A vulture fitted with Tel Aviv University tags was “arrested” in Saudi Arabia. The charge? Espionage. Fitting migratory birds with tags and GPS transmitters allows ornithologists and other researchers to track their migration. Important questions are answered: where do the birds fly? Where do they rest? How far do they travel. Dubai researchers recently tagged […]
Green pushups anyone? Hybrid jeeps and other “green” training equipment will now be used to train future Israel Defense Force officers The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) are now extending their green military programs (like solar energy chargers) to training future officers at a special “green” training base in the country’s Negev desert region. In a […]
No more guns for celebrations, says King of Jordan. Men in the Arab world shoot live fire in the air to celebrate weddings, and holidays. But stray bullets from the “festive” ceremony injures and kills people, causes stress, and poses a threat to wildlife. Jordan’s king says no more: Jordanian King Abdullah II has decided […]
The Dead Sea in Israel, PA, and Jordan; the Jeita Cave Grotto in Lebanon, and the Bu Tinah Island Archepelago in Abu Dhabi – are vying for the 7 Natural Wonders list of 28 from around the world. Cast your votes today. It seems like this contest has been going on for years already, but […]
Hezbollah’s stake in the “cleaner” natural gas wells at sea expose “government inefficiency, incompetence and corruption and the lack of adequate services in transportation, water, education, health.” Israel’s northern neighbor is scrambling to set up a legal basis to challenge the Jewish state’s discovery of a gigantic natural-gas reservoir in the Eastern Mediterranean. Lebanese leaders […]
Lebanon looks to lay claim to natural gas find off Israel’s coast. Image of Mediterranean Sea from Beirut. Lebanon’s Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah is not only trying to pose a threat to Israel’s security, but to its pocketbook as well. Israel has announced striking gas – natural gas– and now the Hezbollah (Arabic: حزب الله, […]
Persian Gulf environments like Bu Tinah Shoals would be devastated in a regional military conflict. Consider the following scenario: small United Arab Emirate states like Bahrain and Abu Dhabi are planning to spend billions of dollars on sophisticated weaponry; when one of their real dangers is the deteriorating state of the Persian Gulf and the […]
Following a site visit conducted as part of a meeting of geographers at Ben-Gurion University last week, Dr. Gotlieb reflects on how appropriate technology, bottom-up planning and goodwill are prerequisites to resolving conflict. For an international group of geographers, a visit to what is known variously as Judea and Samaria, the West Bank – of […]
Ambika, a research analyst who specializes on Middle East environment issues including conflict and water, reports on her trip to Sweden, where she finds grassroots solutions like the Peepoo Bag – ones that could impact the developing world. Along the banks of the beautiful Lake Siljan, in the idyllic town of Leksand, Sweden, over 1600 […]
All the forecasts about water causing the next major Middle East conflict has started. An Iraqi government employee in the irrigation department, along with his family, are murdered – over water. In the early hours of 18 June, gunmen broke into Faisal Hassan’s west Baghdad home killing him, his wife and their two young children. […]
Bats find no-man’s land makes a great “hang-out.” Image via Yuvalh. The song lyrics ask, “War — what’s it good for?” Well, conflicts between peoples may create new opportunities for displaced and endangered animals. Haaretz newspaper reports that Ph.D. student Eran Levin of Tel Aviv University’s Department of Zoology has discovered one of the most […]
While the world sees Iran up to nuclear arms, Qatar and Iran have signed a memorandum of understanding regarding helping to preserve the environment. Qatar’s Gulf Times reported that a memorandum of understanding was signed on February 22 by Qatar’s Minister for the Environment, Abdullah bin Mubarak bin Aboud al-Midhadhi, and by Iran’s environment head Mohamed […]
Karin meets Prince Hassan of Jordan at a water security conference in Switzerland last week. It was a meeting of minds, water minds. Water consultants, ambassadors who’ve built water treaties, and government specialists and negotiators from around the Middle East and Europe gathered in Montreux, Switzerland for a two-day workshop on Water Security in the […]
An Israeli-Egyptian solar project in the Sinai Desert? Not on Egypt’s account. It was the sunniest news to come out of the Eilat Energy conference last week: that Israel and Egypt would be cooperating on solar energy projects in the Sinai Desert, now under Egyptian sovereignty. While Israel and Egypt, thanks to Sadat now have […]
Israeli-built wind farm on the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. Israeli Syrian expert skeptical that nature Peace Park on Golan Heights would bring peace. We’d reported last month on the Peace Parks conference hosted by Tel Aviv University. The idea is to create a nature reserve out of the occupied Golan Heights now under Israel sovereignty, and […]