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Leafy Narcotic Khat Trade May be Funding Terror

Tafline Laylin
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6
Leafy Narcotic Khat Trade May be Funding Terror

Khat, Al Shabaab, Horn of Africa, narcotics, water issues, environmental issues, SomaliaAnalysts believe that this benign-looking plant popular in the Middle East may be funding the Al Shabaab terrorist organization in southern Somalia.

A very popular narcotic in the Middle East, khat maybe be funding the terrorist organization Al Shabaab in Somalia, CNN reports. Chewing the red stems of Catha edulis produces mild euphoria and an alertness akin to that produced by caffeine, and it is openly and widely use in the Horn of Africa. In Yemen, growing Khat uses more water than the country can afford and takes priority over more sustaining crops.

Now Dutch officials are banning khat in the Netherlands, where a large Somali community imports large quantities of the plant from farmers in Meru County, Kenya. Government spokespeople insist that this decision was taken to protect against grave economic, health, and social concerns, but analysts believe that funds generated by the trade are funneled to Al Shabaab and that the Dutch aim to curtail that.

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Masdar Students Contemplate Earth’s Future En Route to Antarctica

Tafline Laylin
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0
Masdar Students Contemplate Earth’s Future En Route to Antarctica

Masdar, Masdar Institute of Science and Technology, Abu Dhabi, Renewable Energy, Water Issues, Antarctica, Two Masdar students on the 2012 “Leadership on the Edge” expedition in Antarctica share their reflections so far.

For Masdar Institute of Science and Technology students Reem Al Junaibi and Maitha Al Kaabi, traveling half way across the globe to Antarctica has provided an opportunity to reflect on the future of our planet.With respective interests in renewable energy and water issues, the pair left their warm desert environs to spend 16 days touring the frozen frontier, where they hope to gain insight that will further their research in Abu Dhabi.

After a long plane ride and a stopover in Buenos Aires, they finally landed in Ushuaia – the world’s southernmost city in Argentina, and then Reem began to reflect on their combined experience through a series of short journal entries recently published in The National.

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Are Renewables Just Freeing Up Oil For Export?

Arwa Aburawa
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7
Are Renewables Just Freeing Up Oil For Export?

masdar city mashrabiyaDoes an expanding renewables market in the Middle East (such as that showcased in Masdar) just mean more oil can be exported and more profit made at the expense of the world climate?

Here are GreenProphet, we have been carefully following the Middle East’s slow but steady uptake of renewables technologies. Every solar project or wind farm in the region is a small step in the right direction- away from oil and fossil fuels and towards green energy. However, some commentators state that renewables should be used to support local energy needs so that more (profit-making) oil can be exported to other countries instead.

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World’s 13th Tallest Building Towers Over Kuwait City

Tafline Laylin
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1
World’s 13th Tallest Building Towers Over Kuwait City

mixed use development, Al Hamra Firdous, Kuwait City, sustainable development, 13th tallest tower, unsustainable development, SOM, architecture, urban designThe Al Hamra Firdous Tower in Kuwait City is the world’s 13th largest

Kuwait is now competing with Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates to build the biggest, baddest skyscrapers. The recently completed Al Hamra Firdous Tower also called the “Enshrouded Figure” is 412 meters tall and is ranked by the Council on Tall Buildings as the world’s 13th tallest. Only one other building in Kuwait has found a spot among the world’s 100 tallest buildings: at 300 meters tall, the Arraya Tower garnered 56th place. Step in to learn more about Skidmore, Owings, and Merrill’s (SOM) latest project in the Middle East.

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Abu Dhabi’s Masdar Institute Files U.S. Patent for Advanced Battery tech

Susan Kraemer
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0
Abu Dhabi’s Masdar Institute Files U.S. Patent for Advanced Battery tech

masdar-institute-battery-patent

Masdar Institute makes first foray into advanced lithium battery technology.

Continuing its pioneering of renewable energy technologies that have great relevance for the Middle East – such as its recent work on sand-resistant solar – the Masdar Institute of Science and Technology in the United Arab Emirates has just filed a provisional patent application with the U.S. Patents and Trademarks Office for a new solid polymer electrolyte technology for Li-ion batteries.

The idea was to increase the temperature range at which lithium batteries can work, an essential first step to the widespread adoption of electric cars in the hot Middle East where temperatures can go as high as 48 degrees C (118 degrees Fahrenheit).

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Communal Breast Milk Bank a Resource for Eco Friendly Baby Food

Karen Chernick
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2
Communal Breast Milk Bank a Resource for Eco Friendly Baby Food

"breastfeeding environmental benefits"When mothers want to give their little ones the best (and most environmentally friendly) nutrition there is – breast milk – but can’t, they can turn to the breast milk bank.

