Yalla Parkour, directed by Areeb Zuaiter, captures this culture from within. The film follows Zuaiter’s long relationship with Ahmed Matar, a parkour athlete in Gaza, as she reflects on loss, memory, and belonging after the death of her mother. What begins as a personal search gradually opens into a portrait of how movement shapes young lives under constraint.
Al-Rumaydh describes the Sidr less as a single organism and more as a working ecological unit. Its deep roots reach down toward groundwater, while lateral roots spread wide to catch surface moisture. Its dense canopy slows wind instead of blocking it abruptly, reducing erosion.
The supply chain includes chemical and materials heavyweights such as Mitsubishi Corporation, Neste Corporation, Toray Industries, Mitsui Chemicals, Idemitsu Kosan, ENEOS, Hanwha Impact, Formosa Chemicals & Fibre, and SK Geo Centric, among others.
Yalla Parkour, directed by Areeb Zuaiter, captures this culture from within. The film follows Zuaiter’s long relationship with Ahmed Matar, a parkour athlete in Gaza, as she reflects on loss, memory, and belonging after the death of her mother. What begins as a personal search gradually opens into a portrait of how movement shapes young lives under constraint.
Al-Rumaydh describes the Sidr less as a single organism and more as a working ecological unit. Its deep roots reach down toward groundwater, while lateral roots spread wide to catch surface moisture. Its dense canopy slows wind instead of blocking it abruptly, reducing erosion.
The supply chain includes chemical and materials heavyweights such as Mitsubishi Corporation, Neste Corporation, Toray Industries, Mitsui Chemicals, Idemitsu Kosan, ENEOS, Hanwha Impact, Formosa Chemicals & Fibre, and SK Geo Centric, among others.
Yalla Parkour, directed by Areeb Zuaiter, captures this culture from within. The film follows Zuaiter’s long relationship with Ahmed Matar, a parkour athlete in Gaza, as she reflects on loss, memory, and belonging after the death of her mother. What begins as a personal search gradually opens into a portrait of how movement shapes young lives under constraint.
Al-Rumaydh describes the Sidr less as a single organism and more as a working ecological unit. Its deep roots reach down toward groundwater, while lateral roots spread wide to catch surface moisture. Its dense canopy slows wind instead of blocking it abruptly, reducing erosion.
The supply chain includes chemical and materials heavyweights such as Mitsubishi Corporation, Neste Corporation, Toray Industries, Mitsui Chemicals, Idemitsu Kosan, ENEOS, Hanwha Impact, Formosa Chemicals & Fibre, and SK Geo Centric, among others.
Yalla Parkour, directed by Areeb Zuaiter, captures this culture from within. The film follows Zuaiter’s long relationship with Ahmed Matar, a parkour athlete in Gaza, as she reflects on loss, memory, and belonging after the death of her mother. What begins as a personal search gradually opens into a portrait of how movement shapes young lives under constraint.
Al-Rumaydh describes the Sidr less as a single organism and more as a working ecological unit. Its deep roots reach down toward groundwater, while lateral roots spread wide to catch surface moisture. Its dense canopy slows wind instead of blocking it abruptly, reducing erosion.
The supply chain includes chemical and materials heavyweights such as Mitsubishi Corporation, Neste Corporation, Toray Industries, Mitsui Chemicals, Idemitsu Kosan, ENEOS, Hanwha Impact, Formosa Chemicals & Fibre, and SK Geo Centric, among others.
Yalla Parkour, directed by Areeb Zuaiter, captures this culture from within. The film follows Zuaiter’s long relationship with Ahmed Matar, a parkour athlete in Gaza, as she reflects on loss, memory, and belonging after the death of her mother. What begins as a personal search gradually opens into a portrait of how movement shapes young lives under constraint.
Al-Rumaydh describes the Sidr less as a single organism and more as a working ecological unit. Its deep roots reach down toward groundwater, while lateral roots spread wide to catch surface moisture. Its dense canopy slows wind instead of blocking it abruptly, reducing erosion.
The supply chain includes chemical and materials heavyweights such as Mitsubishi Corporation, Neste Corporation, Toray Industries, Mitsui Chemicals, Idemitsu Kosan, ENEOS, Hanwha Impact, Formosa Chemicals & Fibre, and SK Geo Centric, among others.
Yalla Parkour, directed by Areeb Zuaiter, captures this culture from within. The film follows Zuaiter’s long relationship with Ahmed Matar, a parkour athlete in Gaza, as she reflects on loss, memory, and belonging after the death of her mother. What begins as a personal search gradually opens into a portrait of how movement shapes young lives under constraint.
Al-Rumaydh describes the Sidr less as a single organism and more as a working ecological unit. Its deep roots reach down toward groundwater, while lateral roots spread wide to catch surface moisture. Its dense canopy slows wind instead of blocking it abruptly, reducing erosion.
