FARAYA, Lebanon (Reuters) – Lebanon’s ski resorts have survived civil war but now face an insidious threat from climate change expected to cut snow cover by 40 percent by 2040.

The effects of global warming are still a low priority for conflict-prone Lebanon, where environmental neglect rules.

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Dust storms scour Iraq. Freak floods wreak havoc in Saudi Arabia and Yemen. Rising sea levels erode Egypt’s coast. Hotter, drier weather worsens water scarcity in the Middle East, already the world’s most water-short region.

The Arab world is already suffering impacts consistent with climate change predictions. Although scientists are wary of linking specific events to global warming, they are urging Arab governments to act now to protect against potential disasters.

BEIRUT, Nov 4 (Reuters) – The Arab world, one of the driest
regions on the planet, will tip into severe water scarcity as
early as 2015, a report issued on Thursday predicts.

By then, Arabs will have to survive on less than 500 cubic
metres of water a year each, or below a tenth of the world
average of more than 6,000 cubic metres per capita, said the
report by the Arab Forum for Environment and Development (AFED).

BEIRUT (Reuters) – A foiled al Qaeda bomb plot has again highlighted the peril to the West posed by Yemen’s slide toward state failure, a fate that would also spell disaster for 23 million Yemenis already mired in hunger and poverty.

Western and Gulf Arab donors have so far failed to brake that downward momentum. Galvanized by an attempt by al Qaeda’s Yemen-based wing to blow up a U.S.-bound airliner on December 25, they met as “Friends of Yemen” in January to coordinate aid.

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Al Qaeda militants in the mountains of Yemen posting bombs to America? Order more drone strikes or send in the Marines. If only it were that simple.

The United States has no easy options in tackling the threat posed by al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), a Yemen-based outfit whose growing expertise may one day match its declared ambitions to harm the West and the Saudi monarchy next door.

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad basked in a rock-star welcome from Hezbollah’s Shi’ite loyalists on Wednesday, but his trip to Lebanon may offer only a brief respite from daunting challenges at home.

Many among the rice-throwing Lebanese crowds on the Beirut airport road will have benefited from the $1 billion or so that Hezbollah says it received from its Iranian sponsors for reconstruction after a 2006 war with Israel.

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad basked in a rock-star welcome from Hezbollah’s Shi’ite loyalists on Wednesday, but his trip to Lebanon may offer only a brief respite from daunting challenges at home.

Many among the rice-throwing Lebanese crowds on the Beirut airport road will have benefited from the $1 billion or so that Hezbollah says it received from its Iranian sponsors for reconstruction after a 2006 war with Israel.

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Plant trees, protect forests, preserve Lebanon’s beauty. A message from the environment minister? Greenpeace campaigner? Eco-tourism entrepreneur?

No, this time it was Hezbollah guerrilla chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, taking time out from diatribes against Israel and its U.S. ally to deliver a distinctly green-tinged appeal.

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Yemen’s colossal economic problems still eclipse, and surely fuel, a growing threat from al Qaeda militancy, highlighted by the second attack on British diplomats in Sanaa this year.

Most Yemenis are afflicted by the interlocking effects of a population explosion, depleting water and oil resources, food insecurity, poverty, unemployment, corruption and lawlessness.