The health benefits of breastfeeding have been praised by health care professionals for years, and breastfeeding is obviously a healthier choice than formula.  What is lesser known, though, is that breastfeeding is also much healthier for the environment.  It comes down to being a local food issue.  Breast milk does not need to be imported, transported, or wrapped with packaging before it reaches its destination.

Not all mothers are able to breastfeed, however, and for health and/or environmental reasons they may want to supplement their baby’s formula with some mom-made milk.  A newly founded communal breast milk bank in Israel helps mothers obtain the precious material.

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Egyptian Researchers Aim to Clear Landmines Using Bacteria and Plants

Tafline Laylin
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5
Egyptian Researchers Aim to Clear Landmines Using Bacteria and Plants

biotech, cleantech, agriculture, science, technology, land mines, EgyptEgyptians researchers believe that sugar beets like those pictured above can help to clear the country’s stockpile of land mines.

20% of the world’s land mines are planted in Egypt, where they have killed or maimed a total of more than 7,000 people in the last 25 years. They are scattered in the western desert and Sinai and pose an enormous impediment to development as well as considerable risks to animal and human safety.

Researchers from the Academy of Scientific Research and Technology (ASRT), the government body responsible for funding research in Egypt, believe they have found a three-tiered solution to this problem that involves plants and bacteria, but critics doubt whether their laboratory tests will prove effective in the field.

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IUCN to Make Nature’s Solutions Central to the World Water Forum in France

Tafline Laylin
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0
IUCN to Make Nature’s Solutions Central to the World Water Forum in France

water issues, World Water Forum, Rio Summit, IUCN, water pollution, population increase, water shortagesA leader in conservation, IUCN aims to demonstrate that nature has the solutions to our upcoming water crisis.

Thousands of people will gather for the 6th World Water Forum in Marseille, France between the 12th and 17th of March, 2012 in order to address the escalating challenges presented by water shortages, pollution, and population growth. And the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) – a leading conservation group – has announced that they will be on the scene to promote nature as the most effective solution. 

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The Arab Feminist Who Laid the Groundwork for Today’s Green Activists

Faisal O'Keefe
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5
The Arab Feminist Who Laid the Groundwork for Today’s Green Activists

A “green” Arab renaissance cannot be accomplished without the rise of women in Arab countries. Recently in Jordan, the Google image was of Middle Eastern intellectual, feminist and writer, the late May Ziyade. 

Don’t you love peeling the evolutionary onion, seeing who came before to take us where we are today? A century ago, in a pre-digital world, ideas were exchanged as they’d been for millennia: via dialogue and debate, and for educated elite, through writing.  Literary circles were de rigueur in North America and Europe.  Artists and thinkers gathered in these original “chat rooms”, investigating modern ideas emerging from clashing ideological tectonic plates:  culture, politics and rapid industrialism.

“We should free the woman, so that her children won’t grow up to become slaves. And we should remove the veil of illusions from her eyes, so that by looking into them, her husband, brother and son will discover that there is a greater meaning to life.”  So wrote May Ziyade, a leading figure in literary circles during the al-nahda, or Arab Renaissance. A hundred years befor the Arab Spring, she demonstrated words can change the world.

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SlutWalk Israel in Tel Aviv, Haifa, Jerusalem – a First for the Middle East

Karin Kloosterman
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15

slut sign slutwalk manchester, Slutwalk israel, tel aviv, jerusalem, haifa
Karin draws a line between women’s rights and green issues in light of upcoming SlutWalks in Israel.

Last April Green Prophet asked: Should the Middle East Have More Sluts? Of course we wanted to attract our reader’s attention, and we did with thousands of readers, hundreds of “Likes” and dozens of comments. Although I am not a feminist, I do recognize a critical link between women’s rights and environmental values. Look at the women from Barefoot College in Jordan: Women are often the first ones to transmit these values to their societies and children, and women without basic rights are not empowered to do anything. I know that linking sluts and the Middle East is a tough pill to swallow in the ultra-conservative Middle East but we wrote this article to grab your attention. To make you think.

Readers and activists were listening. According to DIY Tel Aviv the Israeli cities of Tel Aviv, Haifa and Jerusalem will be organizing their own slut walks, starting next week.

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Low Carbon Economics Aligns With the Sharia Law of Islam

Faisal O'Keefe
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0
Low Carbon Economics Aligns With the Sharia Law of Islam

green sukuk sharia law islam The people promoting bond sales to fund climate change turn to Islamic investors.

Gulf nations may prove to be a prime market for Climate Bonds as they diversify beyond fossil fuels into long-term green energy projects. To spur investment, financial vehicles that support a low-carbon economy are being developed to align with Islamic Sharia law. It’s a simple concept: expand Middle East renewables for home use, and maximize oil surplus for foreign trade. It begins with raising funds.

