Health insurance is a regulated financial product. Insurers operate under binding contracts, overseen by state insurance commissioners, that legally obligate them to pay claims meeting policy terms. Policyholders who believe a covered claim was wrongfully denied have legal recourse through state regulatory channels.
The New Zealand Merino Company, now rebranded as Zentera, has quietly removed the phrase “world’s leading ethical wool brand” from its website, a notable change that comes after a disturbing investigation by PETA Asia-Pacific into the company’s ZQ-certified wool supply chain, PETA reports to Green Prophet.
Somehow vegetables with short seasons excite the imagination and appetite more sharply than produce that’s available all year around. Good Middle Eastern cooks have many recipes for delicate fava beans, and this turmeric-fragrant soup is one.
Health insurance is a regulated financial product. Insurers operate under binding contracts, overseen by state insurance commissioners, that legally obligate them to pay claims meeting policy terms. Policyholders who believe a covered claim was wrongfully denied have legal recourse through state regulatory channels.
The New Zealand Merino Company, now rebranded as Zentera, has quietly removed the phrase “world’s leading ethical wool brand” from its website, a notable change that comes after a disturbing investigation by PETA Asia-Pacific into the company’s ZQ-certified wool supply chain, PETA reports to Green Prophet.
Somehow vegetables with short seasons excite the imagination and appetite more sharply than produce that’s available all year around. Good Middle Eastern cooks have many recipes for delicate fava beans, and this turmeric-fragrant soup is one.
Health insurance is a regulated financial product. Insurers operate under binding contracts, overseen by state insurance commissioners, that legally obligate them to pay claims meeting policy terms. Policyholders who believe a covered claim was wrongfully denied have legal recourse through state regulatory channels.
The New Zealand Merino Company, now rebranded as Zentera, has quietly removed the phrase “world’s leading ethical wool brand” from its website, a notable change that comes after a disturbing investigation by PETA Asia-Pacific into the company’s ZQ-certified wool supply chain, PETA reports to Green Prophet.
Somehow vegetables with short seasons excite the imagination and appetite more sharply than produce that’s available all year around. Good Middle Eastern cooks have many recipes for delicate fava beans, and this turmeric-fragrant soup is one.
Health insurance is a regulated financial product. Insurers operate under binding contracts, overseen by state insurance commissioners, that legally obligate them to pay claims meeting policy terms. Policyholders who believe a covered claim was wrongfully denied have legal recourse through state regulatory channels.
The New Zealand Merino Company, now rebranded as Zentera, has quietly removed the phrase “world’s leading ethical wool brand” from its website, a notable change that comes after a disturbing investigation by PETA Asia-Pacific into the company’s ZQ-certified wool supply chain, PETA reports to Green Prophet.
Somehow vegetables with short seasons excite the imagination and appetite more sharply than produce that’s available all year around. Good Middle Eastern cooks have many recipes for delicate fava beans, and this turmeric-fragrant soup is one.
Health insurance is a regulated financial product. Insurers operate under binding contracts, overseen by state insurance commissioners, that legally obligate them to pay claims meeting policy terms. Policyholders who believe a covered claim was wrongfully denied have legal recourse through state regulatory channels.
The New Zealand Merino Company, now rebranded as Zentera, has quietly removed the phrase “world’s leading ethical wool brand” from its website, a notable change that comes after a disturbing investigation by PETA Asia-Pacific into the company’s ZQ-certified wool supply chain, PETA reports to Green Prophet.
Somehow vegetables with short seasons excite the imagination and appetite more sharply than produce that’s available all year around. Good Middle Eastern cooks have many recipes for delicate fava beans, and this turmeric-fragrant soup is one.
Health insurance is a regulated financial product. Insurers operate under binding contracts, overseen by state insurance commissioners, that legally obligate them to pay claims meeting policy terms. Policyholders who believe a covered claim was wrongfully denied have legal recourse through state regulatory channels.
The New Zealand Merino Company, now rebranded as Zentera, has quietly removed the phrase “world’s leading ethical wool brand” from its website, a notable change that comes after a disturbing investigation by PETA Asia-Pacific into the company’s ZQ-certified wool supply chain, PETA reports to Green Prophet.
