Submarine Rail Linking Morocco and Spain Gets UN Push
The United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) is pushing to revive a thirty year old plan to build a submarine rail link between Morocco and Spain, local Moroccan press reports.
development
5 of Turkey’s Most Unsustainable Development Projects
Turkey’s Taksim square protest flared up last week when police took drastic measures to clear activists from Gezi Park- slated for destruction to make way for yet another shopping center. But that’s not the only unsustainable project the government is pursuing in the name of economic growth. We list 5 of the major ones.
Crushers Reduce Emirate Mountaintops to Rubble in the Name of “Progress”
Green Prophet’s resident photographer documents “cut” Hajar Mountains in the United Arab Emirates. Huge swaths of the Hajar Mountains in the UAE’s northern emirates appear ghostly white when viewed on Google Earth. Closer examination of the satellite imagery reveals large chunks of missing hillside and some sort of quarrying operations, and my recent physical visit to […]
Egypt is Close to Bridging the Distance to Saudi
The Egyptian government announced earlier this week that a plan to bridge the distance between Egypt and Saudi Arabia across the Gulf of Aqaba is going to become reality in the very near future. A longstanding proposal previously rejected by former President Hosni Mubarak, a bridge linking the Sinai Peninsula and Saudi Arabia is expected […]
Post-Oil Stagnation in Kuwait at the Venice Biennale
Kuwait is making its debut at the 13th Venice Biennale this year, and they’re doing so with some serious style. The pavilion features a cavernous industrial space interrupted with dangling speakers, orange cushions and abandoned master plans, and it was commissioned by the National Council for Culture, Arts and Letters (NCAA). Unlike many of the […]
Z: The Anonymous Tunisian Cartoonist Championing Nature
‘Z’ is an anonymous cartoonist whose pink flamingo trademark came about due to his efforts to stop development projects which would destroy the bird’s natural habitat By day an architect and by night a bitingly critical cartoonist, ‘Z’ is a force to be reckoned with. His criticism of the previous Tunisian dictator Ben Ali meant […]
Qatar Fire: Expatriates Furious Over Officials’ Lackadaisical Attitude
Ten minutes after a fire broke out in Doha’s Villaggio Mall yesterday, an expatriate and Doha News reader Paula Rodrigues Duarte claimed that officials failed to discourage her from entering the mall. “Not security or police. I was actually walking towards it unknowingly till I saw people running back and turned around and left. No alarms, […]
World’s Largest Artificial Lagoon Nears Completion in Egypt, Despite Chaos
When we first learned about the 120,000 square meter artificial lagoon in Sharm el Sheikh designed to be the largest of its kind in the world, we wondered whether it would lift off or crumble in failure as so many of Egypt’s grand projects have done. We need wonder no more since World Architecture News […]
Sinai’s Ecological Future Hangs in the Balance
As part of the 1979 peace treaty with Israel, the Sinai Peninsula was restored to Egyptian control – an event that the country celebrated with some fanfare on April 25th, 2012. On that same day, the Egyptian Prime Minister Kamal Ganzouri witnessed two separate development plans that were signed between the Social Development Fund (SFD) and governors […]
A Culture Shock Hangover in Tunisia’s Second City
After a rough time in Tunis, Tafline pushed past a culture shock hangover to appreciate Tunisia’s second largest city. When the bus stopped at the station in Sfax, 170 miles from Tunisia’s capital city, I seriously considered getting back on and heading as far south – away from civilization – as I could get. But […]
Geoscientists Say Oman is Sinking and Shrinking
Scientists discover that every year Oman loses a little bit more of its landmass to rising sea levels. Within the next 100 years, global sea levels are expected to rise by at least 1 meter and swallow up coastal towns and cities – a reality from which the Middle East is not exempt. Already geoscientists […]
Israel Animals Killed By Economic Development
Once common, animals and porcupines like this one are now becoming rare in Israel as development surges, and open spaces diminish. Israel’s birds and other wildlife are threatened with extinction due to over development of the country’s open spaces, according to an article in Haaretz. According to a new study on Israel’s nature situation, it […]
Trees In Jordan’s Ajloun Forest Still At Risk
Despite a campaign by environmentalists to protect the Ajloun forest in Jordan, 300 trees will be uprooted to make way for a military academy Back in January 2011, Jordanian environmentalists launched a campaign to help protect Ajloun forest from a development project which would have seen 2,200 trees cut down across 45 dunums of land. […]