The supply chain includes chemical and materials heavyweights such as Mitsubishi Corporation, Neste Corporation, Toray Industries, Mitsui Chemicals, Idemitsu Kosan, ENEOS, Hanwha Impact, Formosa Chemicals & Fibre, and SK Geo Centric, among others.
Yalla Parkour, directed by Areeb Zuaiter, captures this culture from within. The film follows Zuaiter’s long relationship with Ahmed Matar, a parkour athlete in Gaza, as she reflects on loss, memory, and belonging after the death of her mother. What begins as a personal search gradually opens into a portrait of how movement shapes young lives under constraint.
Al-Rumaydh describes the Sidr less as a single organism and more as a working ecological unit. Its deep roots reach down toward groundwater, while lateral roots spread wide to catch surface moisture. Its dense canopy slows wind instead of blocking it abruptly, reducing erosion.
The supply chain includes chemical and materials heavyweights such as Mitsubishi Corporation, Neste Corporation, Toray Industries, Mitsui Chemicals, Idemitsu Kosan, ENEOS, Hanwha Impact, Formosa Chemicals & Fibre, and SK Geo Centric, among others.
Yalla Parkour, directed by Areeb Zuaiter, captures this culture from within. The film follows Zuaiter’s long relationship with Ahmed Matar, a parkour athlete in Gaza, as she reflects on loss, memory, and belonging after the death of her mother. What begins as a personal search gradually opens into a portrait of how movement shapes young lives under constraint.
Al-Rumaydh describes the Sidr less as a single organism and more as a working ecological unit. Its deep roots reach down toward groundwater, while lateral roots spread wide to catch surface moisture. Its dense canopy slows wind instead of blocking it abruptly, reducing erosion.
The supply chain includes chemical and materials heavyweights such as Mitsubishi Corporation, Neste Corporation, Toray Industries, Mitsui Chemicals, Idemitsu Kosan, ENEOS, Hanwha Impact, Formosa Chemicals & Fibre, and SK Geo Centric, among others.
Want to read the most popular green stories of 2009 on your favourite Middle East environment blog? Read on.
Every blog and news site does it as a way to gain perspective: Whether you’ve celebrated the Muslim New Year more than a week ago, or the Jewish New Year a couple of months ago, our global calendar is about to tack on another year. 2010 is around the corner. Before we get there, Green Prophet looks back at the top 10 most popular stories concerning the Middle East in the year 2009. We’ve chosen these stories based on the number of hits they’ve registered on our site.
Known for its health benefits, olive oil is such a defining part of the food culture in the Levant and Mediterranean region. Turkey aims to be #2, reports Arieh O’Sullivan.
Government incentives and intensive planting of vast new plantations hope to set Turkey on path to topple rivals Italy, Greece and Tunisia for number two olive producing slot in the world.
Turkey is working hard on overtaking its Mediterranean neighbors to become the world’s second largest producer of olive oil.
Currently the world’s fifth largest producer, Turkey is expected to cater to the growing global market for olive oil in North America and the Far East, while leaving Spain, Italy and Greece to sell in Europe.
Billions could be saved if Mediterranean countries combined conservation efforts, finds new Israeli-Australian study. Picture via Hebrew University.
We already know that rodents suffer from human-made boundaries between Israel and Jordan: Coordination of conservation efforts across national boundaries could achieve significantly higher results and at less cost than conservation actions planned within individual states, researchers at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and in Australia have found. This could be the kind of news that spurs more cooperation among countries in the MENA-Middle East region. This is the kind of news that Green Prophet loves most!
“Water is energy. If you give me the energy I will give you water.” Eli Ronen, chairman of Mekorot. Photo via Olivier Fitoussi /FLASH90.
It is almost mind-boggling that Israel, a country with such a dearth of fresh water resources, has become a leader in water technologies. That is, until you learn about Mekorot.
Most of Israel’s $1.4 billion in water tech exports last year wouldn’t have been possible if it weren’t for the government-owned water carrier and water tech company, chairman Eli Ronen tells ISRAEL21c. Mekorot transformed Israel into a global water leader by making water research and policy a national priority decades ago.
The battle against the construction of the coal-fired power station in Ashkelon, Israel, last month, reached its peak. At 8 pm promptly, thousands of residents of southern Israel extinguished their lights for an hour, in order to protest against the construction of coal-fired station in their region. The residents were not standing alone in the battle: It’s been years that the green organizations in Israel have been fighting against the construction of the station.
Some companies like Tal Ya are making the most of dew in irrigating farmers’ fields. Others like EWA are squeezing water out of thin air. Although this comes at an enormous cost of energy and greenhouse gas emissions. Passive solutions that happen with nature’s help are what we want. Faced with an extremely dry winter last year, Israeli researchers tried collecting water with fishing line.
