Sand Shortage in Arabia! No, Really.

"Critical Sand Shortage in the Gulf." No, really. Bahrain's construction industry depends on imports of sand and gravel. They import it from Saudi Arabia, but Saudi Arabia is banning sand exports as of the end of November, because they're worried about running out. You really can't make this stuff up.

I seem to recall that back during Desert Shield/Desert Storm someone wrote a story (I suspect maybe P.J. O'Rourke) about how the Army was importing sand into Saudi Arabia because the local sand wasn't up to army standards for filling sandbags.

The link for the sand story above, by the way, is to a brand new blog called Suq al-Mal: The Financial Sector in the GCC. Much of the analysis is beyond my financial savvy, but it's well done and the sand story surely deserves our attention.