Both an onshore and offshore leak, it is particularly hazardous as large quantities of hydrogen sulfide gas are being released.

Director Hassan Abdel Salan said that the company is drilling an additional three wells to stem the leak, which appears to have been continuing over a period of several months, but blames Ministry of Environment researchers sent to evaluate the scene for failing to conduct thorough geophysical surveys.

Green Prophet has been unable to verify these reports but the local newspaper claims that General Petroleum has been fined $300,000 for their role in the spill. Even though Egypt is caught up in major political upheavals given the ongoing presidential race, if there is to be any hope of recovery, somebody ought to start paying serious attention to the country’s vulnerable natural resources.

Image credit: Contaminated Fish, Shutterstock

The Barn Owls pictured above have recently parented seven little owlets in a nesting box situated on Kibbutz Ma’oz Hai’im just a skip from the border with Jordan, but here’s the rub: the male on the right is Israeli and the female on the left is Jordanian!

Natural pest control

In 2002, with support from the Ministry of Regional Cooperation, the first regional seminar took place at Kibbutz Sde Eliyahu, a leading center of organic agriculture, to discuss the merits of breeding Barn Owls and Kestrels as part of a natural pest control program.

Since then the Ministry of Environment, the Ministry of Agriculture, SPNI and Tel Aviv University have supported the national program in conjunction with Israel Ornithological Center and the ICSBM (Int’l Center for the Study of Bird Migration), which has enjoyed tremendous success according to Dr. Yossi Leshem, Director of ICSBM.

In 2010, the European Union came on board via the Peres Center for Peace in order to extend the program’s geographical reach. Today there are roughly 2,700 nesting boxes scattered throughout Israel, which has mitigated the use of harmful pesticides.

Trans-boundary conservation

The Palestinian Authority has established approximately 200 nesting boxes while the Palestinian Ministry of Agriculture has worked with UNRWA to place an additional 100 or so nesting boxes, according to internal literature forwarded to Green Prophet by Dr. Leshem.

Jordan has also participated in this groundbreaking trans-boundary conservation program by placing a similar number of nesting boxes throughout the kingdom, facilitating the above love affair.

Dr. Leshem admitted in an interview with Moment magazine that it was difficult at first to get the Palestinian farmers on board since they believe that owls are a bad omen. Jordanians share this superstition, as evidenced by Arwa’s recent story in which two men kill an owl and boast about their “achievement.”

Photos: Moty Charter, SPNI

More on Wildlife Issues in the Levant:

Mangled Wild Animals Stuffed and Displayed at Gaza Zoo
Jordan: Two Men Boast About Killing an Owl
Jordan’s Gray Wolves are Hunted, Poisoned Run Over

Each cabinet represents a chapter in Pamuk’s book of the same name in which the main character, Kemal Basmaci, the son of a wealthy industrialist, collects artifacts that remind him of his cousin – a poor sales woman (who is also his cousin) with whom he is completely smitten. 

Today’s consumerism has grown to feverish heights compared to that of Istanbul during the 1970s’s, the time period in which The Museum of Innocence is set.

But for the book’s protagonist, things take on a different significance. After a series of events cuts short a passionate love affair with his lower-classed relative Fusun, Basmaci begins to collect items that remind him of the time he shared with her. For years he collects these items with the intention of eventually placing them in a museum, a pastime that becomes increasingly obsessive and unhealthy.

The objects include shoes, an old sink, ID cards and even a toothbrush.

In an interview with Qantara, Pamuk said:

I love the profane magic such things possess and that one discovers this only at the second glance. Just think how it is to find an old cinema ticket, by chance, in a jacket pocket, years after you saw the film. Suddenly everything comes back to you – not only the film but the smell of the cinema and the atmosphere of the evening. Such things bring back memories, tell us entire stories.

Perhaps accidentally, The Museum of Innocence draws attention to how drastically the relevance of having things has changed in four decades; today, our incessant desire to own certain objects such as smart phones, tablets (some even gold-plated) and even the latest round of eco-gadgets threatens our very existence as natural resources are becoming dangerously scarce and landfills and oceans are overflowing with waste.

Instead of holding magic, many of the objects we now possess are emblems of our self-destruction much in the same way that with every new possession, Basmaci drove himself deeper into his misaligned obsession with Fusun. An underlying theme seems to be that an over-attachment to material objects of any kind or for any reason gives rise to problematic consequences.

