, lead, and copper in 17 out of 21 samples were discovered. One sample contained 128 times China’s legal level of cadmium.  That means that 260 million pairs of pants distributed each year contain traces of potentially harmful chemicals. And because of poor environmental regulations, the wastewater from factories is washed into Xintang’s local river, which in turns spills darkly into the Pearl River Delta.  It is also said that people who work in dyeing and washing have reproductive and fertility problems.

Things did not end this way though. On November 11, 2009, thousands of residents of Helenberg Estate, on the northern bank of the Shuinan Zhichong, took to the streets, demanding a cleaner environment. The residents’ demands were listened to, and since then, environmental protection has become one of the local government’s top priorities. The environmental protection bureau was given the right to veto investment and construction projects, suspend production and even close down polluting businesses.

The city has spent 800 million yuan ($118.96) in treating the Shuinan Zhichong, Fenghuang, Xipi, and Niushizhen rivers. A large part of the investment was used to compensate those forced to relocate from river banks.   several water treatment plants with a total daily capacity of more than 400,000 tons were treating and monitoring all factory water discharge and 80 percent of household water discharge.

By taking the challenge of turning four black rivers green, Xintang is making obvious progress in reducing dye pollution in its rivers despite their annual production. Market value of homes on the banks of the Shuinan Zhichong River – once a slow moving flow of tar-like sludge – have nearly tripled since the cleanup has begun. People now are just waiting to see fish back to inhabit their river.

Next time you put on your pair jeans on the way out, you’ll know there is a worthy story behind them.

[Sources: France 24]

A slum, as defined by the United Nations agency UN-HABITAT, is a run-down area of a city characterized by substandard housing and squalor and lacking in tenure security. The term has traditionally referred to housing areas that were once relatively affluent but which deteriorated as the original dwellers moved on to newer and better parts of the city, but has come to include the vast informal settlements found in cities in the developing world.

Slums in Cairo started to rise in the 1960s with little to no formal attention or control over its crawl, the city’s slum has grown to accommodate 3-5 million inhabitants of Greater Cairo today.  The spread of these run-down areas have taken a very alarming sequence, where every moderate and high class district of the city is surrounded or neighbored by a slum, in which the slum residents make their living through parasitic services and activities in the more prosperous areas (as wiping cars and selling Chinese goods (or bads) at stop lights, helping you park on the streets by acting as your personal navigation system, or simply begging for any change you can spare).  Of course the scene of homeless kids sleeping on a sidewalk, a donkey carriage of garbage making its way through business district traffic, or plain harassments are more of a norm in Cairo today.

Slums ranging from low level housing to cottages

Cairo ghetto

More on the serious side, people living in slums (or the Shade – as they refer to themselves) suffer extreme poverty, illiteracy, demeaning healthcare, no infrastructure and social services, yet costing the country -that once turned its back on them- a fortune, with no benefit out of their production or taxes. This all is causing the country a great loss to its human resources. No education, no proper job (if at all), no production, no development, rise in crime rates, possible spread of diseases through unhealthy living conditions; you name it, it’s all there!

Pig farms and garbage recycling is a main activity in "Mansheit Nasser" (Garbage City of Cairo). All the pig farms in Cairo received a death sentence by the government at the rise of swine flu in 2009/2010

Filtering trash gathered from around the city to sell recyclable materials - Garbage city - Cairo

Don’t get me wrong, as an Egyptian I would never want to negatively influence my city’s or country’s image (some stereotypes would say, this is not helping tourism, we should point out our good sides only to attract travelers), sorry, I want to point out reality; we solve this, and bragging about it later would be well deserved. Anyone who’s been to or lived in Cairo knows that it has everything, the good, the bad, the rich, the poor, the historical, the modern, the clean, the dirty, the luxurious and the simple  all in one place, which as a fact gives a surprising sense of contrast and excitement to visitors.

Yet, Slums are time bombs that cannot be denied.  Look at it this way, ONE uneducated uncivilized unhealthy unemployed ignorant man produces 4-6 children raised under the same behavior and inhumane conditions!  Multiply this case by millions! And you can foresee the consequences. So, it’s either Egyptians face this cancerous activity within their society, or the ambition of a modernized and developed “NewEgypt” -that already have the richest history possible- is quiet ruined. It’s never too late Cairo. Now is definitely the time for new hope.

Have you ever seen a number of regular looking people taking part in a bizarre, out of the blues act? First thought to your mind – they must be crazy… something definitely weird is going on… The answer is very simple. You’ve just become a witness of the flash mob.

A flash mob as a term appeared in 2003 to denote a group of people who assemble suddenly in a public place, perform an unusual and sometimes seemingly pointless act for a brief time, then disperse, often for the purposes of protest, advertisement, entertainment, or satire. Usually all the details about the event are spread around the members via telecommunications, social media, or viral emails.

Egypt Protesters Defying Presidential Regime through raising their shoes up all at the same time

The first flash mob was created in Manhattan in May 2003, by Bill Wasik, senior editor of Harper’s Magazine.  In the summer of 2003, e-mails from themobproject@yahoo.com began to circulate inviting people to convene in a public place to take part in a random act with the sole purpose of confusing others. The first successful mob took place in a New York Macy’s.