Somehow vegetables with short seasons excite the imagination and appetite more sharply than produce that’s available all year around. Good Middle Eastern cooks have many recipes for delicate fava beans, and this turmeric-fragrant soup is one.
Health insurance is a regulated financial product. Insurers operate under binding contracts, overseen by state insurance commissioners, that legally obligate them to pay claims meeting policy terms. Policyholders who believe a covered claim was wrongfully denied have legal recourse through state regulatory channels.
The New Zealand Merino Company, now rebranded as Zentera, has quietly removed the phrase “world’s leading ethical wool brand” from its website, a notable change that comes after a disturbing investigation by PETA Asia-Pacific into the company’s ZQ-certified wool supply chain, PETA reports to Green Prophet.
Somehow vegetables with short seasons excite the imagination and appetite more sharply than produce that’s available all year around. Good Middle Eastern cooks have many recipes for delicate fava beans, and this turmeric-fragrant soup is one.
Health insurance is a regulated financial product. Insurers operate under binding contracts, overseen by state insurance commissioners, that legally obligate them to pay claims meeting policy terms. Policyholders who believe a covered claim was wrongfully denied have legal recourse through state regulatory channels.
The New Zealand Merino Company, now rebranded as Zentera, has quietly removed the phrase “world’s leading ethical wool brand” from its website, a notable change that comes after a disturbing investigation by PETA Asia-Pacific into the company’s ZQ-certified wool supply chain, PETA reports to Green Prophet.
Somehow vegetables with short seasons excite the imagination and appetite more sharply than produce that’s available all year around. Good Middle Eastern cooks have many recipes for delicate fava beans, and this turmeric-fragrant soup is one.
Egyptian Natural Gas Holding Company announced on Sunday that they have cancelled their agreement to sell natural gas to Israel following at least one dozen attacks on the pipeline linking the two countries. Israeli Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz said the move was of “great concern,” but Egypt insists that the decision was motivated purely by commercial reasons, not political.
Israel has received 40% of its natural gas supply from Egypt as part of a 1979 peace accord between the two countries that has been hugely unpopular among Egyptian citizens, who believe that Mubarak sold the gas too cheaply. Meanwhile, Egypt, population 81 million, has been suffering from crippling energy shortages over the last few months.
This week I spoke to Kevin Smith, the CEO of SolarReserve, the U.S. company constructing the largest 24 hour solar project worldwide in Nevada, who told me that they are beginning to be active in the Middle East North Africa region as well.
“We do have projects in development,” he said, “in Morocco, and Algeria and Saudi Arabia, Oman, which we’re looking at. There’s real opportunity there. So we’re looking at projects in those markets there, not as part of the Desertec program, but part of the buildup of the potential of solar in the Middle East and North Africa region.”
A growing but still small cadre of environmentalists are taking on the final frontier: nature and intimacy.
Julie McIntyre, an ‘Earth ceremonialist’ and director for the Center for Earth Relations is an ecological visionary. Trained in plant medicine, Ayurveda, Reiki, medical herbalism, wilderness survival and holistic health, she’s the lastest to write a book about human relationships and the environmental movement: Sex and the Intelligence of the Heart: Nature, Intimacy and Sexual Energy (Destiny Books, 2012).
In this exclusive Earth Day interview, Julie shares her vision for falling in love with the planet, explains why she thinks the environmental movement has shied away from Ecosex, and how the Ecosex movement can mentor in greater environmental awareness in the Middle East.
The hugely popular DC-based Muslim hip hop group Native Deen have over 110,000 Facebook followers alone. And one of them, Aisha Ali, says she can’t go to sleep without listening to their songs. So when they release a new music video for a song called “Our Earth,” the diaspora is bound to listen.
Taken from the album “The Remedy,” this gentle environmental tribute diverges widely from many hip hop songs by referencing the importance of recycling and making smarter consumer choices. “What have we done to our earth,” the band asks in the song’s chorus, “When will we open our eyes and change the way we live our lives?”
Following a trip to the stunning gardens of Andalucia, Arwa delves in the world of Islamic gardens
About two weeks ago, I was lucky enough to take a tour around the south of Spain and see the spectacular gardens of Granada, Seville, Malaga and Cordoba. I was completely spellbound.
