We’ve never been able to shake the vision of an apocalyptic Dubai – a seemingly inevitable time when the scores of largely unoccupied skyscrapers inching towards the Gulf will be evacuated and swallowed up by the surrounding desert. And now renowned British photographer Richard Allenby Pratt has created a series of images called Abandoned that […]
Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, the Palestinian Authority, Tunisia and Turkey were among the representatives at the SafeMed course on the environmental risk of ballast water last month. The course was offered in Malta and is designed to emphasize the effective implementation of the International Convention for the Control and Management of Ships’ Ballast Water […]
We’ve been wanting to write a post that will get our readers in the mood for summer eco-travel, but it’s bad business to send people to countries that are bubbling with underlying trouble. Here’s the kind of letter we’re expressly trying to avoid: “Your writers recommended that we visit Egypt to sample biomimicry tours or […]
Researchers discover the negative link between Palm plantations, nesting birds and manta ray populations. Over meals and sunset chats at a remote research station in Palmyra Atoll in the Pacific, a group of researchers from Stanford University discover one of the longest ecological interactions ever documented. While Douglas McCauley and Paul DeSalles were tracking manta ray movements […]
An Israeli Minister has submitted a bill for approval that would outlaw public nudity anywhere in the country except at established nude beaches. An outspoken opponent of Spencer Tunick’s September, 2011 nude photo shoot at a secret location along the Dead Sea, which attracted 1,000 Israelis keen to draw attention to the dire ecological state […]
Earth’s dust storms and sand storms are becoming more frequent. How does that affect your health? Here in the Middle East, powerful hot winds sometimes drop fine yellowish sand down from the sky, coating the skin and lips irritatingly and making it hard to see across the street. It’s the lashing tail of giant storms […]
Waeel Abdessalam breeds rabbits on the third floor of his family home in El-Hamidiyah el-Gadida, a small village in the Fayoum area roughly 100 km southwest of Cairo. A beneficiary of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations’ TeleFood program, the young man tends to the rabbits early in the morning before leaving to […]
Desert locusts traveling southwest from Algeria and Libya threaten to decimate crops in Niger and Mali, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations warned on Wednesday. Since rebel forces killed Gaddafi in October last year, insecurity along both sides of the Algerian-Libyan border has hampered pest control efforts, allowing locusts to swarm across […]
Heaping urban trash may be an even more daunting global phenomenon than climate change, the World Bank warned in a recent report. What a Waste: A Global Review of Solid Waste Management reveals that by 2025, city dwellers could produce as much as 2.2 billion tonnes of solid waste a year, up 70% than the 1.3 billion […]
In occasion of World Oceans Day, Green Prophet provides you with some tools for some (much needed) marine activism. What does sea water mean for you? What memories do you have of swimming in the sea? If you were in the Red Sea, the Gulf of Aden, Arabian Sea or the Persian Gulf 15 to 20 […]
Venus crossed the sun this morning in the Middle East, giving heaven-gazers a once in a lifetime opportunity to see the hot planet. Venus’ next transit accross the sun will be in the year 2117. Earth’s twin made an appearance as a black dot traversing the sun this morning in the Middle East and Egyptians […]
Israeli Opera Festival 2012 will feature five performances of the classic opera, Carmen, June 7 to 11 at Masada. According to the Israeli Opera’s Artistic Director, Michael Ajzenstadt, 50,000 people from across Israel and all over the world are coming to experience opera at the lowest point on earth, beneath the mountain of Masada and […]
As Israeli rigs start drilling for natural gas, a new disaster prevention agency is proposed to avert another BP-Florida Gulf disaster. Environmentalists have proposed a new government body that might head off ecological catastrophes on Israel’s Mediterranean coast. The new agency could set policy more efficiently by streamlining the powers currently shared by several different […]
Jordan’s Independence Day rolls around every May 25, celebrating when British command over this land once called Transjordan ended back in 1946. So, last weekend in Amman, the streets dressed up in banners and flags and fireworks blazed in evening skies. Jordan’s party pretty much mirrors America’s July Fourth: less fun on the waterfront, but plenty of […]
Two mosques in London have taken up beekeeping – and there are plans to encourage more to join the quest to save dwindling bee populations