I had the pleasure of meeting this enterprising Bedouin woman, Miriam Aborkeek while on a Bedouin home stay and personal tour with Yeela Raanan of Bedouin Experience in Israel. Here’s Aborkeek’s story about her natural cosmetics company Desert Daughter: Once, Bedouin women roamed with the seasons, foraging for plants and helping graze animals where the rains […]
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‘Rafea – Solar Mama’ marks a young mother’s battle to bring solar power to her village in the deserts of Jordan Green films have been making a real splash across the region right now. From Eco Qatari folktales about drought to hard-hitting documentaries about trash in Turkey, environmentally-aware movies have been on the up. Now, […]
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Hurricane Sandy bulldozed my home coastline with a ferocity rarely seen outside the big screen. It ploughed through lives of friends and family, shredding homes, floating cars, and drowning pets. We can debate the causes of climate change, but the increasingly damaging effect of extreme weather upon basic civil services is indisputable. In a crisis, […]
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There has been a lot of fuss about Jordan’s nuclear ambitions and activists in the kingdom have been vocal about their opposition, but all this hullabaloo might be for nought according to an industry expert. Speaking with The Jordan Times, Steve Thomas from Greenwich University said that high construction costs, complicated regulatory requirements and the […]
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The newly formed Arab Youth Climate Movement held a successful ‘Day Of Action’ which called on the Arab world to take the lead at the upcoming climate negotiations On Saturday, members of the Arab Youth Climate Movement united in a day of action aimed at encouraging the Arab world to take the lead on climate […]
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Shale gas takes us down a dangerous path – Tunisians are battling shale gas proponents who say it is less carbon-intensive and ‘green’ With Tunisians protesting Shell’s shale gas plans and Jordanians set to finalise a deal to build the region’s first oil shale plant by the end of the year, it seems that the […]
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Would innovative waste disposal devices make for tidier Jordanians? Year Two in the Hashemite Kingdom, and my honeymoon with Amman is kaput. It’s impossible to keep the romance alive when your beloved is so totally…trashy. At work, shopping for trash receptacles for a new airport terminal, I stumbled across some wacky waste bins that might’ve saved […]
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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 […]
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Israel’s Negev Desert, Jordan’s Mount Nebo, Medaba and Wadi Rum are a few dark sky destinations for stargazing. Paris is known as the city of lights. So is Medina Saudi Arabia, Be’er Sheva Israel and Las Vegas, Nevada. We shouldn’t overlook Baltimore Maryland, Varanasi India, Quanzhou China and Milford Pennsylvania. Each of these cities is also […]
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Seed money up to $1 million to protect your local birds. Apply today. Sick of reading about Cyprus songbirds killed and pickled for snacks? Weary of wild killing sprees like Egypt’s sanctioned bird hunt ? Or maybe the downed flamingos in Kuwait ruffled your feathers? BirdLife International has created a fund to underwrite environmental preservation projects in one of the […]
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The 19-month conflict in Syria goes from bad to worse – and there are environmental impacts for the region too “The situation is bad and getting worse,” U.N.-Arab League peace envoy Lakhdar Brahimi said today, lamenting the collapse of the truce he helped broker over the Eid al-Adha holiday. A car bomb which exploded near […]
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Execute some alchemy and turn random junk and recyclables into a smart toy for your toddler. This takes so little time and attracts such rave reviews you’ll be tempted to make a batch for future gift-giving, school projects, and maybe replace birthday “goody bags” with a toy that will get real use. An Amman school […]
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This time of year marks one of Islam’s most sacred holidays, Eid al-Adha. The four-day holiday corresponds with the height of the Hajj, the pilgrimage to Mecca in Saudi Arabia, which draws two million Muslim pilgrims a year. Eid began Friday and will end Monday, the last day of the Hajj. When traveling in Palestinian […]
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Camel milk and dates are now bona fide links in the international gourmet food chain. And while this bodes well for Middle East economics, is the associated environmental news happy too? I questioned this last summer in Malahide, a tiny Irish seaside village where I used to live. I was staying with friends and their child […]
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Following a dispute over the details of their joint contract, the Jordanian government has parted ways with the french company AREVA Back in 2010, the Jordanian government granted exclusive uranium extraction rights for nuclear energy to the French company AREVA. It has now been announced that the mining license has been cancelled following a dispute […]
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