Built during the Islamic-era, these gardens beautifully combine water features, secluded walkways, geometry and stunning mosaic work. They are little oases of calm situated right in the heart of the city. Walking through the weaving pathways, all your worries just fade away and you’re transported to a world of tranquillity.
Indeed, in Islam paradise is often portrayed as a garden with running water, shade from the sun, sweet scents and exuberant foliage. These gardens also remind you of the calming and rejuvenating power of nature – something we could all do with a little bit more of in our hectic lives.
Just a few plastic containers that can be reused or recycled
Another Earth Day is upon us, and for those of us living the Middle East the very origins of this ecological event have much to do a lot with fossil fuel based energy so prevalent in this region. Aside from the frequently discussed issues surrounding the affects of oil and other fossil fuels on the world’ environment, much has been written and talked about the effects of plastic products on the world’s seas and oceans like “islands” of floating plastic material.
Guests descend like locusts since I moved to Jordan. This time we decided to try something new.
Mass transit is not an option outside Amman city limits. Navigating a rental car through craggy mountains and city roads would test Evel Knievel. My visitors speak no Arabic, further limiting free travel. And most are past their hitchhiking and hostel “sell-by” date. So we devise a speed-date for traveling friends, with us at the wheel, through the Dead Sea, Wadi Rum, and Petra: a Jordanian trifecta. We know the hotel deals, the routes with the vistas, and cool places to grab a coffee or a local meal. Satisfaction delivered every time. Too many times.
Easter break loomed and Hotel Balbo was empty; what to do that’s new? I itch for something different. Wild Jordan tops the list of travel alternatives. We head over to see what appeals.
Sustainable development in Demmer, Tunisia could be lost forever shows this new documentary film.
You cannot be against development, progress, innovation and even education. We count on these things to solve our biggest problems, whether it’s the ecological crisis, malnourishment or peak oil. If you don’t believe in them, you’re a defeatist. But do they earn the blind faith we have in them? The documentary film Green Mirages, directed by Egyptian Nadia Kamal and Tunisian Habib Ayeb, about the Tunisian village of Demmer, suggests we shouldn’t, and points out some important questions to ask.
Often dubbed the “start-up nation,” Israel has repeatedly proven to be fertile soil for cleantech innovators that succeed and are then bought up by international companies.
Israel-based Agro-tech company Rosetta Green has been chosen by international seed manufacturer Bayer CropScience AG for collaboration on a project that will help improve cotton crop for farmers. Rosetta Green, which also manufactures biofuels using algae, has developed microRNA genes that can replace the need for environmentally harmful pesticides, by making certain crops, like cotton resistant to bugs that would kill them.
Dune bashing destroys nature. Here’s why Ajmal prefers dune walking over dune bashing in the region of Dubai, United Arab Emirates.
I almost threw up the very first time I went dune bashing. It was in the Margham Desert area of Dubai sometime in 2002 and the driver of the 4×4, Yasser, me and a friend were in was apparently the most experienced of the lot in the Desert Safari tour operator we had signed up with. After about half an hour of a literal roller-coaster ride across the dune sands, Yasser took a quick peek at his occupants-four of whom (me included) looked like zombies out of Michael Jackson’s Thriller music video. We were paired up with first-time European tourists, all of whom hadn’t ever tried this before. Do you want me to continue or head to the camp? he asked.
A minute later, we were at the desert camp! It’s hard to describe the feeling of being thrown about inside a 4×4 for a person with known motion sickness. It was a disaster right from the word go but I endured it just for the experience. I had to try it. This was my introduction to the bumpy world of dune bashing.
I have never driven in the desert so I can’t vouch for anything but the fact that to me it was an unpleasant experience being driven up and down dunes at speed. On multiple subsequent occasions, I have happily declined being driven over dunes in this manner, choosing once to walk 4 km to the highway than dune bash across some nasty-looking dunes. In other words, I am not an ardent supporter of dune-bashing from a personal standpoint, and for environmental reasons.
It was just about daybreak on a fine early morning in October 2011 when I came across an Arabian horned viper lying at the bottom of a low sand dune in the middle of the Sharjah Desert. I was on my usual weekend desert trek and even though on foot, I was just about able to distinguish the shape of the viper as it lay buried in its ambush posture in the desert sand right at the bottom of the dune with only its head sticking out of the sand.
