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An Independent Tunisia at Night (PHOTOS)

Travel

Tafline Laylin

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March 21, 2012

An Independent Tunisia at Night (PHOTOS)

A handful of Tunisian men walk down Avenue Habib Bourguiba after a full day of protesting on Independence Day

We landed in the capital as thousands of Tunisians wearing and carrying their red and white flags swarmed on Avenue Habib Bourguiba to celebrate their independence from France on March 20, 1956. At one point a man shouted at policemen sitting in a bus as others carried him off. After I took a photo of this unfolding, two men in uniform followed me down the street and insisted that I delete the image.

Although I wanted to be the cool and fierce journalist who refused, there was no one around to back me up and I don’t speak French. So, delete. Besides, I’m not on a political mission, even though sometimes it is hard to separate environmental and political issues. Take a peak of a few images we snapped of downtown Tunis last night and stay tuned for more news.

Environmentalists Mourn the Passing of Egypt’s Patriarch of Environment

Lifestyle

Tafline Laylin

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March 21, 2012

Environmentalists Mourn the Passing of Egypt’s Patriarch of Environment

Dr. Mohamed Kassas was a leading pioneer of Egypt’s environmental movement and a beloved mentor.

Dr. Mohamed Kassas was active until the end, says Mindy Baha El Din, Manager of Nature Conservation Egypt. Just yesterday Christians packed the St. Mark’s Cathedral in Cairo to bid farewell to their patriarch Pope Shenouda III, and today environmentalists throughout the country are mourning the loss of their own hero – the father of desertification and a “truly unique man.”

After spending more than a week in Manal hospital in Cairo after suffering from health complications, the 91 year old Professor Emeritus of Botany at the University of Cairo and former President of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) died today.

Egyptians Panic as Foot and Mouth Disease Sweeps Through the Country

Health

Tafline Laylin

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March 21, 2012

Egyptians Panic as Foot and Mouth Disease Sweeps Through the Country

Many Egyptians have stopped buying meat after thousands of livestock have died from foot and mouth disease in the last three weeks.

Even though it is extremely rare for humans to contract foot and mouth disease, many panicky Egyptians have stopped purchasing meat since the virus began to spread through the country, leaving thousands of dead cattle in its wake. After last year’s revolution and subsequent mismanagement of natural resources and political matters, Egyptians are unable to trust government exhortations that they are monitoring the epidemic that has affected cattle and livestock in Alexandria, Cairo, and various other governorates.

The General Authority for Veterinary Services reported that 40,222 cattle have been infected and 4,658 cattle have died since the disease broke out three weeks ago.

Handmade Fabric Designs “To Go” From Deda Designs

Design

Karen Chernick

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March 20, 2012

Handmade Fabric Designs “To Go” From Deda Designs

Handmade and packaged in recycled boxes generally used for fast food or take-away, Deda Design’s kitchen products look delicious.

Fast food usually gets a bad rep: it’s fatty, bad for you, and wastes a lot of packaging and resources. But what if fast food style packaging was put to more sustainable use?

Packaging has been used in eco-friendly ways by designers before, either by upcycling plastic packaging or making a product’s outer packaging multi-functional.

Now Deda Designs, a boutique design label based in Israel, is finding ways to use recycled fast food packaging to house its limited edition, handmade fabric products. Thereby making it easier for the fish-themed kitchen towel (pictured above) to masquerade as a tuna fish sandwich.

Oil Shale Marchers Walk 40 k from the Valley to Jerusalem

Energy

Karin Kloosterman

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March 20, 2012

Oil Shale Marchers Walk 40 k from the Valley to Jerusalem

“We are not rabbits,” was among the slogans against the “oil shale experiment” march today in Israel. A story of Davids versus the Goliaths?

Valley of Elah residents, Greenpeace members and local NGOS in Israel organized a march today against the development of oil shale in Israel. Oil shale and its extraction remains a very controversial subject.

Israel has so much oil shale, located in regions like the Elah Valley where the story of David and Goliath took place, enough some say to make it energy independent. Israel’s oil, locked up in shale much like the Alberta tar sands, could shift the energy curve. Developers of oil shale in Israel (Rupert Murdoch is an investor along with Lord Jacob Rothschild) say that their methods to extract the shale – oil mixed in with sediments and rocks deep below the ground – will not harm the environment. Elah Valley residents do not believe such “experimental” techniques are in the interest of the community or long-term environmental survival of the region.

Tafline has written a lot about oil shale in Israel, and after an open letter to environmentalist David de Rothschild, convinced him to bring the topic up with his cousin, Lord Jacob Rothschild, an investor of oil shale exploration in Israel. Stakeholders are convinced that their new methods to drill into, then heat the oil shale up underground to siphon off the oil will not harm the outwards environment or the water table. The public, clearly, is not buying.

