A professional kite surfer and instructor from Poland recently survived two days of drifting in the Red Sea by fighting off sharks with a knife. With just a couple of energy bars and drinks and a small amount of water, the first kitesurfer to cross the Baltic Sea set off from El Gouna in Egypt to Duba, Saudi Arabia. But then the wind died.
Egyptians researchers believe that sugar beets like those pictured above can help to clear the country’s stockpile of land mines. 20% of the world’s land mines are planted in Egypt, where they have killed or maimed a total of more than 7,000 people in the last 25 years. They are scattered in the western desert […]
A “green” Arab renaissance cannot be accomplished without the rise of women in Arab countries. Recently in Jordan, the Google image was of Middle Eastern intellectual, feminist and writer, the late May Ziyade. Don’t you love peeling the evolutionary onion, seeing who came before to take us where we are today? A century ago, in a pre-digital world, ideas were exchanged […]
Karin draws a line between women’s rights and green issues in light of upcoming SlutWalks in Israel. Last April Green Prophet asked: Should the Middle East Have More Sluts? Of course we wanted to attract our reader’s attention, and we did with thousands of readers, hundreds of “Likes” and dozens of comments. Although I am […]
Plans to build a Red Sea bridge connecting Saudi Arabia and Egypt have been revived but there are some serious environmental concerns More than two decades after it was first planned, Egypt and Saudi Arabia may be about to start work on a land and sea bridge connecting the two countries. The proposed bridge would […]
10,000 years after inventing agriculture, will we 7 billion take this strange next step?
A host of eco-tourism initiatives in Egypt are moving away from the packaged tour to nature-based experiences Nature has been developing solutions to its own challenges for the last 3.8 billion years, so two women in Egypt have set up an eco-tourism venture that tunes into that infinite wisdom. Biologists Sara el-Sayed and Betty Khoury […]
Translated from a poster in Jordan: “Smoking for a long period of time affects marital relations.” I’m not “blowing smoke” when I rave about Amman. No need, because Amman generates enough smoke on its own. This city rivals onions in making eyes water. Blame diesel fuel. Trucks, cars, buses blast chewy plumes of black exhaust. […]
This amazing moat bridge parts waters in the Netherlands like Moses and the Red Sea! Thanks to theological scholarship (or in my case, thanks to MGM and Charlton Heston) everyone knows how Moses split the Red Sea. Architects have now imitated that miracle with a sunken eco-bridge that allows safe pedestrian passage through far less-daunting waters. Four […]
Sweat and Sahara sand had forced my eyes closed so that, even as I stood in front of one of the seven wonders of the ancient world, I saw nothing. My eyelids were a back-lit sandy-orange in the sun’s glare. I pried them open and squinted up at the shapes the pharaohs and their slaves had […]
Urban farming in Egypt has soared. Read about Schaduf – a soilless solution taking root in Maadi. Two Egyptian brothers have received enough donations to set up three rooftop farms in Maadi – a once wealthy suburb of Cairo. Due for full installation by April, these won’t be any old farms. Sherif and Tarek Hosny […]
Egypt topped the world Environmental Performance Index for the Middle East and North Africa region, followed closely by Israel Every two years, Yale University in collaboration with Columbia University release the world Environmental Performance Index which ranks most countries environmental performance. This year, Egypt topped the list for the MENA region, followed closely by Israel […]
While snorkeling in the Red Sea just before Valentine’s Day, a Swiss scientist came across a 3-legged turtle. Ivo Blöchliger was snorkeling in the increasingly vulnerable Red Sea just two days before Valentine’s Day when he came across a 3-legged turtle. The turtle was swimming in front of the Swisscare Reef in Nuweiba in South Sinai. […]
The Stars of Science reality TV show would be so much more exciting if it spurred sustainable ideas. Perhaps we shouldn’t begrudge the Arab World’s first serious reality TV show, particularly since Stars of Science was designed to encourage more youth in the region to pursue science and technology. But it’s hard to turn a […]
In the video below the jump, Maltese hunters are depicted shooting Eagles, Falcons, Vultures and other protected bird species. The Avian Influenza outbreak had at least one positive outcome in Egypt: it kept both local and migratory birds safe from hunters. But last year in December the government re-opened the country to what seems to be […]