Only later would I realize how easy it would have been for me to have missed its presence. Now imagine being up on a vantage point 6 feet in the air and looking mostly immediately ahead of you rather than below. In other words, sitting on the driver’s seat of a 4×4 vehicle, even the most trained eye would not be able to spot a small depression in the sand where a viper or any other desert creature would have lain.
Add to this a concoction of a bunch of six or more humans hoping for their famed and exalted ‘roller-coaster ride’ in the desert. Well, the right ingredients for all mayhem to break loose on the desert sand. Viper, no viper! – the driver would drive like a maniac totally disregarding the delicate animals and plants of the desert.
His primary goal is to ensure his business runs well by satisfying his customers and getting that extra ‘oomph’ out their excited grunts. The customer’s primary goal is to endure a joyride that they can FaceBook or tweet about later: Guys, we went dunebashing in the middle of the desert yesterday and it was so much fun riding up and down the dunes.
Alas, the reality of the situation is that, tires deflated or not, 4x4s are killer machines on the desert sand and there are plenty of negative repercussions that dune bashing brings about that is clearly visible all across the deserts of the United Arab Emerites. I hope to touch upon some of them in this post.
Impact on wildlife at the dunes
The deserts are not entirely barren: be it the vast, endless dunes of Liwa or the wind-shaped expansive dunes of Abu Dhabi and the Northern Emirates. These deserts are host to a variety of wildlife, from mammals to reptiles to insects. These creatures are all superbly built to utilize the desert sand and survive the harsh environment they live in. Dune bashing literally destroys their natural habitat (breeding grounds, holes, activity areas, etc) forcibly displacing them to move deeper into the desert, thereby putting immense pressure on them to survive.
Adding to this, most of these creatures are extremely shy of humans (such as the Arabian red fox and the sand fox) who will take flight just upon seeing humans. Imagine their plight, when a barrage of weird-looking creatures (vehicles) is headed their way.
To them, a 4×4 is a monster and just hearing the sound of the engines revving up and clouds of sand bursting beneath the tires can scare the living wits out of them. Most insects utilize the desert sand to lay their eggs and in fact many reptiles including skinks and snakes dig under the sand for camouflage, to mate, or attract prey.
Driving irresponsibly (as most dune bashers do) over such areas would only crush any creatures unlucky enough to be under the desert sand. These are just a few of the many negative impacts that dune bashing has on animals.
Plants of the dunes
Desert plants are extremely well suited to survive in the harsh desert climate too. They mostly depend on early morning dew to meet their water requirements and many plants remain dormant for years until a good amount of rain falls on the desert sand whereafter they fruit and flourish in a cyclical manner.
It goes without saying that most of the desert animals are dependent on the flora for their own survival. Dune bashing cases a significant negative environmental impact on plant life especially in inter-dunal plains where most desert plants can be found to flourish. Plants, though, can survive this rampage much more than animals and usually come out of this barrage with just some painful scars but the fact is significant damage does take place.
I am not against driving on the desert sand in a responsible manner. I know personally many individuals who head out on routine desert trips and are respectful of the natural surroundings. I am only critical about how people go about ‘dune bashing’ as in using their powerful 4x4s to run up and down sand dunes in a destructive manner with total disregard to the environment. There is a significant amount of noise and smoke pollution involved with dune bashing too that I must emphasize.
I hope that one day some sort of regulation is brought about by regional authorities and enforced so that irresponsible drivers are taken to task.
The world’s largest solar thermal plant – nearly double the size of the original largest in Denmark – is now online in Saudi Arabia, reinforcing the notion that this Gulf country has the potential to maintain its current oil wealth by exporting solar power for the next twenty centuries.
Originally awarded to Jordan’s Millennium Energy Industries in 2010, the $14 million project in Riyadh is the size of 5 football pitches and produces enough energy to heat water for 40,000 students at the Princess Noura bint AbdulRahman University campus in Riyadh.
The largest women-only university in the world (we’re breaking all kinds of records here), the campus has 15 academic faculty buildings, a variety of labs and a 700-bed hospital. All of the water in these facilities will be heated by the gargantuan roof-mounted solar panels. It is the first university in the Kingdom to rely on a district solar water heater.