More than 100 people converged upon the ninth floor rug department of the store, gathering around an expensive rug. Anyone approached by a sales assistant was advised to say that the gatherers lived together in a warehouse on the outskirts of New York, that they were shopping for a “love rug”, and that they made all their purchase decisions as a group. Subsequently, 200 people flood the lobby and mezzanine of the Hyatt hotel in synchronized applause for about 15 seconds, and a shoe boutique in Soho, Manhattan was invaded by participants pretending to be tourists on a bus trip.

Bill Wasik’s idea was a beginning of the further development for flash mob movement around the world. According to an interview with stayfreemagazine.org, his goal was to create an internet meme where people would simply be invited to do nothing to become part of the next big thing.

"Stop Airport Expansion" Flash mob at Heathrow Airport, UK.

A pillow fight flash mob!

Meanwhile someone could think flash mob is nothing more than a silly time wasting activity, in reality it has been a part of projects promotion in marketing, advertisement, PR technologies and might be even a tool to push political ideologies. Nowadays, advertising campaigns or public protests with elements of flash mob are becoming a frequent way of self expression to put a spotlight on specific ideas, to the extent of recruiting people or hiring professionals that are paid to perform.

Watch more flash mobs:

Videos of flash mobs: Watch how the public participates :)

1- The world record for the biggest entertainment flash mob: Oprah’s 24′th season-party, Chicago, USA

2- An advertisement flash mob: Liverpool Street Station danced to create this special T-Mobile advert

Flash mobs will continue as long as people are amused by taking part in random acts of self expression.

In efforts to make use of Egypt’s untouched land, several projects have surfaced with various solutions on how to urbanize Egypt’s desert. One of these promising projects comes from Egypt’s scientist and the Director of the Center of Space Physics and Remote Sensing of Boston University Farouk El-Baz. He previously said that Egypt has underground water resources that could easily serve the country for the next century. The statement was delivered to an international symposium on the role of satellite technology in reducing technology gaps, organized by the National Authority for Remote Sensing and Space Sciences.

“There are many underground water reservoirs in the Western Sahara that are 25,000 years old” said Al-Baz.

While satellite images can detect signs of possible underground water basins, however, they cannot definitively confirm their existence nor can they determine if the water is fit for human consumption.  He called for constructing a specific satellite that works with sensors and radar applications to detect groundwater, minerals and antiquities buried beneath the desert surface. Al-Baz added that “Egyptian scientists are qualified for this task”.

Desert Development Corridor: Into the Sahara (A new Valley parallel to the Nile’s)

Farouk El-Baz proposes a superhighway to solve Egypt’s pressing problems

This article advances the case for a proposed superhighway west of the Nile from the Mediterranean Sea coastline to the southern borders at Lake Nasser. The proposal would provide numerous opportunities for the development of new communities, agriculture, industry, trade and tourism around a 2,000 km strip of the Western Desert. The ex-governments of Egypt were unable or unwilling to pursue the project, when Al-Baz proposed it 20 years ago, for unclear reasons. Because the country is presently facing insurmountable problems, the proposal is resubmitted for consideration by the private sector — local, Arab and international investors

Adequate transportation routes and mechanisms are essential to ever-increasing development. From the time of establishing the Egyptian State over 5,000 years ago, the Nile served as a mechanism to transport people, news, products, armies and tax collector — all aspects of a unified, sustainable state. Similarly, the Greek, Roman and Arab civilization assured the ease and security of travel within the boundaries of their vast territories. More recently, European development was greatly assisted by the ease of transportation at the rise of Western Civilizations. It is also clear that superb transportation systems allowed the United States to better utilize its vast natural resources to reach its present position of prominence.

It is not possible to foresee establishment of a modern network of transportation systems within the confines of the Nile Valley and its Delta, because that would reduce agricultural land. The fertile soil within the inhabited strip of Egypt was deposited by the Nile River over millions of years, and it is irreplaceable. In the meantime, the growth of population negates the potential of continuing to live on and utilize only five per cent of the land area of Egypt. Thus, it is imperative to open new vistas for expansion outside of the inhabited strip. This proposal provides an innovative solution to the numerous problems that face Egypt today.

In addition to facilitating transport throughout Egypt, the proposed superhighway would limit urban encroachment over agricultural land and opens thousands of opportunities for new communities not far from the over-populated towns. It also affords unlimited potential for new schools and training centers, industrial zones, trade centers, tourism; providing virgin territory for development initiatives in every field. This in itself gives hope to the new generations of Egyptians for a better future. It represents the best possible use of one of Egypt’s natural resources — the strip of the Western Desert that parallels the Nile and is close to its high-density population centers.

