Mohammed Kanoo Shows How Arab Culture Is Never Black and White

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Mohammed Kanoo’s portraits aim to tease out our biases about the Middle East. Above is US President Barack Obama.  In his solo exhibition Fun with Fen (fen is Arabic for “art”) currently on display at Dubai’s Meem Gallery, the Bahraini artist Mohammed Kanoo depicts international celebrities dressed in traditional Arab costume. Kanoo’s digitally enhanced photographs are […]

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A Dustier Planet, Your Dustier Lungs

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Earth’s dust storms and sand storms are becoming more frequent. How does that affect your health? Here in the Middle East, powerful hot winds sometimes drop fine yellowish sand  down from the sky, coating the skin and lips irritatingly and making it hard to see across the street. It’s the lashing tail of giant storms […]

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Natural perfume maker

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Ayala Moriel has captured and bottled natural Middle East smells and made them into natural perfumes. With captivating names, perfumer Ayala Mor from Canada has distilled the best scents of the Middle East and has turned them into bottles of perfume. From Israel, her scents are reminiscent of her roots: the Old City in Jerusalem, […]

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Kapow! – Arab Spring Madness in a Frantic Novel

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In ways both understood and yet to be discovered, the Arab Spring has changed us. All of us. Having finally tapped their personal and collective power through social media and community engagement, youth in the region are taking their creative, environmental and intellectual lives back into their own hands. But the unfolding of this process is […]

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Could America’s 250 Percent Tariff on Chinese PVs Help the Mideast?

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The United States Department of Commerce ruled yesterday that Chinese photovoltaic panel prices were below production costs and therefore their sale constituted dumping.   Proposed antidumping tariffs ranged from 31 percent to 250% and would come into force sometime after October 2012.  The tariff is expected to significantly increase the cost of solar installations in the […]

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What’s in season April

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April’s biggest bargain is fresh, green garlic If you love the odorous bulb – and don’t mind your house smelling like a salami for a few days – now is the time to head out to the shuk and snatch up braided ropes of fresh garlic. Or braid your own, or simply hang it up […]

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Saudis to Make Desert Sands into Solar Polysilicon

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Saudi Arabia has lots of open land, and lots of sand which is rich in silicon; which is needed to make polysilicon for the solar industry. This year, the Kingdom has announced its second polysilicon manufacturing partnership, this time with Germany’s Centrotherm Photovoltaics.A year ago, Saudi Arabia had announced a $1 billion solar joint venture […]

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