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Time to Drink Water From Air Con Units

Maurice Picow
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15
Time to Drink Water From Air Con Units

water from airWater from air! AC water conversion and treatment unit illustration. Photo: Watergen Ltd

A while ago I wrote about the possibility of creating drinking or agricultural usage water from the cooling coil condensation from air conditioners.   This idea has been around for years, and has in the past been met with more than its share of skepticism, even though inexpensive methods exist to purify polluted water from bacteria other biological impurities that may be present in such water.

A recent program on the CNN Earth Matters environmental show dealt with special water cleansing units that were originally developed for US and other troops stationed in hot desert areas such as Iraq and Afghanistan that collects and purifies the run-off water from military vehicle AC units and turns this water into pure, tasty  drinking water in the field.  The water is sent through a series of filters to clean and remove harmful bacteria and other organic substances. And the technology is here. 

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Celebrate Purim with Friendly Purim Baskets

Miriam Kresh
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0
Celebrate Purim with Friendly Purim Baskets

image-purim-basketThe Jewish holiday of Purim begins this coming Wednesday night, the 7th of March. Fulfill the mitzvah of sending treats to your neighbors the green way.

Purim celebrates the victory of the Jews over Haman’s “final solution,” in 356 BCE. It’s a deceptively childlike holiday. Families gather in the synagogue to hear the colorful Purim story as written by its heroes, Queen Esther and her adoptive father, Mordechai.  There’s a happy feeling in the streets as children running around in costumes deliver baskets full of goodies all over the neighborhood. Here are some eco-friendly costume ideas for your little ones. Grownups at the festive lunch indulge freely in wine. Once Purim’s over, here are some ways to reuse your wine bottles.

Yet all this good cheer is the bright side of a grim episode in Jewish history. Babylonian King Ahasuerus’s vizier, Haman, persuaded the king to approve a decree purging all his lands of the Jews. If the king had not revoked the decree, the entire Jewish nation would have been annihilated then and there, for he ruled over all of the civilized world. Today’s masks and costumes commemorate Queen Esther’s concealment of her Jewishness till the night when she dramatically revealed her true self to the besotted King and exposed Haman’s plot to kill her people.

Ahasuerus ordered Haman executed. Mordechai, had served the king faithfully as court adviser and indeed had saved his life previously; he took Haman’s place in authority. From from despair to salvation and from concealment to joyful revelation – these are some of the themes that run through the Purim holiday.

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Recycled Wood Pallets Stack up for Fashion Designers in Beirut

Tafline Laylin
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0
Recycled Wood Pallets Stack up for Fashion Designers in Beirut

green design, recycled materials, wooden pallets, urban design, fashion, beirut, lebanon, minimalist, industrial-chicAvatar Architettura decks out a working space for fashion designers with chic recycled wooden pallets. 

Avatar Architettura has decked out a working space for fashion designers in Beirut with recycled wooden pallets otherwise destined for one of the city’s notorious landfills. Known for strategies that “privilege ecology, flexible systems, biodiversity, and recycled materials in an urban context,” the Italian designers used the pallets to transform a 220 square meter space into a striking but highly flexible office and workshop.

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Jordan Announces Oil Shale Plans Without Opposition

Tafline Laylin
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7
Jordan Announces Oil Shale Plans Without Opposition

 

climate change, global warming, oil shale, King Abdullah II, Jordan, Amman, greenhouse gases, energy intensive, pollutionWhile Israeli activists fight oil shale exploration, Jordan announces plans to explore oil shale next door. 

While activists continue to fight against oil shale testing in Israel because of its potentially harmful environmental and social impacts, on the other side of the Dead Sea, Jordan has just announced its intention to explore oil-shale without any opposition from within its borders.

The Hashemite Kingdom sits on the third largest reserve of oil shale deposits, but the technology necessary to extract this fossil fuel safely is still undergoing rigorous testing in the United States and remains deeply controversial among environmentalists. Perhaps spurred on by chronic energy shortages, Jordan intends to go where no one else has been.

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Muslim potter shapes the 99 names of God into clay

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In a studio in the DC Maryland Virginia area, ceramic artist Alison Kysia is working with clay in a way that feels both grounded and personal. She makes pottery and abstract Islamic sculptures, and one of her recent works focuses on the 99 Names of God in Islam.

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Abortion Pills, Plan B and Mifepristone and what the new US mail ban means

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Recommended Precious Metals Companies: A Due Diligence Checklist for Retirees

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The CFTC, FINRA, and NASAA have jointly warned retirees about precious metals fraud targeting retirement accounts. This checklist provides a structured framework for evaluating any company before transferring savings — and illustrates what credible providers look like across 7 measurable criteria.

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