How To Hitchhike from Europe to the Middle East

Travel

Does Vandousselaere

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March 20, 2012

Full of adventures, and matching the rhythm of the place, Does recounts his long hitchhiking journey from Belgium all the way to Egypt.

First, stay with your feet to the ground: Moving from Europe to the Middle East isn’t something you do overnight. Especially if you’re not willing to take an aeroplane, whether because entering an airport or aeroplane makes you feel like being in kindergarten again (you can’t take your own beer), or because you care about climate change.

Last summer I wanted to go from Brussels to Cairo, Egypt. Somehow I was convinced that plenty of boats are criss-crossing the Mediterranean, and booking a boat could get me where I wanted. But the internet proved me wrong. Apparently that damn cheap air travel made all lines disappear. Luckily there’s an alternative, that is overland travel.

Cairo’s Zabaleen Scavenge for Renewables to make Solar Cities

Does Vandousselaere

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March 20, 2012

Cairo’s Zabaleen Scavenge for Renewables to make Solar Cities

No better place to do a reality check on our environmental vision than Cairo’s Manshiet Nasr neighborhood. Its local inhabitants, the Zabaleen (Arabic for garbage pickers and recyclers) started closing our material cycles thirty years ago, something we even now barely find necessary. They know that what is without value for most, isn’t useless per sé. In their neighbourhood you can see things you see nowhere else in Cairo, recycling, urban gardening, composting and renewable energy.

For them it is not about lifestyle, greenwashing or being eco-bourgeois , but about exploring the possibilities every day innovation has. They are social entrepreneurs and are constantly testing the profitability of what’s possible.

In the West Bank, Springs of Contention

Arieh O'Sullivan - The Media Line

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March 20, 2012

As West Bank settlers develop water sources, Palestinians say they are excluded. Which narrative is right?

Ein Ariq, WEST BANK — A convoy of white United Nations jeeps pulls into the olive-tree laden valley below the Jewish community of Eli. They are greeted by Jamal Deragmeh, the mayor of the nearby Palestinian town of Lubban Al-Sharkiya, who points out the cement pool around the spring and complains.

“If you weren’t here,” he says to the representative of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), “The [Jewish] settlers would come and put a bullet in my head.”

Scores of springs like Ein Ariq pepper the valleys and slopes of the Samarian and Judean hills of the West Bank. Palestinians use them to water their flocks and irrigate fields. But some have been neglected and forgotten, and in recent years residents of Jewish settlements in their vicinity have come to clear out stones and mud, build small pools, put in a few picnic tables and turn them into parks.

And this has raised the ire of the local Palestinians, who say the Israelis have taken over the springs and keep them away.

Lone Spanish Researcher Aims to Humanize Dubai With Solar Art

Cities

Tafline Laylin

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March 20, 2012

Lone Spanish Researcher Aims to Humanize Dubai With Solar Art

Nacho Zamora is touring Dubai, speaking with various leaders about incorporating solar-powered public art projects – like The Verdant Walk by North Design Office.

Any pedestrian who has braved the backstreets of Dubai knows two things: there are a lot of open spaces vying for attention and the sun is relentless. An independent researcher from Spain and a specialist in indexing and researching solar artwork, Nacho Zamora has recently traveled to Dubai in order to convince the municipality and Green Building Council to fill up these spaces with public art projects that also produce energy. Following the recent announcement that Dubai will consider purchasing energy from rooftop solar panels, which reveals a potential shift in the city’s eco-ethos, Zamora’s timing might just be spot on.

Israeli Defense Forces Polluting Groundwater with Impunity

Business

Joshua Basofin

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March 19, 2012

Eighteen months ago, Itzhak Ben-David, the Israeli Environment Ministry’s deputy director for enforcement, visited several Israeli army bases in the West Bank. What he saw was shocking. Fuel and oil were leaking unabated into the ground on several sites. In response, Ben-David asked the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) to conduct water quality sampling and monitoring. Part of the Environment Ministry’s purview is ensuring soil and groundwater are protected from contaminants.

Months after Ben-David’s request, the IDF has done little to assuage the Environment Ministry’s concerns. Although water samples were collected, military officials have not made the results available. Recognizing the IDF’s apparent bureaucratic foot-dragging and indifference, Ben-David recently wrote to the Military Advocate General, Brig. Gen. Danny Efroni. He did not mince words: “A civilian polluter would have already been investigated by the ministry’s enforcement officials and long since been indicted, probably found guilty and made to pay a heavy fine.”

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