In any case, we love the novelty of Pamuk’s Istanbul museum, which was realized over a decade and contains numerous hidden treasures, as a powerful reflection on the nature of stuff – Turkish stuff – and what it reveals of Turkey’s socio-politico evolution over the last four decades.

image via Dorian Jones 

Relevant Stories on Stuff and How it Hurts the Planet:
Mazzy Reviews the Story of Stuff
Where Stuff Comes From and Where it Goes
3 Minute Video Shows How Humans Devoured Earth in 250 Years

Fruit: The summer wave of colorful fruit has begun, to the rejoicing of cooks who love to put up preserves.  Apricots, peaches, and nectarines have entered the markets, and are already sweet enough to be worth buying. Strawberries are still with us, although getting seedy in preparation for disappearing till next year. If you haven’t made your jam yet, here’s our recipe. Kiwis are sweet and ripe.

Cherries have arrived, and farmers predict huge crops this year due to the prolonged winter this region enjoyed, which allowed the trees to “sleep” and blossom after the windiest weather. Last year’s crop almost didn’t exist, due to windstorms that blew most of the blossoms off the trees.

Avocados are still in the market, but getting expensive again as their season wanes. As expected in warm weather, all the melons are sweet and ready for eating.  Fresh green almonds have a different character now, because the milky interior gel has hardened into soft, pale kernels already. If you like them, buy now, for they will soon disappear. Loquat season is prolonged and abundant this year, with bigger and sweeter fruit than I’ve ever seen before.

Citrus fruit are still in evidence, with oranges, pomelos, and clementines for sale. Lemons are big and juicy; some lemon trees give two yearly crops, which accounts for their almost year-round presence. Good news for those who like to put up salty preserved lemons.

Vegetables: Tomatoes are expensive and will remain so for the next week or two, when a new crop comes in. If budget-conscious, look for smaller, less glamorous-looking tomatoes; they are just as good and cheaper. Depending on the day, cherry tomatoes can be cheapest of all.

The best bargains in vegetables today are cauliflower and all the cabbages, which are big, firm, and cheap. Okra is in season, although expensive. String beans, broad Italian beans and wax beans look fine now, as does sweet corn.

Parsley root and celeriac continue full and fat, but as summer temperatures rise, these roots will shrink back and won’t be worth bothering with. The same is true of celery, by the way. Kohlrabi, fennel, beets, turnips, and red radishes are very good now, at reasonable prices.

Summer loves white and red potatoes; time to make one of those Middle Eastern potato salads fragrant with olive oil and lemon. Cucumbers, corn, and eggplants are good now. Come really hot weather, get to the market early for decent eggplants. They are susceptible to heat and in full summer, they buckle in, languishing on the vendor’s stands.

All the peppers are good in May. Look for baby bell peppers for stuffing.  Grilled, and combined with grilled eggplant, peppers make a delicious dip, similar to muhamarra.  Here’s our recipe: just substitute grilled eggplants for the bread. Another well-loved Middle Eastern dish is stuffed zucchini – and zukes are looking good now too.

Pumpkins and butternut squash are in season. Combine one of them with a cob of local sweet corn, an onion, a tomato and your favorite herbs for a delicious soup. As every good cook knows, foods that come into season at the same time taste good together.

Two Middle-Eastern summer specialties are akoub, or tiny wild artichokes. They’re very thorny and labor-intensive to clean, so they’re always expensive. But as a seasonal treat, they can’t be surpassed, with their unique, delicate flavor. Any prickles that remain after cleaning soften upon cooking.

Melokhia, or mulokhia, has started its brief season. Here’s our recipe for traditional melokhia soup. The leaves may be rinsed, patted dry, and hung up by their stems to dry for future soups.

Herbs: Basil is back again. At the herb vendors, there are plenty of parsley, coriander leaf, chives, celery, and scallions. Still in evidence are sorrel, tarragon, wormwood, Swiss chard, spinach, leeks and lettuces. Mint continues especially lovely. Grape leaves for stuffing are now being sold in stacks. You may find bunches of lemon verbena for sale now.

Fresh ginger root is in every spice vendor’s and also at the herb stands. Ginger root freezes well and is easy to peel and grate. Just put the remainder right back in the freezer after use, because it gets mushy once thawed out.

