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in agricultural exports; one year later exports had increased ten times as much. 

In addition to citrus fruits, Libya is endeavoring to raise its exports of olives and olive oil. Although Libyan olives are of excellent quality, the differ from those commonly grown in Northern Mediterranean countries. Accordingly, the Libyan olives have to processed and blended to conform to the tastes of their prospective consumers abroad. 

Historically, olive oil has been Libya's leading export product. A common sight in mountain areas of Tripolitania (one of Libya's three provinces) is the ruin of a Roman olive press -- picturesque remainder that this North African region was once fertile and planted with a large number of olive trees. Until the seventh century, in fact, Tripolitania was one of the world's leading producers of both oil and grain. 

The olive terraces, however, were not kept in proper repair throughout succeeding centuries. Erosion set in, topsoil escaped and large areas of a formerly productive region became desert. The problem today is not one of initiating growth, but of arresting further encroachment from the desert through such measures as planting small grass hedges to fix the shifting sand dunes.

There is ample historical evidence that in past centuries Libya was more heavily wooded, more fertile and more productive than it is today -- a country that was capable of supporting not only its own population, but of exporting a surplus to the Mediterranean area. Today Libya is striving to meet and surpass the challenge of its past, for this is a country which, in modern times, has never realized its full economic potential. 
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The World's Oldest Living Man is a Moslem

Word has been received by way of Cleveland, Ohio, from the Soviet Union that one of that country's citizens is over 148 years of age -- or world's oldest man alive. His name is Makhmud Bagir, which means that he is a Moslem, for both Makhmud and Bagir are Arabic words. 

The information was received in Cleveland, Ohio, by Jimmy Nisenson, a twelve-year-old schoolboy whose hobby is to "collect odd information." Jimmy had written a letter to Soviet Premier Bulganin after he read a report in a newspaper that a Russian farmer was 148 years old. This was replied to by a member of the Anti-Fascist Committee of Soviet Youth in Moscow, who wrote:

"Makhmud Bagir Ogly Fiva, an Azerbaijan farmer, still lives in the mountain region of Pirassura where he was born 148 years ago. He has twenty-three sons and daughters, and his eldest daughter now is about 120 years old. His family, including all his descendants, consists of 152 persons."

The report was carried by the Associated Press on May 23, 1956, and was printed in the New York Times on the following day.
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34   MOSLEM WORLD & THE U.S.A.

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JIDDAH: The Port of Mecca

[[image - black & white photograph photo of a building in Jiddah]]
[[photograph credit - ARAB INFORMATION OFFICE]]
[[caption]] One of the newly-constructed buildings in Jiddah. [[/caption]]

On the west coast of Saudi Arabia, a short distance from the holy city of Mecca, lies Jiddah -- a bustling city of 100,000 inhabitants who are riding the crest of the largest wave of prosperity this Red Sea port has ever experienced. 

Throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, Jiddah had thrived as the port of entry for millions of Moslem pilgrims making the annual pilgrimage to Mecca and as a transit point for Indian and African merchandise bound for Egypt and northern markets. But the harbor city never experience "boom town" prosperity until the discovery of oil on the eastern coast of Saudi Arabia in the twentieth century. 

The discovery of rich oil deposits in 1938 created a new demand for imports and banking facilities, which brought overnight wealth to the mercantile houses of Jiddah. Merchants and artisans from all over the Arab world flocked to the city and, with the exception of the war years, business boomed. 

A new wave of immigrants arrived in 1948,  after Saudi Arabia opened its doors to Palestinian refugees made homeless by the creation of the state of Israel. Thousands of these refugees eventually came to Jiddah, where a large number entered the construction field as skilled laborers and contractors. Others established shops, took positions with Saudi firms, or worked for the Saudi government. 

 Thus twentieth-century Jiddah is a far cry from the town described by a seventeenth-century traveler as a place "accurs'd by nature and debarred of heaven's blessing." The climate is still hot and humid for most of the year, but commercial profits have brought a new water system, electrical power and such conveniences as air conditioning and refrigeration. Lush gardens now decorate modern sections of the city, and new buildings are rising everywhere. 

During the past six years the population of Jiddah has more than doubled, and the historic great wall which once surrounded the ancient town has been torn down -- burst at the seams, so to speak, by the city's sudden growth and activity. The wall was originally built in the sixteenth century to protect the town from sea-launched invasions, for ever since Jiddah was designated as the port for Mecca in 646 A.D. it had been subjected to waves of foreign domination. By the end of the eighteenth century the wall had crumbled from hard abuse, and it was rebuilt as a defensive measure against a prospective French invasion. In 1925, when the forces of Ibn Saud established the late king's rule over Jiddah, the wall was breached for the last time and the flourishing seaport has since remained in Saudi Arabian hands. 

Today the old Jiddah is fast disappearing, and a new city of modern outlook is rising in its place. Venerable high coral block structures with latticed balconies and delicately carved teak doors are being abandoned in favor of modern stucco villas and streamlined office buildings, many of Egyptian design. 

AUGUST-SEPT. 1956   35