A severe Middle East winter snowstorm has left a blanket of snow on Cairo, Egypt for the first time in over 100 years. The freak storm also caused Middle East Mayhem in Jordan and Jerusalem, where snowfall levels were recorded reach as much as half a meter in many places.
Elon Musk is known as the founder of SpaceX, a pioneer in the commercialization of space travel and Tesla, a company named after a brilliantly mad high-voltage inventor of the nineteenth century and known for its electric cars. So what happens when this visionary sets his eyes on America’s decaying public transportation infrastructure?
Birds have a terrible time in the Middle East and North Africa. We’ve seen men posing with a bonnet full of dead ones, one million migrating songbirds killed for a pickled dish, and other horror stories.
Tetra Pak sold roughly 1.625 billion packages in Egypt in 2011, of which only 20 percent were recycled. That’s a lot of untreated waste, but now the company has pledged $340,000 to boost the country’s recycling capacity. They want to make their business more sustainable.
There’s traffic. And then there is Cairo traffic, which can drive even the saintliest men and women to a special kind of madness. But a new public transportation option has popped up that could make getting from point A to point B significantly less stressful.
With space labs, astronaut gloves and even a toothbrush floating in space, is there no limits to where we’ve flung our junk? Thirty-four years ago the charred remains of a spaceship fell to earth. The spaceship was named Skylab and it was the last orbiting remnant of NASA’s grandiose Apollo era when Saturn V moon rockets […]
In a strange and surprising twist, Egypt says it will consider participating with its neighbour Ethiopia in the construction of the Renaissance Dam, a project which it had staunchly opposed (and even suggested sabotaging).
"Middle Eastern food" is a catch-phrase that embraces the cuisines of so many countries, and ethnic streams inside those countries, that a list of 60 essential ingredients can't cover everything. But if you love the flavors of the Middle East...be it cumin-scented, crunchy falafel or the fragrance of rose-water in pastries like ma'amoul, it's worth organizing space in your kitchen for the ingredients listed below.
Move over Billy bookcases and Ektorp sofas because something more earth-friendly is about to be sold at IKEA. This Swedish-owned big box company is finally making some common sense for the planet: the company’s UK chain of otherwise throwaway furniture, will begin selling flat pack solar panel kits to its UK customers.
The deadly coronavirus behind Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS-CoV) has been isolated in a bat in Saudi Arabia, according to a report in the journal Emerging Infectious Diseases. The virus was found in a the feces of an Egyptian tomb bat, or Taphozous perforatus, a creature known to roost in abandoned buildings.
Volkswagen’s “hippie van” was the preferred mode of transportation for peace lovers during the 1960s, but Brazil is shutting down the last production line this year to meet rigorous new safety requirements. See our nostalgic photo tour of VW vans in the Middle East.
A young Dubai designer wants to install the world’s largest perpetual public art installation to send a message around the planet using the power of the sun.
A White Stork was arrested in Egypt recently after a fisherman in Qena captured it – believing it to be a spy – and marched it down to local police. Equipped with tracking technology, the bird was released, but didn’t live much longer.
For outsiders, SIWA oasis in Egypt is a wonderful place to visit precisely because “civilization” has been so slow to arrive there. But for locals, the gift of a new 20MW solar energy plant will be received like a mountain of gold.
In the new Portal 9, the first Arabic-English journal about the city, the founder of Abu Dhabi’s urban planning department talks with editor Todd Reisz about planning crowded Cairo, working with Sheikh Zayed and practicing in mid-century Egypt and Saudi Arabia.