Forager’s notes: The landscape is drying up, with winter’s juicy wild greens just a memory. But there is always something for the alert forager to bring home. Purslane, summer’s featured wild edible, has started to appear on the ground. It’s tender now, so if you come across a nice patch of it, bring it home for your salads.

For a sip of sweetness and to revive childhood memories, pluck a few honeysuckle blossoms. Honeysuckle can be made into wine: if you are determined and have access to a large quantity of pesticide-free blossoms, you can find the recipe online. To capture that elusive flavor more easily, just drop a handful into a jar, cover with sugar, and wait a week.  Rosemary is flowering, and it’s worth robbing the bees of a few blooms to flavor tea.

The dandelion of the Middle East is Taraxacum syriaca. It flowers sparsely and can only be found in hilly regions where winters are cold and consistently rainy. Dandelion is famous for liver support and as an effective diuretic. It’s also a natural superfood, loaded with minerals and vitamins.If you’re lucky enough to live where dandelions grow, pick the tender young leaves to marinate in vinaigrette before adding to salads. Older, tougher leaves are quite bitter, but a few cooked with almost any soup gives a delicious, not-bitter flavor. Dandelion roots are excellent in soups and stews. I used to make dandelion beer from the roots and leaves when I lived in the chilly north of Israel; there are recipes online. It was good beer, too.

Chicory shares all of dandelion’s medicinal properties, but is difficult to pick. The leaves are tiny, and the root almost impossible to dig out of the hardened soil where the plant is most often found. The fluffy blue flowers are a joy to behold early in the morning, though, especially when you catch just the moment when all of them open spontaneously at the same time.

Bindweed, the bane of farmers for its strong, thin vines that strangle crops in the fields, still produces beautiful pink and white flowers. Fill a vase with sprays of honeysuckle and bindweed for a wildflower bouquet to rest your eyes on.

Recipes starring Middle-Eastern produce in season now:

 Baba Ganoush

Stuffed Zucchini

Basil Pesto

 Photos of sour plums in shuk Mahaneh Yehudah, Jerusalem and of honeysuckle/bindweed bouquet  by Miriam Kresh.

Miriam also blogs at Israeli Kitchen.

Egypt cut off its supply of natural gas to Israel, Jordan is working furiously to get oil shale plants online, foreign aid organizations have been supplying renewables to the West Bank and Gaza and most recently, Israel’s Environmental Minister proposed a plan to cut off Israel’s electricity supply to Gaza in order to prevent shortfalls in their own energy supply.

Cutting energy next door

According to the Times of Israel, Environmental Protection Minister Gilad Erdan compiled a letter to fellow cabinet members ahead of Sunday’s weekly cabinet meeting. In it, he wrote: It would be absurd if at the same time as there is a terrorist regime next to us which doesn’t pay its bills, that there will be power outages [here]… In my opinion… since the disengagement we no longer have to supply the [Gaza] Strip with their needs. We are a moral country, and I do believe that water and energy are basic needs; however, when we ourselves do not have enough electricity, I don’t see any legal commitment.

Cutting off supply to Gaza will insert an additional 4% of the country’s overall energy supply back into its own grid, alleviating pressure in Israel, which has already seen an 8.9% price hike in electricity prices following escalating disruptions and an eventual cessation to its natural gas supply from Egypt.

But MK Dov Henin, Chairman of the Knesset Health and Environmental Committee, slammed Erdan’s proposal. Instead of punishing the Palestinian people for Israel’s poor management, he told reporters, plans should be put in place to enhance energy conservation and step up renewable energy programs.

Indeed, Israel is one of the world leaders in clean technology development and yet employs very little of its own genius. Until the recent natural gas discoveries in the Mediterranean, politicians have persisted in a futile effort to compete with the fossil fuel wealth enjoyed by its Arab neighbors instead of exploiting the solar resources it does have in abundance.

Even though Israel produced such renewable luminaries as BrightSource Energy and Ormat Technologies and boasts some of the best solar irradiance in the world, the country only aims to invest $5 billion in a plan to derive 10% of its energy from renewables by 2020. Compare that with Algeria, for example, which has committed to spending four times as much on renewables by 2030 despite enjoying a fraction of Israel’s fiscal or intellectual wealth.

