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Data Highlight: Arab Grain Imports Rising Rapidly

May 2, 2012

The Arab countries in the Middle East and North Africa make up only 5 percent of the world's population, yet they take in more than 20 percent of the world's grain exports. Imports to the region have jumped from 30 million tons of grain in 1990 to nearly 70 million tons in 2011. Now imported grain accounts for nearly 60 percent of regional grain consumption. With water scarce, arable land limited, and production stagnating, grain imports are likely to continue rising.

2011: A Year of Weather Extremes, with More to Come

January 31, 2012

The global average temperature in 2011 was 14.52 degrees Celsius (58.14 degrees Fahrenheit). According to NASA scientists, this was the ninth warmest year in 132 years of recordkeeping, despite the cooling influence of the La Nina atmospheric and oceanic circulation pattern and relatively low solar irradiance. Since the 1970s, each subsequent decade has gotten hotter -- and 9 of the 10 hottest years on record have occurred in the twenty-first century.