Suit up! New Palestinian venture capital fund will help twelve Palestinian start ups find their feet.
An Israeli resident who has been backing that country’s superior high tech development for nearly two decades has now co-launched a Palestinian venture capital fund called Sadara. Yadin Kauffman and Saed Nashef officially inaugurated the new fund yesterday at an event attended by Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salem Fayyad.
Financed by heavyweight capitalists such as Google, Cisco Systems, AOL founder Steve Case, the George Soros Economic Development Fund, and the European Investment Bank, this launch heralds a significant milestone for Palestinian innovators. Although the fund is designed to develop software companies and startups, we’re hoping for a much-needed green thrust.
It has carried as much as 5 million cubic meters of fresh water per day across the Sahara desert from ancient underground aquifers (see the amazing picture of it below). The project is now be endangered from ongoing warfare that could be at the expense of several environmental projects that were put in place by Libya’s strong but eccentric dictator.
This is more than a building with a ragged mountain backdrop. This architecture creates the ultimate in sensory education for Jordan’s film students.
The Red Sea Institute of Cinematic Arts in Aqaba, Jordan taps into natural light, sounds, and shadows to create a sensorily vivid learning experience for film students. Albeit minimalist and respectful of its environmental setting, RSICA can’t really sport much of an “eco” badge given its $38 million price tag. But the building by s y m b i o s i s design ltd. does do something else we at Green Prophet love to see: draws those who experience the place into visceral contact with its stark desert surroundings.
A planned dam in southeastern Turkey would submerge Hasankeyf’s 10,000-year-old cultural relics and displace 50,000 people from the region. How many kilowatt hours is that worth?
Electric energy demand in Turkey is projected to more than double over the next decade, to approximately 450 billlion kilowatt-hours. Traditional sources of power, such as coal- and natural gas-fired plants, pollute the local and global environment and have forced Turkey to rely on neighbors like Iran and Russia. A new report by a consortium of hydroelectric producers, described in Turkey’s Today’s Zaman, points out that, so far, Turkey only uses one third of its potential hydropower. If fully utilized, it could supply more than 30 percent of the 450 billion kwH needed in 2020.
So why does hydropower still have a less than sterling reputation amongst environmentalists? For several good reasons, it turns out.
You thought meat glue was gross? Miriam ventures further into the dark world of food industry.
An article in the Huffington Post by Dr. Joseph Mercola caught my attention recently. It was about McNuggets, the chicken-based fried food that caused a drunken woman to riot when denied her nugget fix last year. Those amused by irrational behavior can watch the surveillance video. It seems that those little fried chunks are addictive. Yet the ingredients listed on their packaging makes me want to head right out to the local farmer’s market, right now.
So what’s really in McNuggets? Although the McDonalds chain has thankfully taken mechanically separated chicken (a paste created out of bones and the scraps clinging to them) out of its kitchens since April of 2010 , the nuggets purportedly contain dimethylpolysiloxane, an anti-foaming agent made of silicone and tertiary butylhydroquinone (TBHQ), a highly toxic chemical preservative.
Unstable and unsustainable societies threaten our health, and that of the environment. The latest: virginity tests in Egypt.
Despite their massive involvement in the protests and overthrow of their government, Egyptian women are being denied a voice in the formation of a new government, World Pulse and other watchdog organizations report. Amnesty International has called on the Egyptian authorities to investigate serious allegations of torture, including forced ‘virginity tests’, inflicted by the army on women protesters (we’ve written about in Egypt) arrested in Tahrir Square earlier this month.
After army officers violently cleared the square of protesters on 9 March, at least 18 women were held in military detention. Amnesty International has been told by women protesters that they were beaten, given electric shocks, subjected to strip searches while being photographed by male soldiers, then forced to submit to ‘virginity checks’ and threatened with prostitution charges.
A 2020 documentary on virginity tests in Egypt
‘Virginity tests’ are a form of torture when they are forced or coerced. An Amnesty International spokesperson said:”Forcing women to have ‘virginity tests’ is utterly unacceptable. Its purpose is to degrade women because they are women. All members of the medical profession must refuse to take part in such so-called ‘tests’.”
Twenty-year-old Salwa Hosseini told Amnesty International that she was arrested and taken to a military prison in Heikstep where she was made, with the other women, to take off all her clothes and searched by a female prison guard, in a room with two open doors and a window. During the strip search, Salwa Hosseini said male soldiers were looking into the room and taking pictures of the naked women.
The women were then subjected to ‘virginity tests’ in a different room by a man in a white coat. They were threatened that “those not found to be virgins” would be charged with prostitution.
According to information received by Amnesty International, one woman who said she was a virgin but whose test supposedly proved otherwise was beaten and given electric shocks.
An Amnesty International spokesperson said: “Women and girls must be able to express their views on the future of Egypt and protest against the government without being detained, tortured, or subjected to profoundly degrading and discriminatory treatment.
“The army officers tried to further humiliate the women by allowing men to watch and photograph what was happening, with the implicit threat that the women could be at further risk of harm if the photographs were made public.”