Israel’s slow uptake of renewables is a major contributor to today’s energy shortages, which are forcing the administration to consider drastic measures to curtail them. Other countries are taking desperate measures too, all of which will further exacerbate social and environmental catastrophes.

In times of duress, it’s easier to push through hasty solutions than it is to implement slower, more sustainable programs, but we have to resist. We must commit now to initiatives that will not only address immediate shortages but that will also serve us in the long-term.

:: The Times of Israel

Image credit: lightening over Tel Aviv, Shutterstock

More on Renewables, Energy Shortages in Israel and Palestinian Territories:
Battle to Save Solar in Remote Palestinian Villages
An Israel Alone, Dependent on Natural Gas
Egypt Slashes Longstanding Gas Deal With Israel 

I just spit out my coffee. About to move house for the fifth time in as many years, I take a day to escape the cardboard box Himalayas towering in the living room.  Plus there’s heavy construction going on next door, and it sounds like all of Amman’s stray cats are in heat. I grab a laptop and head to the nearby Taj Mall Lifestyle Destination, to experience a 90s cliché: sit in a coffee shop and quietly write. I fire up the Internet. See a news alert from The Jordan Times: Jordan featured as regional pioneer in enforcing smoke-free business environments? (There goes that coffee.)

Last month in Dubai, Jordan’s leading drug manufacturer, Hikma Pharmaceuticals, and King Abdullah II Center for Excellence (KACE) represented Jordan along with King Hussein Cancer Center (KHCC) at the World Congress on Cardiology.

The event, co-organized by the World Heart Federation and the Global Smoke-free Partnership (GSP), brought together regional leaders to strategize how to “reduce the burden of smoking on businesses” and to broadcast the upside of smoke-free work environments.

The congress also launched the Arabic version of “smoke-free-in-a-box”, a toolkit to guide employers through the dance steps of creating a smoke-free workplace. Created by the Cancer Control Office in partnership with GSP, the guide features Hikma as a stellar example of a no-smoking Middle Eastern business. The company kicked off their tobacco ban way back in 1994.

Hana Ramadan, Head of HIKMA Corporate Communication, stated, “Hikma believes it is essential to promote healthy living. We remain committed to encouraging our staff and their families to cut down or stop smoking altogether; this is a great opportunity for us to share our approach and success with other organizations in the region.”

This is all good stuff. Green Prophet has frequently reported on smoking in the Kingdom, and throughout the Middle East. Every attempt to curb Jordan’s tobacco addiction deserves support and respect. But what exemplary organizations like Hikma really need to share are strategies for enforcement.

Through the cigarette smoke, I can make out the No Smoking signs. 

Pictograms ensure that the message is clear, whether you speak Arabic or English. Yet, in the two dozen chairs arrayed in this coffee shop “courtyard”, 17 are filled with smokers.

At this particular Lifestyle Destination, there are smokers in the grocery store, smokers at the eyeglass shop, and smokers topping up their cell phones. Why bother passing a tobacco ban, and installing clear signage, if enforcement is not bringing up the rear?

At the cardiology event, KACE Executive Director, Yasera Ghosheh, said “KACE believes in the importance of social responsibility, and one of our adopted fundamental concepts of excellence is taking responsibility for a sustainable future.”

I agree with Mr. Ghosheh’s assertion that excellent organizations must ensure a safe and healthy environment for their workers. But until those organizations carry a big stick, change doesn’t stand a chance.

Jordan’s government changes more often than my 14-year-old before a school dance. Given the shortened shelf-life of politicians, it would appear they are maximally free to give a strong voice to hard issues. There’s minimal fallout if one of the Ministers (Health, Environment) takes a stand on smoking.  The bans are in place, all that’s needed is to enforce them.

Incite celebrities and sports icons to broadcast the message?

Maybe get a Royal to jump onboard.  And why not do what most other countries do? Raise taxes on tobacco products and channel resultant revenue to related health programs or stepped up awareness campaigns. Specifically aim to discourage new users.  Start now focusing on plain smokes; ride the momentum into the next generation to tackle shisha.

Another cliché from the ‘90’s, motivational guru Anthony Robbins, has made millions demonstrating how people will do more to avoid pain than they’ll do to gain pleasure. Jordan’s smokers feel no twinge of discomfort.  Smokes are cheap, blatant disregard for adopted public policy is the norm. There’s just no pain.

