Ditch Etsy for CIRQY, the Middle Eastern Alternative
We love Etsy as much as anyone, but we also feel it is our duty to support local efforts to collate cool design, handmade arts and crafts. CIRQY from Egypt does just that.
Beirut Art Center Exposes Emerging Lebanese Artists (and Missing Nipples)
A provocative installation by Lebanese graphic designer Wael Kodeih aims to challenge cyber censorship. Part of the fifth annual Exposure exhibition now at the Beirut Art Center (BAC), is it art or gimmick?
‘A Palace for Nature’ kills the idea that rich Arabs aren’t green
Living large isn’t sustainable, at least that is what most green hearts tend to believe, but Sanzpont Arquitectura disagrees. Invited to participate in an international competition to design a private residence in Qatar, the studio came up with ‘A Palace for Nature’ – a magnificent solar-powered palace modeled after the sidra tree.
IKEA’s flatpack homes for refugees get a reluctant OK from Lebanon
Lebanon’s government has finally agreed to a trial run of IKEA’s prefabricated flatpack homes designed for refugees, but they’re not excited about it.
10 Top Vegan Holiday Recipes From The Middle East
One advantage of eating vegan is that you probably have all ingredients for home-cooked meals in your pantry, all the time. Another advantage, especially in freezing winter times like now, is how filling and warming vegan foods are, based as they are on grains, like lupini beans, which deserve to be better known, and lots […]
Polygamous foreigners can glean from Turkey’s one wife law
Polygamous Arab men who buy property in Turkey must choose just one of their brides to carry over the threshold; polygamy isn’t legal in this country which grants residency permits to just one wife.
World’s coolest King pushes a car stuck in snow [video]
Jordan’s King Abdullah II helped push a car that was stuck in the snow while touring Amman after a major winter storm called Alexa pummeled the region.
Snow shocks Cairo for first time in 100 years
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.
Copenhagen Wheel is like a dynamo rocket booster for bikes! [video]
Now there is a good reason not to buy an electric bike: the Copenhagen Wheel from the Senseable City Lab can make you go hybrid with the switch of a tire. In a sense, it turns an ordinary hilly city such as Jerusalem and Amman into flat cities like Copenhagen and Amsterdam.
10 sustainable online shopping tips to tick the Triple Bottom Line
Pressured to knock off your Christmas shopping? Need a uniquely sustainable gift? Online marketplaces Etsy and Dawanda let you browse quirky, handmade items without burning any petrol, and offer a decent alternative to glitzy energy-guzzling “lifestyle centers.”
Moroccan fish trawlers pumping and dumping tons of dead fish into Sea [graphic video]
A graphic indication of unsustainable commercial fishing was conveyed by two environmental watch organizations, Greenpeace and Western Sahara Watch, have revealed severe unsustainable practices by Moroccan commercial fishing vessels who were seen dumping tons of sardines overboard into ocean waters off the Western Sahara.
Google “spies” find weir trap fishing used illegally in Iran, Qatar and Bahrain
A Kuwaiti in Canada uses Google Earth to uncover how a banned method of Middle East fishing is being used to trap an estimated 31,000 tons of fish per year.
City Transformer electric folding car is a kit car for urban dreams [video]
Israel may have flopped big time when its electric car company Better Place folded this year. It ended with almost a billion in financing and less than 1000 customers signed on to its electric charge network. “Folding” in a positive way is a new concept car from Israel called the City Transformer.
Cautionary tale when saving refugees, and the world
Cash is King. An essential ingredient of charitable giving; it greases the wheels when moving goods. A month after 4,000 hats were collected and shipped from Ireland to Jordan, they’re finally keeping some of Syria’s refugees a bit warmer. But in the end, it took money to drop the curtain on this act of giving.
Grow a Middle Eastern Beard in Under 2 Hours! [knit pattern]
I’ll bet snow-capped pine trees and ice-crusted cars don’t spring to mind when you think of the Middle East, but that’s what we’re seeing in Amman as we tuck into the second straight day of fierce blizzarding. A perfect setting to tuck in with some simple knitting.