Journalist Rasha Azeb was also detained in Tahrir Square and told Amnesty International that she was handcuffed, beaten and insulted.
Following their arrest, the 18 women were initially taken to a Cairo Museum annex where they were reportedly handcuffed, beaten with sticks and hoses, given electric shocks in the chest and legs, and called “prostitutes”.
Rasha Azeb could see and hear the other detained women being tortured by being given electric shocks throughout their detention at the museum. She was released several hours later with four other men who were also journalists, but 17 other women were transferred to the military prison in Heikstep.
Testimonies of other women detained at the same time collected by the El Nadeem Center for Rehabilitation of Victims of Violence are consistent with Rasha Azeb and Salwa Hosseini’s accounts of beatings, electrocution and ‘virginity tests’.
An Amnesty International spokesperson said:
“The Egyptian authorities must halt the shocking and degrading treatment of women protesters. Women fully participated in bringing change in Egypt and should not be punished for their activism.
“All security and army forces must be clearly instructed that torture and other ill-treatment, including forced ‘virginity tests’, will no longer be tolerated, and will be fully investigated. Those found responsible for such acts must be brought to justice and the courageous women who denounced such abuses be protected from reprisals.”
All 17 women detained in the military prison were brought before a military court on 11 March and released on 13 March. Several received one-year suspended prison sentences.
Salwa Hosseini was convicted of disorderly conduct, destroying private and public property, obstructing traffic and carrying weapons.
Amnesty International opposes the trial of civilians before military courts in Egypt, which have a track record of unfair trials and where the right to appeal is severely restricted.
Related reports on what creates an unsustainable Middle East :
As well as high rates of waste production, the UAE also happens to have one of the highest water consumption rates in the world with around 550 litres of water allocated per person each year. With this in mind, we were happy to hear of an important new scheme which plans to install water and electricity saving devices in 300 Dubai mosque. Not only will it help reduce consumption by 20% it will also help save around US$1.5 million (Dh6 million). Not bad, eh!
New parks will give relief to Tel Aviv’s crowded beaches, and save the environment!
Israel’s announcement that it will create a new network of land and sea parks in order to protect its coastal escarpment is a boon for beach-lovers too. A harbinger of what might happen should the Gaza artificial island project take root, Israel’s coastal erosion is an ecological and safety hazard. To make up for years of neglect, the government will pump $144 million into a restoring a total of just over eight miles of beachfront along the Mediterranean Sea. Under the plan, bathing areas will also be expanded.
MezooMe puts the “zoom” back in organic textile design.
Like other designers who have turned their energies towards organic baby product design, Israeli designer Anat Biala’s inspiration for MezooMe Designs – a line of organic linens for babies – was her firstborn son, Jonathan. In 2008, shortly after Jonathan’s birth, Biala had a strong urge to surround her son with high-quality, non-harmful (and very cute) products, which led her to start MezooMe.
MezooMe uses organic textiles both because organic fabrics have been shown to help reduce exposure to allergens and irritants, and because they are more environmentally friendly. (Not to mention, super soft.)
Waterfalls on the Blue Nile. Ethiopia has plans to grab hold of a bigger share of the river despite Egypt’s long held monopoly.
Defiant of Egypt’s historic monopoly over its flow, Ethiopia is pushing ahead with a controversial plan to build a massive dam on the Nile river. Egypt and Sudan have maintained control of the Nile through a series of laws originally brokered by colonial powers in 1929.
But last May, six upstream countries signed a legally binding document that dispossessed Egypt of its right to veto decisions regarding the Nile’s distribution. Buoyed by President Hosni Mubarak’s recent ouster, and undaunted by criticism, Ethiopia insists that it will proceed with its plan even without international support.
At a recent news conference, Ethiopia’s Water and Energy Minister Alemayehu Tegenu explained that construction of the dam near the Ethiopian and Sudanese border is expected to start soon, Reuters reports.
This despite widespread opposition to the project, which Minister Tegenu suspects is a direct result of Egypt’s campaign to prevent the dam’s construction.
But Mr. Tegunu is adamant that Ethiopia will proceed with the $4.78 billion dollar project even without donor support. In order to finance the project, they will sell off government bonds.
At present, Ethiopia uses 1% of its annual 86% contribution of Nile water, while Egypt has access to 55 out of the river’s 84 billion cubic meter annual flow. Last year, Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Tanzania and Burundi signed an agreement to re-apportion the Nile, an agreement Egypt refuses to acknowledge.
The Nile Dam is expected to generate 5,250MW of hydroelectricity after its completion in approximately 44 months, contributing more than a third to the country’s $12 billion plan to generate 15,000 MW within the next 25 years.
Apart from a non-renewable aquifer, Egypt relies almost exclusively on the Nile to provide for its 85 million and counting residents and is eager to maintain its control. So eager, some mutter, that this dispute could lead to war.
The Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi told Reuters that Egypt is sending rebel groups into its country, but that any effort to declare war on the upstream riparian nations would result in failure.