Maybe too much Catholic schooling in me, but people need to start enforcing the rules.

Image of Middle East smoker from Shutterstock

Found in the remains of an enormous palace that was destroyed by a fire around 700 BCE, the clay tablet pictured above holds the only remnants of a language previously unknown to modern scholars.

The language could contribute to our understanding of the ethnic groups who lived in the area thousands of years ago, and help map their interactions with the Assyrian Empire, according to Science Daily.

List of names holds key to language

On the banks of the Tigris River in southeastern Turkey are the magnificent ruins of Ziyaret Tepe, probable site of the ancient Assyrian frontier city of Tušhan. The site has been under excavation for the past 15 years, with special attention paid to the palace, which may have been built by the Assyrian King Ashurnasirpal II (883 — 859 BCE).

The tablet seems to be a list of all the women associated with the palace and the local Assyrian administration. Of 144 names on the table, just 59 are legible. One or two are Assyrian, a few are from other languages spoken in the Assyrian Empire, and 45 belong to the mysterious language.

The tablet was found by a team of researchers led by Timothy Matney, professor at the University of Akron, Ohio. It was deciphered by  Dr John MacGinnis, from the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research at Cambridge University, who described his findings in the April 2012 issue of the Journal of Near Eastern Studies.

MacGinnis’s analysis has determined that the names could not have come from other commonly spoken languages of the time, such as Urartian, Elamite, Egyptian, or West Semitic.

Who spoke the language?

There are several theories for where the language could have come from:

1) The language could have been Shubrian, the language indigenous to the area around Tušhan before the arrival of the Assyrians. However, Shubrian is believed to have been a dialect of the Hurrian language, which doesn’t resemble the names on the tablet.

2) The language could have belonged to the Mushki people, who were migrating into Eastern Anatolia at the time the tablet was made. However, historians haven’t found evidence that the Mushki had any interactions with the Assyrian Empire — and it seems unlikely that their names would have been recorded by Assyrian administrators if not.

3) The most convincing theory, according to MacGinnis, is that the language belonged to a people captured by the Assyrians and forcibly moved to Tušhan. In fact, of all the areas under Assyrian occupation, historians are only missing the language of one: the Zagros Mountains in Iran.

“If correct this suggests that Iran was home to previously unknown languages,” wrote MacGinnis in his article.

:: Science Daily

Read more about archaeology in the Middle East:

Man Evolved When Elephant Meat Ran Out

Ancient Paw Print Found Near Roman Bath In Jerusalem

This UNESCO Bioreserve Is Refuge For Prophets, People and Wildlife

Image via John MacGinnis

An Islamic bank in Jordan, Sanabel, has bought up over a quarter of a Congo forest for ‘sustainable projects’

When I first read about the acquisition of 500,000 hectares of high value forest in the Democratic Republic of Congo by an Islamic investment bank in Jordan, I thought one thing: land grab.

Over the last couple of years, countries across the MENA region have been buying tracts of land all over Africa. Worried about the rising cost of food as well as declining natural resources locally, they have been trying to make sure that their eggs (so to speak) aren’t all in one basket. Egypt has bought up land in Sudan, Saudi Arabia has staked a claim on land in Ethiopia and the United Arab Emirates has farms in Sudan, Morocco and Algeria.

However, this latest land acquisition by Sanabel is a little more interesting as it claims to come with some green credentials. According to news reports, Sanabel which is Jordan’s first Islamic investment bank is considering a number of “Sharia’ compliant forestry activities” for the land it has purchased. These range from afforestation and reforestation projects, and protecting the land from deforestation and sustainable agro-forestry projects.

I have written about the ethical aspects of Islamic banking in the past and also the important role they could be playing in protecting the planet, so it’s great to see some action being taken. Indeed Al-Sanabel Chairman and CEO Khaldoun Malkawi explained that these activities are entirely compatible with Islamic banking principles since they simultaneously help to fight climate change by protecting biodiversity, reducing poverty and promoting corporate social responsibility.

Sanabel did however also add that this purchase is part of their plans to capitalise on the rapidly growing carbon trading market. This means that the company “will develop forest carbon credits projects that will protect the role of forests in mitigating climate change.”

As such Sanabel will be hoping to get companies to pay them to preserve the forestland in Congo and protect it from deforestation in return for carbon credits which help them meet their carbon reduction targets.

