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 […]
When we first learned about the 120,000 square meter artificial lagoon in Sharm el Sheikh designed to be the largest of its kind in the world, we wondered whether it would lift off or crumble in failure as so many of Egypt’s grand projects have done. We need wonder no more since World Architecture News […]
Award-winning architect Salma Samar Damluji speaks to GreenProphet about her mud architecture work in Yemen and why Dubai’s property development mentality is ruining the Middle East The Middle East may be a fascinating place politically but architecturally, it’s on its last legs. Years of corruption and poor governance mean it’s slowly becoming one of the […]
I know I know, the proposed federation of six gulf countries has nothing to do with anything remotely green. I also realize that the ulterior motive is to gain political strength and stability in the region and it is possible that this may even escalate the unrest, given that not everyone is happy with this […]
Egyptian brothers Mostafa and Mohamed Nassar have designed a clever two-meter tall waste separator that aims to make recycling in Abu Dhabi and the other Emirates “as easy as pressing a button,” The National reports.Providers of steel solutions for construction, oil and gas industries and manufacturing plants, the Abu-Dhabi-raised pair believe that collecting recyclables can be […]
Enjoy a delicious dairy dessert on Shavuot (but don’t count the calories). Shavuot, the Jewish festival that celebrates receiving the Torah on Mt. Sinai, has always been associated with having a dairy meal. The origins of the custom go back to antiquity, and there are several explanations for it. Some hold that milk symbolizes the […]
Whisked away down the toilet and into our waterways, we are losing stocks of phosphorus and the result can be very scary. Looking for something new to worry about? Phosphorus hops onto the list of rapidly diminishing natural resources: a dangerous dwindling of something that probably never crossed your mind. Production will likely peak in our […]