Jordan to Declare North of Country ‘Disaster Area’

Massive influx of Syrian refugees major economic burden on Jordan: Report

Jordan intends to declare the north of the country, its border region with Syria, a “disaster area,” Jordanian Prime Minister said on Wednesday.

The number of Syrians in Jordan now exceeds one million, including 450,000 refugees and more than 600,000 visitors who had arrived in the country prior to the  onset of violence in Syria.

Jordan has an estimated population of about 6.5 million.

The Jordanian PM said he is afraid that a major war in Syria could lead to a large-scale flow of Syrian refugees into his country.

Last week, the government said it would “continue to operate an open-door policy towards Syrian refugees, despite the economic burden on Jordan, and the alleged presence of pro-regime sleeper cells in the country,” said a report.

United Nations says at least 70,000 people have been killed in Syria since the 2011 uprising.

Related Links

• Middle East: Early Signs of Collapse July 5, 2010
• Drought Driving Syria to Collapse September 11, 2010

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DISASTER CALENDAR – April 3, 2013 — 
SYMBOLIC COUNTDOWN: 1,074 Days Left 

Mass die-offs resulting from human impact and the planetary response to the anthropogenic assault could occur by early 2016.

• SYMBOLIC COUNTDOWN: 1,074 Days Left to ‘Worst Day’ in the brief Human  History
• The countdown began on May 15, 2011 …

GLOBAL WARNINGS

• WARNING: Human impact 2.85 x Earth’s diminishing carrying capacity
• WARNING: RAPID PLANETARY DECLINE IN PROGRESS!
• Europe: The First Phase of Collapse Has Started 
• United States: The First Phase of Collapse Has Begun

Global Disasters: Links, Forecasts and Background

• The First Wave of World’s Collapsing Cities
• Back to the Primordial Future
• The Fate of Energy Dinosaurs
• Mass Die-offs

‘1 Million Died’ from Afghan Heroin Since ‘War on Terror’

NATO’s Needle War

“Afghan heroin has killed more than 1 million people worldwide since the ‘Operation Enduring Freedom’ began and over a trillion dollars has been invested into transnational organized crime from drug sales,” said the head of Russia’s Federal Drug Control Service, Viktor Ivanov. 

“Any impartial observer must admit the sad fact that the international community has failed to curb heroin production in Afghanistan since the start of NATO’s operation.” Ivanov said at the UN’s 56th session of the Commission on Narcotic Drugs in Vienna.

• Opium growth has increased by 18 per cent from 131,000 hectares (ha) to 154,000 [compared with 104,000 ha in 2005 and 7,606 ha in 2001] in the war-torn country, Ivanov told the conference.

• Afghanistan produces about 90 per cent of the world’s opium.

• Opium production in Afghanistan is up from 185 tons a year in 2001, prior to NATO’s invasion, to 5,800 tons in 2012.

• Afghanistan produced about 820 tons of heroin in 2012, said Ivanov in his presentation.

A heroin user injects himself at the derelict former Russian Cultural Center, a haven for drug addicts in Kabul. Photo credit: Peter Nicholls/The Times (UK). Image may be subject to copyright.

Poppy Field in Afghanistan. Image source. Image may be subject to copyright.

Heroin kills more than 30,000 people in Russia every year, and nearly all of the deadly drug comes from Afghanistan, BBC reported Victor Ivanov as saying.

The heroin production in Afghanistan has now developed to a ‘global destabilizing factor,’ especially for Russia, Ivanov has previously stated.

Drug injection is the largest factor for the spread of HIV in the U.S.  A study by the National Institutes of Health found that 27 percent of all injecting drug users are HIV-infected. United States has an estimated 1 million heroin addicts.

 Related Links

• NATO: Cold War to Needle War
• Who Is Profiting from Booming Cocaine Trade in the US?
• Another CIA Own Goal?

400 PPM

Weekly average CO₂ at Mauna Loa could hit 400ppm by May 2013: FIRE-EARTH

FIRE-EARTH projections show, based on the data provided by Mauna Loa Observatory, the average CO2 at Mauna Loa could climb to 400ppm in the next 6 weeks.

Up-to-date weekly average CO₂ at Mauna Loa

• Week of March 24, 2013:     397.92 ppm
• Weekly value from 1 year ago:     395.30 ppm
• Weekly value from 10 years ago:     377.06 ppm

CO2 Daily and Weekly Means at Mauna Loa [April 2012 – March 2013.]  The weekly mean (red bar) is simply the average of all days in the week for which a background value could be defined. The average standard deviation of day to day variability, calculated as the difference from the appropriate weekly mean, equals 0.38 ppm for the entire record. As a visual aid, the blue lines present monthly means of background data as they are presented under Recent Monthly CO₂ at Mauna Loa. [Source: ESRL/NOAA]  

Recent Mauna Loa CO₂

• February 2013:     396.80 ppm
• February 2012:     393.54 ppm

The graph shows recent monthly mean carbon dioxide measured at Mauna Loa Observatory, Hawaii. [Source:  ESRL/NOAA]

Monthly mean atmospheric CO2 at Mauna Loa Observatory, Hawaii [Source:  ESRL/NOAA]

Recent Global CO₂

• January 2013:     395.09 ppm
• January 2012:     392.44 ppm

The graph shows recent monthly mean carbon dioxide globally averaged over marine surface sites. [Images sourced from ESRL/NOAA]

Historic

Time history of atmospheric carbon dioxide from 800,000 years ago until January, 2012.

Global average abundances of the major, well-mixed, long-lived greenhouse gases – carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, CFC-12 and CFC-11 – from the NOAA global air sampling network are plotted since the beginning of 1979. These gases account for about 96% of the direct radiative forcing by long-lived greenhouse gases since 1750. The remaining 4% is contributed by an assortment of 15 minor halogenated gases (see text). Methane data before 1983 are annual averages from Etheridge et al. (1998), adjusted to the NOAA calibration scale [Dlugokencky et al., 2005].  Source: ESRL/NOAA.  Click on image to view larger image. Click HERE for full size figure .