Tal-Ya collects water from dew
According to the country’s Export Institute where the news was summed up, dew “captured” by simple fishing wire can add up to 10% to irrigation water in desert areas.
Last winter’s study was done by Yehuda Research and Development Center as a means to find more solutions for years where rainfall is quite low. This approach could help farmers use every bit of water for irrigating their fields.
Dew is formed when atmospheric moisture condenses on surfaces as a result of temperature differences. In the study, fishing wire was used because its surface area, when out under vegetables, captures the most moisture than any other material, the researchers said. In the study, the wire increased soil moisture about three times, yet the practical application of using this solution still needs some looking into.
It’s likely that ancient Nabatean farmers and others in the area thousands of years ago used dew for their harvest. In Jewish prayers, which have a distinct connection to the land, there is a prayer for dew. It is also considered “kosher” to make the special Jewish challa bread using dew.
We’d like to see more applications of this dewy phenomenon. It could have a meaningful impact in the dry Middle East.
Who would ever have thought that wind blower fans in a cow barn would spark an idea to create innovated vertical wind turbines?
It turns out that a small, clean technology startup company located in a kibbutz near Ramat Hasharon, Israel may be developing a new stackable wind turbine that could compete with the giant propeller ones currently in use around the world.
Coriolis Wind (now out of business) is the brain child of its 3 co-founders Rafi Gidron, an entrepreneur from Precede Technologies, an entrepreneurship and investment firm focused on high growth markets such as alternative energy; Orni Petruschka, also with Preclude; and Shuki Sheinman, formerly connected with NASA, Scitex and El Op.
The basis of the technology comes from a scientific phenomenon known as the Coriolis effect named after a French mathematician, Gaspard Gustave de Coriolis who wrote a treatise in 1835 about how the earth’s rotation affects the direction and force of wind. It’s also called the “toilet flush effect.”
Using the Coriolis Effect to generate wind energy:
This theory resulted in Gidron and his partners coming up with a very different type of vertical wind turbine that can utilize the earth’s rotational effect of winds to create the most efficient energy. The “wind testing” idea they use is even more unique as it revolves around a using cow barn at Kibbutz Kfar Hayarok, outside Tel Aviv to create a wind tunnel for testing their vertical wind turbines.
The “wind” used in their initial experiments does not come from the cows themselves but from the fans used to ventilate the areas the dairy cattle are living in (which can be quite smelly for obvious reasons).
According to Dr. Sheinman, who used his experience with NASA to help design the special rotary turbine blades, the main idea is to capitalize on what is known as the minimum wind “cut-in speed”; below which no useable power can be produced by a wind force.
By experimenting with different wind speeds in their “cow barn wind tunnel” they found that the minimum cut-in speed is 3.5 meters per second or 12 km per hour. Their idea is to capitalize on using minimum wind velocities, as influenced by the Coriolis effect to create the most energy and with a much lighter weighted smaller turbine device than the standard wind turbines we are all reading about.
By developing very light weight vertical turbine blades of only 2 meters in length, and made from a light weight plastic molding material, the turbines are then placed in a “pod” of three turbine fans, which are then linked together to form a module. The desired wind power is then created by combining enough modules which are mounted on vertical stands, which utilize less space than the large propeller turbines “that are the size of a 747 aircraft and very heavy” according to Dr. Sheinman.
Rafi Gidron is banking on the financial potential that his company’s new wind turbine concept may create. He says that with wind turbines already being a multi-million dollar business around the world, their new design should be able to capture “at least 12-15% of the total market” when put into full production. With the idea of “building a better mouse trap” as the old innovation saying goes, this new wind energy concept may very well accomplish this feat, once they get past the “cow barn” testing stage, that is. And it looks like they have.
By 2023 when this post was edited the company’s website was down and not functioning.
Wael looks into the horizon (on Mount Nebo, Jordan) and sees a new “green” economy that could radically improve life for Palestinians.
The Marda Permaculture Farm is a working farm and a demonstration site for permaculture principles, techniques and strategies in the West Bank, Palestinian Authority. Based in the community of Marda, the project promotes food security, health, self-reliance and empowerment. This is accomplished through modeling of water harvesting and conservation, energy conservation and home-scale garden production with readily available and locally-appropriate materials.
Wael Al Saad, who is promoting and developing the venture, blogs today about his hopes and dreams for a new kind of economy and social structure for the Palestinian Authority, and the world. He was one of the 19 bloggers and activists who met at the international Blogging for the Environment meeting held recently in Madaba.
As a Palestinian, we are challenged to change a system in crisis which at present cannot solve our issues. So I began to think deeply and intensively about how to be the change for Palestinians, and which realistic model could work for our entire complex environment, including our fragmented geographical and political system.
The question of Palestine covers a large amount of issues in a corrupted environment: socially, ecologically, and for sure politically. Eighteenth century politics of partition and the power of elites over others in a developing world allows one to discover new lessons.