Millennium Energy, which was responsible for the design and build of the solar thermal plant, subcontracted Greenonetec, an Austrian manufacturer, to supply the GK 3000 series solar collectors, and received solar thermal application expertise from the Austrian company AEE Intec.
These panels have a 95% absorption rate and weigh 170kg. They are 10 by 5 meters large and are especially designed to withstand the desert’s fierce sandstorms.
Other energy saving technology incorporated into the university’s design will result in annual carbon savings of 125 million kilograms, making this by far the most sustainable campus in all of Saudi.
The rooftop system covers a total area of 36,305m² compared to the former largest solar thermal power plant in Denmark, which covers an area of 19,875 m².
After a six month trial period, each one of the six solar fields has been uncovered and six tanks of 150m3 have been built to store excess solar heat at 110°C.
Concentrated solar power company BrightSource doesn’t wear its Israeli identity on its sleeve.
“We’re a U.S. company with Israeli engineering, not an Israeli company. It’s a nuance but important to get right,” Keely Wachs, senior director of corporate communications for BrightSource, wrote in an email message.
And with an American President and CEO named John Woolard running the company from Oakland, California it may be hard to guess that most BrightSource executives live in Israel. But when BrightSource pulled its IPO last week, just before its scheduled date on April 11, the company’s American identity became even more important for its existence.
Iranian architect Pouya Khazaeli Parsa founded Raistudio in 2007 in order to revive what he believes is the lost spirit of architecture, a spirit his latest project seems to exemplify best of all.
Reminiscent of the work of fellow Iranian Nader Khalili, who perfected economical earth bag construction, this minimalist dome shelter is made of bamboo, crowned with rice plants and features comfortable bamboo mats that are ideal for guests who stop in for a cup of tea. Not only is this project attractive and sustainable, but its gentle resistance to wind and earthquakes makes it an excellent shelter during emergencies as well.
Recipes US offers a portal into hundreds of thousands of blogger recipes, many connected to the Middle East.
There is no doubt that home cooking is a good thing for our planet. Forget about the packaging waste you save by cooking up a storm at home, but there is all that petrol going out to buy take-away. There are countless reasons why home cooking is better for your whole family, but the main one is control – control over what kind of food recipes you are selecting, as well as every spoon of oil and sugar you are putting into your food. Cooking at home also helps you observe dietary laws, and lets you control how much organic produce and ingredients you can stuff into your entrees.
Green Prophet has a great weekly recipe offered up by Miriam, and these are recipes suited to and inspired by Middle East culture. But when you want to go for some more global fare, where do you turn? A search online will help if you have something specific in mind, and if you are an avid reader of blogs there are various circles and networks you can tap into to tempt your tastebuds. A newer one that I find helpful not only for home chefs, but for food bloggers too is a Recipes US. Using this site food recipes from Recipes US is a search engine for foodie blogs and jumping through it you can discover recipes that match our global village and the couter-culture you won’t see if you just type in recipe requests through Google, usually optimized for the sterile and corporate food recipe sites.
It is worth remembering that a few decades ago, there were no environmentalists in the United States. There were no rules that prohibited polluters from spewing toxic fumes into the atmosphere. Nobody was watching the agriculture industry to ensure that their pesticides weren’t contaminating water ways. Americans were asleep.
Then Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring hit the NY Times bestseller list in 1962 and woke them up. Suddenly the relationship between environmental degradation and public health became clear and angered people. But even then it wasn’t until a US senator channeled energy from anti-war protests into the first Earth Day in 1970 that the US green movement was born. Enter the Arab Spring.
Egyptian Natural Gas Holding Company announced on Sunday that they have cancelled their agreement to sell natural gas to Israel following at least one dozen attacks on the pipeline linking the two countries. Israeli Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz said the move was of “great concern,” but Egypt insists that the decision was motivated purely by commercial reasons, not political.
A growing but still small cadre of environmentalists are taking on the final frontier: nature and intimacy.
Following a trip to the stunning gardens of Andalucia, Arwa delves in the world of Islamic gardens
Just a few plastic containers that can be reused or recycled
