A study released last week shows that more than one in five Israeli schoolchildren is overweight. According to Haaretz, the towns Nahariya (37%), Bat Yam (34%), Or Yehuda (32.6%), Tira (31.1%) and Kalansawa (31%) lead the list. In the Hebrew edition of the same article, a health specialist chalks up the trend to the unsurprising […]
A new Israeli government “green tax”, scheduled to come into effect next month on new imported cars, is being contested by car importers, and is apparently headed to the High Court of Justice, Israel’s Supreme Court. The new tax ordinance, already signed by Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz, and on the desk of Transport Minister Israel […]
Many articles have been written claiming that Israel can become a leader in clean technology over the next ten years. Maybe, maybe not. Defining the terms: In order to make this prediction with any degree of accuracy, we need to define ‘clean’ technology. To date, clean or green technology, often referred to as clean tech […]
The global ecologically friendly building trend is taking hold in Turkey as well, according to the English-language daily Hurriyet News and Economic Review. We’ve covered Turkey’s water agreements with Iraq, along with the country’s hard line against coastline development. Green construction in Turkey includes waste disposal systems, solar energy, and rainwater collection, Hurriyet reports: Reghnumj’s […]
Bicycles (as we learned when Tel Avivians got naked last month to protest local laws) are great for the environment, but you can’t arrive at work or school dripping with sweat. A new earth-friendly solution hitting the streets in New York and Tel Aviv this summer comes in the form of electric powered scooters. With […]
Piracy in the Gulf of Aden continues to thrive despite international efforts at joint maritime patrols along the Somali coastline. Combating the menace has proven futile, with international laws ill equipped to address what is fast becoming a threat to the lives of crewmen and global trade. Barring a few incidents, the pirates have, and […]
Last week, a scowling Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu (left, photo from Ynet) sat in parliament while his land reform took a beating. Key members of his coalition did not show up to vote (they hid in the cafeteria and offices), and so Netanyahu delayed the vote for fear it wouldn’t pass without his supporters. […]
If you think that WWOOF is the sound that a dog makes… well, you’re right. But it also stands for “Willing Workers On Organic Farms,” or “World-Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms.” So keep your ears tuned in for that term, because the WWOOF movement is spreading globally – including right here in the Middle East. […]
The world economic chill is not cooling global warming, says organizers from the international water tech symposium and conference WATEC. This is part of their announcement for the 2009 conference happening this November in Tel Aviv. I’ve been to a couple WATEC conferences in the past — they happen once every 2 years — and […]
One of the dangers of exploring the nuclear energy option in the Middle East is radiation sickness and the risks it poses to power plant workers. Of course we are all too aware of the risks of explosions like in Chernobyl too. Radiation sickness, which by many is considered to be even more devastating than […]
The use of gas as an energy source is expected to increase globally, which also increases the need to find safe and economic solutions for storing large quantities of gas. The current solution is to store large gas tanks near populated areas, occupying expensive and valuable areas of land. In the upcoming WATEC Conference (the […]
Israel’s northern town of Katzrin is the first town in Israel to receive its electricity from solar energy with the installation of a 50 KW “rooftop” solar power plant. The solar installation was installed by a cooperative agreement between the Chinese Sun Tech Power Holdings, based in Wuxi China, and Ramat Gan based Solarit Doral, […]
Come on guys: this is just another umpteenth reason why people need preserve nature and our seas and respect them — BioLineRx just got a $282 million deal to license its heart healing medicine based on the common brown seaweed. No doubt it is the most expensive seaweed known to medical history – the Israeli […]
City Waste is an inaugural four-day event that will take place from 11-14 October 2009. The Middle East’s rapid growth over the past years has brought about significant waste management challenges to the region. In response to these challenges, the City Waste 2009 will be a platform to discuss and share strategies on the increasing […]
Can’t stand the climate change heat? Why not move underground? For Reynard Loki and Jennifer Daniels, the future might lie, for some people in places such as Israel or Australia, in what they are calling Underground Desert Living Units, UDLU for short. Loki began working on the idea in March 2008, and he later found […]