In wealthy Western countries, renewable energy developments are a source of progress, pride and smart business. For Israel and Jordan, two Middle Eastern countries severely lacking in water and energy resources, renewable energy is a matter of survival. That’s why there’s been a new green twist to the Trilateral Industrial Development Foundation (TRIDE), founded in 1996 as […]
Authorities have issued arrest orders following Monday’s fire that engulfed Doha’s Villaggio Mall, killing 19 people. The owner of the mall and a handful of officials accused of failing to properly respond to the emergency face arrest, and the owner of the daycare facility where 13 children, including two-year old triplets from New Zealand and […]
Jordan’s Independence Day rolls around every May 25, celebrating when British command over this land once called Transjordan ended back in 1946. So, last weekend in Amman, the streets dressed up in banners and flags and fireworks blazed in evening skies. Jordan’s party pretty much mirrors America’s July Fourth: less fun on the waterfront, but plenty of […]
Will there be less public peeing on the streets now there’s a high tech public toilet in Tel Aviv? Haaretz reporter Roy Arad recently wrote that in all his career as a journalist he has never seen people so happy as the Israelis that have just used 2 The Loo on King George Street in […]
If you want naturally beautiful hair (or temporary tattoos), turn to henna. Anyone living in the Middle East has often seen little old ladies with kerchiefs tied under their chins and long, orange-colored braids falling down their backs. They dye their hair with henna, the dried and powdered leaves of Lawsonia lythraceae. But modern women […]
In Israel the organic food market is still comparatively small and underdeveloped. According to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz organic food only comprises one and half percent of Israel’s agricultural output. A whopping 90% of it is exported abroad, mainly to European markets. An annual Agriculture Ministry survey in 2011 discovered that 37.4% of the organic […]
Headphones kill pedestrians and cyclists who can’t hear traffic. Israel proposes new legislation to ban the music while cycling. Israel is rapidly becoming a nation of bikers, from cycle-tourism to the bike-sharing program that earned Tel Aviv municipality a Green Globe Award this year. But it has proven a risky method of transit on crowded streets. Sunday, […]
Your reusable totes may be full of bacteria and can turn you seriously “green”. Time to practice good bag hygiene. Researchers at the University of Arizona tested 84 reusable shopping totes and found over half were contaminated with harmful bacteria, including the dangerous E.coli. Contamination occurs when fluids such as fruit juices and meat blood leak […]
Ten minutes after a fire broke out in Doha’s Villaggio Mall yesterday, an expatriate and Doha News reader Paula Rodrigues Duarte claimed that officials failed to discourage her from entering the mall. “Not security or police. I was actually walking towards it unknowingly till I saw people running back and turned around and left. No alarms, […]
Saudi Prince Abdul Aziz bin Abdullah – the son of King Abdullah and deputy Foreign Minister – has sued the city of Los Angeles. In 2009 the King’s third son purchased a 5 1/4 acre plot of land in a wealthy Beverly Hills neighborhood for $12 million through his firm Tower Lane Properties. But once […]
It may look like a castle, but this beautiful red-earth building is actually an 11-roomed hotel that receives 80% of its energy from the sun. And like the eco-lodge, Hassan and his wife Hélène of the Atlas Kasbah are no run-of-the-mill owners. He is Berber, she is French, and they both possess Masters Degrees in Sustainable […]
Two mosques in London have taken up beekeeping – and there are plans to encourage more to join the quest to save dwindling bee populations
Edgard Chaya and his family bring back ancient tile making practices and Lebanese “neo-traditional” architecture After being handed over a case filled with 12 brass molds and stumbling upon a jumble of colored tile fragments and exposed patterns in his family’s wrecked cement tile factory, retiree Edgard Chaya was destined towards a new chapter in his […]
The first hydroelectric dam built in Ankara, Turkey’s capital city, the Çubuk Dam was promoted as “Ankara’s Bosphorus”. A new exhibit at Istanbul’s avant-garde SALT Galata gallery, Graft, throws open the archive of material about Turkey’s first major hydroelectric projects in the 1930s. The display critically analyzes the motives behind these early endeavors — and the […]
Wild Boars are hunted illegally as well. Photo:Haaretz/Nir Kafri Wildlife in Israel have always been under threat from economic over-development and hunting, including poaching by migrant farm workers. Illegal poaching and outdoor hunting in the country has now reached levels that could soon result in some animal species becoming extinct or unable to naturally sustain […]