This time of year marks one of Islam’s most sacred holidays, Eid al-Adha. The four-day holiday corresponds with the height of the Hajj, the pilgrimage to Mecca in Saudi Arabia, which draws two million Muslim pilgrims a year. Eid began Friday and will end Monday, the last day of the Hajj. When traveling in Palestinian […]
Turkey is reforming its property laws according to Reuters. Among other changes, new laws will double the amount of land foreigners are allowed to buy in Turkey. Wealthy investors from Russia and the Middle East are taking a new interest in Istanbul. According to the Knight Frank Global House Price Index, Turkish property prices are […]
Even though Qatar is the world’s second fattest nation, it will host four international sporting events in the next decade, including the 2016 World Road Cycling Championship and the 2022 World Cup. With Sheikh Saoud bin Abdulrahman Al Thani at the helm, Qatar’s bid committee spent years fighting to host this prestigious cycling event for two […]
Ugandan eco-artist Ruganzu “Bruno” Tusingwire gave up art that is hung on walls in favor of doing work that actually makes a difference. Now that lofty ambition has received a substantial financial boost that will allow the 29-year-old to improve life for hundreds of children who live in the slums of Kampala. The first of […]
Made from fly ash, SmartPaint is a new environmentally-friendly paint that alert owners of building faults. This is one of three space-age eco paints that Laurie explores. Green Prophet’s brought you some of the technical advances that permit paint to act as a solar collector. Now in the news, it seems some super-paints can also […]
Going into the London Olympic games, Green Prophet covered issues affecting Arab athletes who planned to compete in the 26th modern Olympiad since the games were revived in Athens in 1896. These are also religious ones, such as whether Muslim athletes could be exempted from fasting on Ramadan, as well as the perennial one over […]
Egypt’s social protests deeply rooted in issues connected to environmental ones. It’s definitely a hot time in our world this summer: there are massive brush and forest fires in the American states of Colorado and South Dakota, there’s a full fledged civil war going on in Syria that has resulted in indigenous plant seeds being stored […]
An Israeli research team discovers a mechanism whereby even tiny seemingly insignificant chemical changes in a creature can affect the ecology of the earth. Snakes, spiders and creepy-crawly things that go bump in the night are the creatures of children’s nightmares. But who ever thought that the little critters might actually be scared of each […]
Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, the Palestinian Authority, Tunisia and Turkey were among the representatives at the SafeMed course on the environmental risk of ballast water last month. The course was offered in Malta and is designed to emphasize the effective implementation of the International Convention for the Control and Management of Ships’ Ballast Water […]
Dr Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber, the Masdar CEO, is the recipient of this year’s United Nations’ Champions of the Earth award. The award honours individuals whose actions and leadership have had a far-reaching positive impact on the environment, in advancing clean energy technologies to mitigate the threats of climate change. Abu Dhabi’s multi-faceted renewable energy […]
It may surprise many Iranians living in the country’s dense and sprawling desert capital to know that millions of cubic liters of water are wasted every day. But where? Underground mostly, although occasionally modern construction projects smack up against an ancient irrigation system called quanats, resulting in devastating water losses and other destruction. How to […]
Traditional Lag B’Omer bonfires pose an environmental and safety hazard. Here’s how to enjoy the holiday and still stay green. Few can resist the lure of a crackling bonfire in the dark. Children certainly can’t. Tonight, Wednesday the 9th of May, fires will go up in empty lots, parks, and beaches all over Israel. On Mt. […]
Twelve new UAE graduates have been employed to work with the Masdar Institute. In 2010, Emiratis made up only 13% of their own country’s population. The oil industry and Dubai’s construction boom attracted millions of foreigners, including Indian laborers that just two years ago comprised a whopping 50% of the population, resulting in a tragic […]
Is Big Brother watching your sewage? Israeli polluters can no longer dump raw sewage, lest they get caught. Drivers often dump collected waste into open areas to save on fuel and avoid paying authorized landfills. One incident occurred in 2009 in which drivers dumped the contents of 50 trucks worth of sewage food waste near the […]
A growing but still small cadre of environmentalists are taking on the final frontier: nature and intimacy. Julie McIntyre, an ‘Earth ceremonialist’ and director for the Center for Earth Relations is an ecological visionary. Trained in plant medicine, Ayurveda, Reiki, medical herbalism, wilderness survival and holistic health, she’s the lastest to write a book about […]
The hugely popular DC-based Muslim hip hop group Native Deen have over 110,000 Facebook followers alone. And one of them, Aisha Ali, says she can’t go to sleep without listening to their songs. So when they release a new music video for a song called “Our Earth,” the diaspora is bound to listen. Taken from […]
It is worth remembering that a few decades ago, there were no environmentalists in the United States. There were no rules that prohibited polluters from spewing toxic fumes into the atmosphere. Nobody was watching the agriculture industry to ensure that their pesticides weren’t contaminating water ways. Americans were asleep. Then Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring hit […]
Ecosex is the ‘trend that could’ except among most green bloggers and editors. Why are they avoiding the one subject that could resurrect environmentalism? Take a hike to fall in love with Planet Earth and embody green loving? End your romance with plastic because the evidence is irrefutable; BPA is nasty to your naked bits? […]
Ben-Gurion researchers claim that Israel’s urge to shop will eventually force Shabbat laws to change. This is a typical side street in the Yaffa flea market, Israel. From left to right, notice a charming second-hand shop that sells amusing things like the full-sized statue of a Roman gladiator. Blond tourists with cameras hanging from their […]
This man singlehandedly produces up to 5,500 bottles of delicious red wine each year, despite living in a frequently drought-stricken region Dave Levitan from Onearth, one of our favorite environmental blogs, traveled to Israel to meet with a hardy winemaker in the Negev desert and came away gushing. No, not from all the red wine […]
Begin with a 3-pronged disclaimer: I’m no engineer; I’m as political as a daisy; and since leaving university, my preferred way of learning is fairly chaotic. I bump into things. That draw me to other things. Thing One and Thing Two quickly lead to Thing Fifty-Three; and when I look up, blinking, discombobulated, I’m “sort of” knowledgeable about […]
Iran’s Bushehr nuclear plant has been under suspicion for decades, rightly or wrongly. So as not to arouse alarm, the United Arab Emirates’ civil nuclear plan has been taking the opposite approach of complete transparency. The UAE has forgone any plans to enrich or reprocess uranium itself, so as to allay any cause for suspicion or concerns about […]
Israel will host the first SlutWalk in the Middle East this weekend, but the movement has growing support in other countries, including Morocco. Will these efforts finally lead to greater freedom for women of all religious persuasions? When I wrote the article, The Middle East Needs More Sluts, the response was overwhelming and heated, with […]
Over the next few weeks, President Obama has a fateful personnel decision to make, and one that will influence the world’s climate, in a way that he has been unable to do through the recalcitrant billionaire-funded opposition congress in the US. World Bank President Robert Zoellick, a Bush-appointee, will step down in June, and President […]
As it turns out, I haven’t received a Valentine’s Day gift since 2006, but even when I wasn’t single and out saving the world, I never encouraged my boyfriends to give me chocolates or flowers. A book? A sweet card? Maybe. But since anyone can go out and buy a box of chocolates at the […]