Looking out the hotel window to the streets of Madaba, Jordan.
As the average tourist I received my first impression of Jordan with glimpses through the car window. I passed the border from Israel to Jordan through the northern border at Beit Shean.
The experience was very different from what I am used to: the experience was earthy, with an aroma of a simpler time. Narrow roads with no separation from the life alongside it; a variety of pedestrians, human and animal, market stands on the sides of the road with piles of seasonal vegetables and fruits. Imagine: I’m 32 year-old and today I got to meet Jordan, a neighboring country of mine, for the first time!
Before judging the sights and throwing a western point of view on what I saw, I decided to observe, smell, listen and pay attention to Jordan.
Turkey opens environment chapter in the hopes that EU will accept them as full member in the European Union.
Turkey desperately wants to join the European Union. And it’s been playing different hands of cards to make it happen. Some say that the recent cancelling of the Israel Air Force in the NATO air drill with Turkey was a way for Turkey to assert itself in the East, in fading hopes that it would join the EU any time soon. Turkey wanted to show the EU and the West that if they don’t play nice with Turkey, Turkey will be friends with less than rational characters like those leading Syria and Iran’s regimes. (Don’t get me wrong – I like Syrians and Iranians. It’s their dictators that scare me.)
As we see from the media frenzy at Copenhagen’s COP15 climate event with 5,000 plus journalists and bloggers at the event (some with questionable press creds), the environment has become a pretty hot and trendy topic. Green Prophet has known this for years already, otherwise we wouldn’t be Green Prophets, would we? Now, according to the EU Observer Turkey plans on paying a lot more attention to its environmental issues in a bid to get acceptance in the European Union (hey EU they’ve already banned 74 pesticides!). This past Monday it opened an environment chapter in order to join the EU bloc.
According to the military news site Defense Professionals IDF ground forces managed to reduce their water consumption by 21% in the first half of 2009 as compared to the same period in 2008.
Electricity consumption was also slightly reduced during the same period (by 3%) with more conservation awareness being transmitted to soldiers to have them be more involved in conserving already scarce water resources. The significant water savings should be even more with the installation of special water savings devices on all water faucets on IDF bases, which will be done at the beginning of 2010.
Every week, it is the custom of religious Jews to read their holy book, the Torah, and relate it to the world around them. This week our resident Eco Rabbi, Jack, talks about sticking up for our planet.
At the end of last week’s segment, Joseph still had not revealed his true identity to his brothers and he decided to incarcerate Benjamin, the favorite brother of their father. When Judah hears this, he knows that it would kill their father, and he stands up to Joseph, the second in command to Pharaoh.
I identify with Judah. He took upon himself the responsibility to watch over his younger brother, Benjamin. When everything seemed to be going wrong, and Pharaoh’s right hand man was going to detain Benjamin in jail, Judah had to stand up for him.
After around two months of international phone calls, this Sunday and Monday Green Prophet hosted a whirlwind two-day (20-hour) seminar on environmental blogging in Madaba, Jordan.
Thanks to the good efforts of Volunteers for Peace and the Masar Center, nearly 20 Jordanian, Palestinian and Israeli writers and activists met for the first time and learned about each others’ projects and goals at home.
This past weekend I traveled to historic Madaba, Jordan at the first Middle East Green Bloggers Conference. Among this inspiring collection of environmental writers, professionals, and activists, I’ve just met a trio of Jordanian young innovators bringing a special variety of “thin film” technology to the Middle East.
Zein Nsheiwat, Sawsan Issa, and Osama Suliman first met in 2005 when they were all students at the Arava Insitute for Environmental Studies in southern Israel. After they returned home to Jordan, they wanted to find a way to take advantage of what they had learned at the Arava, and to apply it in the context of their home country.
Today, this team is conducting a pilot project on clear thin film photovoltaic (PV) cells in the Middle East.
Blogger Azul looks at the use of solar thermal energy for heating Jordanians’ water. Here’s an example of a solar heater on a roof in Jordan.
If you’ve been following Green Prophet, you’ve been enjoying the posts from our Environment Blogging Workshop in Madaba, Jordan. Jordanian blogger “Azul” talks about the simple solar solutions Jordanians can use today:
About seven months ago, I was invited to a reception at the Swedish ambassador’s residence in Amman. There, a Swedish journalist- who had spent some time in Israel and the West Bank- asked me a question that left me pondering and thinking about the energy crisis we have in Jordan for quit sometime.
She said: In Israel, almost everyone has solar heating systems on their roof, with which they conserve and ration their consumption of energy; why don’t Jordanians have those installed up on their roofs, as it would quite save them a lot financially an also preserve their environment?
Want to read the most popular green stories of 2009 on your favourite Middle East environment blog? Read on.
