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.
IKEA’s flatpack homes for refugees get a reluctant OK from Lebanon
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 of vegetables.
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]
![World’s coolest King pushes a car stuck in snow [video]](https://www.greenprophet.com/wp-content/uploads/King-Abdullah-pushes-car-in-snow.png "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]
![Copenhagen Wheel is like a dynamo rocket booster for bikes! [video]](https://www.greenprophet.com/wp-content/uploads/The-Copenhagen-Wheel-from-dynamo-MIT.jpg "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]
![Moroccan fish trawlers pumping and dumping tons of dead fish into Sea [graphic video]](https://www.greenprophet.com/wp-content/uploads/adrar4_609-Fish-dumping-off-W.-Sahara.jpg "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]
![City Transformer electric folding car is a kit car for urban dreams [video]](https://www.greenprophet.com/wp-content/uploads/city-transformer-folding-car.jpg "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]
![Grow a Middle Eastern Beard in Under 2 Hours! [knit pattern]](https://www.greenprophet.com/wp-content/uploads/Beard-hat-21.jpg "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.
Shale gas and fracking lies exposed in Tunisia by local bloggers
The fight against shale gas extraction through hydraulic fracturing continues in Tunisia where governments are lying and the water weary warn of disasters ahead.
Open source prefab bee hive helps the masses protect our pollinators [video]
![Open source prefab bee hive helps the masses protect our pollinators [video]](https://www.greenprophet.com/wp-content/uploads/Open-Tech-Forever-Prefab-Bee-Hives.jpg "Open source prefab bee hive helps the masses protect our pollinators [video]")
Enlisting the masses to save the bees, Open Tech Forever has developed a high tech CNC-cut hive that allows global citizens to keep an eye on our precious pollinators.
Wadi Rum Bedouins Defy Nature by Growing Organic Veggies
Who says you can’t make the desert bloom? The desert regions of Israel and Jordan have for years been the subject of numerous agricultural projects. Some of these projects include creating community gardens by residents of desert towns; and being involved in epic Sahara forest projects. Now let’s look at what’s happening in Wadi Rum.