This particular strip of land was chosen because of its unique natural characteristics. It is basically flat with a gentle northward slope from west of Aswan to the coast of the Mediterranean Sea; the lack of topographic prominences makes it easy to pave. This strip is also devoid of east-west crossing valleys that are prone to flashfloods as in the case of the Eastern Desert. It passes close to vast tracts of fertile soils that are amenable to reclamation; most of such regions have potential for groundwater resources. The strip is also comparatively free of sandy areas; it is not crossed by lines of shifting dunes as in the case of regions farther to the west. Furthermore, the region is endowed with plentiful sunlight and persistent northerly wind. These conditions allow the use of renewable solar and wind energy in the future.

Based on the above, the proposed project includes the establishment of the following:

• A superhighway to be built using the highest international standards, 1,200 km in length, from west of Alexandria to the southern border of Egypt,
• Twelve east-west branches, with the total length of approximately 800 km, to connect the highway to high-density population centers along the way,
• A railroad for fast transport parallel to the superhighway,
• A water pipeline from the Toshka Canal to supply freshwater, and
• An electricity line to supply energy during the early phases of development.

1- NORTH-SOUTH HIGHWAY

The main highway runs parallel to the Nile River from Egypt’s Mediterranean Sea coastline to its border with Sudan. Its distance from the Western side of the Nile Valley varies from 10 to 80 kilometers, based on the nature of the crossed land. It begins at a point between Alexandria and El-Alamein, perhaps near El-Hamman, to be selected for the establishment of a new international port. Egypt requires a technologically advanced port to serve future needs of import and export as well as increased trade with Europe and the expansion of maritime transport worldwide. In the meantime, the northern branch of the superhighway extends to Alexandria and its present port and airport and eastward through the Nile Delta coastal highway to Rosetta and Damietta.

The superhighway ends near the border with Sudan to allow a future extension to better link the two neighboring countries. Better ground links between Egypt and Sudan would have a positive impact on the economies of both countries. Near the terminal point, branches extend to Lake Nasser, Abu Simbel, and the Tushka depression — all regions that have promise in development of fisheries, tourism and agriculture, respectively.

2- EAST-WEST CONNECTORS

Branches of the main highway oriented in a roughly east-west direction would connect it to the main centers of population. They assure easy transport between the main cities of Egypt and between the main production areas and the outside world. Such branches may include the following:

• Alexandria Branch
• Delta Branch
• Cairo Branch
• Faiyum Branch
• Bahariya Branch
• Minya Branch
• Assiut Branch
• Qena Branch
• Luxor Branch
• Kom Ombu-Aswan Branch
• Toshka Branch
• Lake Nasser Branch

3- MODERN RAILWAY

Egypt’s railroads are very old and their tracks are laid on relatively soft soils that do not allow fast movement by heavy loads. Thus, the need exists for an advanced railroad system to serve present and future requirements of development. A rail- track parallel to the superhighway would serve that purpose. If deemed necessary, connecting tracks could be established along some of the east-west road branches in the future.

4- WATER PIPELINE

No development could be assured without the presence of freshwater. Even though several areas along the path of the superhighway promise the existence of groundwater, a pipeline of fresh water from the Toshka Canal is required to run the length of the superhighway. It is envisioned that a pipe of about one meter in diameter would provide the necessary resources for human consumption during the early phases of the project. Agricultural and industrial development along the east-west connectors would be supplied either by groundwater resources or subsidiary canals from the Nile.  The length of the required pipeline is about 1,100 km. This is less than half that of the Great Man-Made River system in Libya.

5- ELECTRICITY LINE

Initial phases of the proposed project require energy for lighting, and refrigeration. Therefore, a line to supply electricity is one of the requirements of the project. The required power can be supplied by any one of the generation plants along the Nile Valley as deemed appropriate.

Urban communities, industrial plants and agricultural farms to be initiated along the east- west branches should be encouraged to utilize solar and/or wind energy resources as much as possible. This encouragement can be in the form of tax breaks or grants from the Egyptian Government or international environmental agencies.

Project Benefits

• Opening new land for desert reclamation and the production of food.
• Establishing new areas for urban and industrial growth near large cities.
• Creating hundreds of thousands of new jobs for Egyptian labor.
• Arresting environmental deterioration throughout the Nile Valley.
• Relieving the existing road network from heavy and dangerous transport.
• Initiating new ventures in tourism and eco-tourism in the Western Desert.
• Connecting the Toshka region and its projects with the rest of the country.
• Creating a physical environment for economic projects by the private sector.
• Involving the population at large in the development of the country.
• Giving people, particularly the young, some hope for a better future.
• Focusing people’s energy on productive and everlasting things to do.

From the earliest time of recorded history, civilization blossomed among groups of people who were collectively able to achieve the following:

• Production of excess of food, for the growth of their bodies and minds
• Division of labor among the society, in a fair and well organized manner
• Easy living in urban areas, where some of them could create and innovate

Therefore, Egypt needs to satisfy these three conditions before paving the road for the re-spread of civilization along the banks of the Nile River. The proposed superhighway would go a long way toward achieving these goals. This needs strong faith in the resilience of the descendents of the energetic builders of the Pyramids. It would require a mere generation or two for this development initiative to bear fruit. This is not a long time in the 8,000- year history of Egypt, which deserves a distinguished position among great nations now and in the future.  [Sources: Ahram Weekly and Global Arab Network]