Laurie escaped from the Trade Towers 11 years ago and as a building expert looks critically at standards in the Middle East. Building codes ensure that a properly constructed building will safely stand up to predictable wear and tear. Codes specify fire-resistant performance for materials and prescribe safe exiting requirements for occupants. But what guides […]
We used to think of Beirut as a brown, concrete city lacking color and green space, but the Dihzahyners are challenging such dreary labels by painting the city white, pink, purple, green, orange and every other color of the rainbow. A collective of artists and designers armed with buckets of paint (non-toxic, we hope?) and […]
Not like Istanbul’s historic Grand Bazaar, the famous Emirati souk hosted by the Artisans of the Emirates, or ARTE, is a baby – only seven years old. But it has quickly grown from its humble beginnings of about 30 “artisans” or craft exhibitors from the United Arab Emirates in the network to over 3,000. ARTE “markets” […]
It takes only 38 days to raise a chicken for slaughtering – not a very nice existence Eating meat products anywhere is under fire recently, including fears that humans are destroying the planet for beef. Even poultry products are under increased scrutiny, with all kinds of growth hormones, antibiotics, and even poisons like arsenic being […]
Kuwait is making its debut at the 13th Venice Biennale this year, and they’re doing so with some serious style. The pavilion features a cavernous industrial space interrupted with dangling speakers, orange cushions and abandoned master plans, and it was commissioned by the National Council for Culture, Arts and Letters (NCAA). Unlike many of the […]
In an interview with local treehugger Oded Yaffe, who takes care of sick and injured trees all over Israel, he told us at Green Prophet that he saw this sad news on TV and says that "whoever did this thing is really crazy, and can just as much kill someone on the road in a 'hit and run' incident."
Silver, gold, oil, stocks, bonds, real estate! I won’t pretend to know more than the investment experts, but many people lost a lot of money following their advice. Why have these experts overlooked a resource that is guaranteed to rise– even if only within the confines of a lost balloon? Yes I’m talking about helium! […]
Defying the Iraqi central government, the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) has begun selling gas directly to Turkey. Crude oil sales will also begin soon. Five tankers crossed the border from the KRG into Turkey in July, marking the first exchange of oil or gas between the two governments. The trade was just a harbinger of […]
The cedar tree, Lebanon’s national symbol , has been for centuries overused by various civilizations. Reforestation might not bring them back from the brink. The Cedar of Lebanon, Cedrus Libani, is an evergreen coniferous plant native to Lebanon, Syria and southern Turkey. Cedar forests once covered the entire Mount Lebanon chain but the cedar,an emblem […]
Alexandria’s newly-appointed governor, Mohamed Atta Abbas, ordered security forces to dismantle book kiosks in Egypt last week. A mainstay of local culture, al-Nabi Daniel street booksellers posted images of ransacked kiosks on their Facebook page. The Minister of Culture has vowed to investigate the incident, according to Egypt Independent, but activists and writers are duly alarmed. […]
Celebrate a sweet new year with this Jewish recipe for honey cookies, eaten during Rosh Hashannah holidays.
In the Middle East, grilled meat is king. This recipe calls for marinating lamb cubes overnight in pomegranate molasses, a sweet, thick reduction of pomegranate juice. We have a recipe for it here. Then it takes only 15 minutes to cook. Have ready rice, a variety of salads, hummous to spread on your challah, and […]
Two weeks ago Green Prophet decided it was high time to put Tel Aviv’s bicycle sharing program to the test, since we are such fervent advocates of cycling. We hired two bicycles from a station at the corner of Ehrlich and Yefet streets in Jaffa, a predominantly Arab neighborhood just south of Tel Aviv, but only […]
MIT student Otto Ng proposes to solar-power the Arabian peninsula with more than 10,000 square kilometers of Powerscape – a tensile solar-collecting canopy comprised of inflatable mirrors. The problem with solar power, says Ng in a TED presentation, is the great amount of space required to produce the same amount of energy as a conventional […]
We speak to Shahrzad Mohtadi about the devastated drought that crippled Syria’s food centre and shook Assad’s political stability The link between climate change and political instability may still be ambiguous, but recent research is uncovering a connection between sustainable water and food policies and the survival of governments. Shahrzad Mohtadi found that whilst a prelonged […]