It behooves Egypt to take diplomatic action, cede its unbalanced influence without sacrificing a reasonable percentage, and start working overtime to improve management of those water resources it does have.
Chinese biotech researchers hope consumers will develop a taste for their GM-altered bovine milk.
Attitudes towards public breastfeeding in Israel are more relaxed, in general, than in the USA where the sight of mom’s nursing babies is often met with squeamishness (or worse) as various factions debate the utilitarian vs. pleasure functions of the female bosom. Never mind the brouhaha over breast milk vs. formula, something covered in length by Greenprophet.com writers. Now, Chinese researchers have introduced a third teat into the equation: they’ve genetically engineered cows to produce ‘humanized’ milk. This makes Lady Gaga’s ice cream from human milk seem positively tasteful in comparison.
Three of Japan’s stricken Fukushima nuclear reactors may now be in a meltdown situation according to nuclear energy experts studying the ongoing situation and the amount of radiation in reactor core water leaking into the sea. What’s worse, workers at the plant who have been exposed to high amounts of radiation are expected to “die within weeks” according to an article in UK based Daily Mail. The only option remaining appears to be to pour large amounts of concrete onto the reactor cores and permanently seal them. This means, the Fukushima plant, like the one at Chernobyl, is for all practical purposes a “dead” plant, which also goes for the geographical area surrounding the plant for a distance of 30 km. “It will take 50 –100 years before the reactor rods will be cool enough to remove” a UK nuclear energy expert said.
These four gentlemen are developing piezoelectric technology that harvests power from noise.
While some researchers wrack their brain over how to make solar energy more affordable, or to extract energy from a ruthless ocean, four students from the American University of Sharjah are testing a more benign kind of renewable energy. They have developed a device that can convert otherwise wasted mechanical energy, acoustic noise, and ultrasonic waves into electricity by using piezoelectric technology. Although this application could not be used to create massive power plants, their device has an extraordinary range of potential applications, including tapping ultrasonic waves produced at large aquariums.
We speak to Ibrahim Al Zu’bi from the Emirates Divers Association about why the ban on shark finning in the UAE hasn’t worked and what ordinary people can do to stop the horrific trade
In 2008, shark finning in the United Arab Emirates was banned. For many environmentalists and conservationists this was a time to rejoice and a moment of hope when it seemed the constant threat to sharks in the region may have eased. Over the years, however, it has become apparent that the change in law has done little to alter the situation on the ground.
Shark fins still fill fish markets in Dubai and the country remains an important market hub for the lucrative delicacy. This got me thinking- if the change in law has done nothing to protect sharks what can be done? I got in touch with two important organisations based in the country who are actively tackling shark finning, to talk about their views and what they think is needed to end shark finning once and for all.
Green Prophet spoke to the Emirate Diving Association, a non-governmental organisation setup in 1995 which works within the diving sector and marine conservation and has been encouraging its members to support the ban on shark finning. We caught up with Ibrahim Al Zu-bi, the driving force behind the organisation which is based in Dubai to find out more.
Aburawa: Can you tell us a little about the work that the Emirate Diving Association organisation does to end shark finning?
Ibrahim Al Zu’bi: EDA is a non-profit voluntary federal organization and is accredited by UNEP as an International Environmental Organization. We oversee all the locally based dive centres with the legal documents to operate within the UAE.
Through our strong membership base, we try to raise awareness about the practice of shark finning and use our members as tools to spread awareness. We also support all shark conservation initiatives and co-organize shark tagging expeditions to help research students know more about them.
Why is the EDA against shark finning and the need to protect sharks?
Sharks like any other fish are being over fished in general, but the fact that sharks are being over fished for their fins only makes it worse. The luxury of shark fins has put a lot of pressure on sharks, which we don’t want to encourage.Shark finning is not common here as people eat sharks here like other fish and deal with it as another whole fish.
Why do you think that the shark finning ban in 2008 the UAE has not worked?
Like any other environmental law, you need to be firm in implementation and monitoring. Also, we need ordinary people to stop buying sharks and shark fin soup- ask restaurant managers to take it off the menu and tell them that you won’t come back if they don’t.
The CEO of a Dubai-based company says growing organic food in the UAE is “stupid.”
No one would ever expect an organic food distributor to favor importing food to locally-grown produce, except in the Middle East. Despite efforts from people like Baker & Spice’s Yael Mejia, who is working furiously to improve the quality of local food, most of the United Arab Emirates receive their nutrition in large crates from afar. And we thought this was a bad thing.
Not so, according to the head of a leading organic food store in Dubai. Nils El Accad told Arabian Business that it makes more sense for the UAE to freight its food in from other countries than to grow it locally. His ideas may seem completely anti-green coming from an organic food distributor, but his logic is fairly sound. Well – almost.
Suit up! New Palestinian venture capital fund will help twelve Palestinian start ups find their feet. 
US F-18-C Hornets preparing to “visit” Libyan military forces
We speak to Ibrahim Al Zu’bi from the Emirates Divers Association about why the ban on shark finning in the UAE hasn’t worked and what ordinary people can do to stop the horrific trade
