Twenty-eight Greenpeacers, mostly foreigners, and two journalists are held for six weeks now in a Russian prison: In a surprising but not unheard of move, Russia has jailed the Greenpeace activists or “pirates” aboard a Greenpeace International ship for scaling a Russian-owned Gazprom oil platform. One of them is a young woman from Turkey.
A group of activists in Beirut have teamed up with a local design agency to create the city’s first map of green spaces. Beirut Green Project and Wonder 8 launched the Beirut Green Guide at Tawlet earlier this week, but a few kinks still need to be worked out. According to the Daily Star: “The […]
While the Middle East is not a usual haunt for Halloween there are some parents here and there who bring the custom from their native America or Canada. If you are looking for a last-minute costume, now for the fun – a DIY stick figure costume made from LED lights.
Today is D-Day for electric car drivers in condos and apartments in Israel and who use the Better Place charging systems. The Israel Electric Company announced last week that yesterday was the cutoff date.
Turkey inaugurated the Marmaray undersea railway tunnel on Tuesday, linking Europe and Asia. It is the Marmaray, the world’s deepest immersed tube tunnel at 60.46 metres (198.4 ft).
Israeli designers are working hard to curb bicycle theft. One group came up with the “fashionable” Foldylock and the Spine Bike breaks when stolen. But the Cricket uses bluetooth technology to keep sticky hands off urban wheels.
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 […]
A consortium of Japanese architects got together to protest Zaha Hadid’s winning design for the main stadium of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, and despite all her fame and glory, the Japanese government listened. Zaha Hadid has been in the news a lot recently. For many, she is an incredible, visionary designer whose work is unparalleled, and […]
The Shard architect Renzo Piano has partnered with Italy’s Enel Green Power to design a new ultra lightweight wind turbine that has a smaller visual impact on the landscape than conventional wind turbines.
My hometown of Amman, Jordan has just been slammed as one of the least attractive cities on the planet. Online travel adviser U.CityGuide posted their 10 Ugliest Cities of the World, with Amman nabbing third place. I have to concede that in the urban looks department, and as much as I love Amman, Jordan’s capital […]
This is the best pro-women’s rights stuff we’ve seen out of Saudi Arabia, ever. Saudi comedian Hisham Fageeh has posted his excellent No Woman, No Drive video to bring attention to the plight of women in the Middle Eastern country.
Smoking the hookah, nargilah or shisha pipe is a truly fun and social way to connect in the Middle East. It’s an oriental fantasy for newcomers and even for women in private circles who want to wind down and let loose. But one session can be like smoking 600 cigarettes!
Jerusalem’s Festigalgal bicycle riding festival winds up next week with emphasis on using bicycles more for in-city transportation.
The forlorn photo of empty EV car charging posts says it all. Better Place, the electric car infrastructure company founded by entrepreneur Shai Agassi has still not found a buyer willing to come up with the actual money needed to purchase it.
It’s hard to imagine the concept of a “power pimp” in Africa unless you have lived there. But it makes sense and cents on a continent that lacks a unified power system. There is basically no electric power in most rural places unless you are enterprising enough to own a battery and generator of some […]