Sound the alarms? Where has Turkey, Syria, Iran and Iraq’s underground freshwater sea gone? NASA’s imaging technology recently brought some bad news about Mideast air pollution. Now NASA brings more bad news about the Mideast water supply. We already knew that the Dead Sea is shrinking. Some people are even trying to do something about […]
Are you at risk? Get swine flu updates for the PA, Israel, Yemen, Iraq, Tunisia and Jordan. Health officials in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT) are calling on residents to get vaccinated against the H1N1 virus (“swine flu”) after 25 deaths in recent weeks.Over 700 infections of H1N1 have been reported in the West Bank […]
Of my most prized possessions is a new blender I recently purchased, the Vitamix. Mine is a model called the TurboBlend VS. The Vitamix is advertised as “more than a blender,” as its high performance quality enables the user to blend the toughest of ingredients to produce the widest variety of food creations. It’s the […]
Are Jordan’s snow and Israel’s floods signs of climate change or are they simply flukes of weather? People might argue this for decades there is strong evidence that Mideastern climate has changed dramatically over thousands of years and there is evidence that humans can negatively impact their environment over a much shorter time period. The […]
Afghanistan, Iraq, North Korea, Myanmar and Yemen are still using leaded gasoline and many others have lead contaminated plumbing, soil, paint and household products. How can we reduce the world’s crime rate, particularly the rate of violent crime? When the crime rate rises or a horrific crime takes place, people are quick to find blame […]
Three thousand years ago four stone lions guarded a temple in Iraq, but their work was short lived. The Assyrians invaded the city Nuzi and annihilated everything in sight, including the lions and other artifacts. One lion that remained almost intact now lives at University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, while fragments of […]
Two to three thousand refugees flee Syria every day. Exhausted from traveling with what little they own and devastated by the many losses they have incurred along the way – their home, their country, every shred of security they ever knew and a shocking number of family members – they pour into bordering countries. The […]
Turn to the ancients for a green building technique that lets you play like a child. Mesopotamian mud bricks still do the job, for free. Mesopotamia was the ancient collective of settlements tracing the Tigris–Euphrates river basin. It spanned modern Iraq, northeastern Syria, southeastern Turkey and smaller parts of Iran. Modern school kids learn this […]
In the Middle East, recipes for stuffed vegetables and leaves evolved from a simple, thrifty way with meat to a culinary passion. Careful housewives have long known that a little ground meat goes a long way when artfully seasoned and combined with rice. But it took imagination and care to develop the recipes of stuffed […]
Who’s got the wind in the Middle East? Morocco and Egypt have the biggest wind power plants, but don’t discount Iraq, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Wind power has taken a backseat to solar power across the Middle East and North Africa, but there are still some ambitious projects in wind power […]
Iraq meets Israel in Tel Aviv at this new sabich restaurant. Givatayim’s legendary eggplant-maker Oved Daniel, whom they call the “professor of sabich [Iraqi eggplant dish] science,” is opening up a new restaurant in Tel Aviv. Previously a gifted soccer player, today Daniel is a local food celebrity whose specialty sabich is one of Israel’s […]
The Middle East is continuing to show itself capable of boosting alternative energy sources without facing political backlashes from opposing sides of the aisle. In Iraq, large multinational corporations are working with the country’s ministry of electricity to see clean and renewable resources become a reality in the post-war environment, where investment is expected to […]
The logistical headaches of keeping daylight savings year-round in Jordan. Last week in Amman, the Jordanian Cabinet reversed a decision to switch to wintertime, sticking with daylight saving time for the entire year. Our extended daylight hours are good for the environment (and coveted by many Israeli neighbors), but the late decision is causing logistical […]
Established in the lead up to the COP18 Doha negotiations, the Arab Youth Climate Movement brings together over 20 campaigners from 15 Middle East/North Africa countries As the saying goes, there is power in numbers. So it’s great to see environmental organisations across MENA come together to “create a more sustainable, prosperous, meaningful, just, and […]
Could a united Kurdistan mean a victory for the peoples’ natural resources: energy, and mighty rivers? Against the backdrop of the civil war raging in Syria, Syrian Kurds are moving towards self-rule. The Syrian government has relinquished many Kurdish communities to local control. Kurdish flags fly over former government buildings in northeastern Syria. Many new […]