This is, however, where it gets a little messy.

Firstly, the carbon credit market has been widely criticised for allowing business to continue spewing lots of emissions. It turns out that buying carbon credits from schemes such as the one that Sanabel will be running is a lot cheaper and easier for businesses than actually cutting their own emissions. So instead of protecting the environment and helping tackle global warming, these scheme just help companies continue their destructive practices.

The second issue that needs to be considered is the displacement of poor people living in these forests. For example, 70,000 indigenous people living in the western region of Gambella in Ethiopia were forced to relocate as the land had been living on was bought up by foreign investors. Saudi Star Agriculture Development was one of the companies implicated in this forced displacement.

Land ownership is a hugely contested issue and passing on ownership to a foreign government can only make the situation more complicated.

So whilst I’m happy to see Islamic banks consider green projects, I think they need to do better next time. They need to show that they aren’t out just to make a quick buck and also that they take their environmental responsibilities seriously.

Images of Congo forest via bobulix/flickr.

For more on African land grab see:
Egypt to Grab Sudanese Land To Meet Its Wheat Needs
Africa Up For Sale, Is The Middle East Buying?
Arab States Buy Up Vast Tracts Of African Farmland

Last week two environmental representatives were added to Israel’s Petroleum Council, according to the Jerusalem Post. The council has been restructured to include a total of 13 members, including seven members of the public. As Israel’s ongoing court dispute between government officials and national gas distributors proves, the industry has a local history of disregarding public interest for financial gain – look to our past story on polluting gas stations. Israel’s Environmental Protection Minister Gilad Erdan praised the recent decision, saying: “Finally environmental considerations will be incorporated into the distribution of drilling licenses and tenders for the exploration and production of petroleum.”

When massive deposits of natural gas, 6.5 times the size of Tel Aviv, were discovered in Israel’s territorial waters it changed Israel’s future.

The tiny nation must unravel the challenge of mining newfound natural resources without causing environmental degradation that would negatively impact its populace. We think adding environmental and public representatives are a small step in the right direction.

:: Jerusalem Post

Image via Wikimedia Commons

Some architects and economists are proposing Israel solve its affordable housing crisis by turning central Israel into a “megacity,” similar to Hong Kong, and moving the nation’s lush nature reserves and agricultural lands to the Negev and the Galilee. Supporters of this solution insist it would not harm the environment if public transportation was improved and public parks increased.

According to the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the country produces around 93% of their domestic food requirements. As of 2002 central Israel held 39% of the country’s agricultural land. As we’ve seen in numerous nearby Arab nations, food security continues to be a divisive issue among Middle Eastern populations. It’s hard to imagine that paving so much of Israel’s fertile land would be beneficial in the long run.

Turning Israel into predominately urban/suburban landscape directly contradicts the Zionist ideals it was founded upon, an ideology that galvanizes agricultural work and spacious, dispersed population centers. Indeed it would contradict one of the founding characteristics of Israeli culture.

In Israel a group of teenagers is just as likely to go hiking or camping as they are to go see a movie. On multiple occasions I have stumbled upon groups of Israelis feverishly discussing the beauty of a fresh, ripe, locally grown tomato. The visceral connection Israelis have to their homeland and the food it produces is among the most admirable qualities of the national culture. Delineating agricultural land to the country’s northern and southern fringes would undoubtedly impact that mindset.

The Negev desert in southern Israel

We can only hope that the Israeli public will have a say in how the nation resolves its housing crisis. Prime Minister Netanyahu’s urban and environmental planning reform recently received its second pejorative ‘Black Globe Award,’ the first of which was awarded in 2010. Israeli judges criticized the reform in an article by Haaretz newspaper, saying:

“It allows those with power and money to impact the lives of each and every one of us by diminishing the Environmental Protection Ministry’s authority and creating the basis by which the environment in general, and open spaces in particular, can be infringed upon.”

With such a strong, majority coalition in the Israeli parliament, the Knesset, if Netanyahu decided he wanted central Israel turned into a mega-city there would be none of the usual checks and balances to challenge him.

But there is already a bristling awareness among Israelis that their country is running out of virgin land to develop. Since wilderness and agriculture are both so central to the national character, the optimist in us feels confident that mega-city proposals will be scoffed at and ignored.

::Ynetnews

Images by Leigh Cuen