The Syrian civil war was an indirect result of extreme drought in Syria at the time. As history unfolds before us, we see that lack of water breeds unrest and unrest leads to conflicts that spill between countries in the Middle East and North Africa region –– often referred to as MENA, if you are a policy maker. So how can global powers exert soft power to avoid conflict and avert major climate migration?

Water scarcity isn’t only an environmental issue—it’s a driver of political tension, migration, and even conflict. In the Middle East and North Africa, shared rivers, shrinking aquifers, and climate stress are making water diplomacy as critical as water technology.

Green Prophet is keeping our eye on various areas of concern:

The Nile Basin: Egypt, Sudan, and Ethiopia remain locked in dispute over the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD). Without a binding agreement on dam operations, water security for millions downstream is at risk. As of July this year, Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed publicly announced that the GERD is now fully constructed, with plans to officially inaugurate it in September 2025. What will happen when it goes online?

The Jordan River: Water allocation between Israel, Jordan, and Palestine is under strain from drought and population growth. While it was once a major river in the Levante area, the Jordan River today is a trickle of its former glory. Water diplomacy through groups like Friends of the Middle East – good friends to Green Prophet, may not only be averting crises, but is a path to peace and prosperity in the Holy Land.

The Tigris-Euphrates: Turkey’s dam projects and climate-driven drought are squeezing flows to Iraq and Syria. Turkey’s ambitious Southeastern Anatolia Project (GAP) includes more than 22 major dams and 19 hydroelectric plants across the Tigris and Euphrates basins, with key structures like the Atatürk and Ilısu dams. These have significantly altered and reduced downstream flows into Syria and Iraq. In Iraq, the Euphrates has seen over a 60% reduction in flow over the past two decades, while the Tigris has also shrunk alarmingly.

Climate Change as a Threat Multiplier

Rising temperatures, unpredictable rainfall, and more frequent droughts amplify existing disputes. Water scarcity can fuel unrest, as seen in Iran’s Khuzestan protests, and can undermine fragile peace deals in post-conflict states like Libya and Yemen.

While water can be a source of conflict—it is veritably a bridge to peace. As scarcity worsens, MENA nations must decide whether to compete for the last drops or collaborate for shared security. The coming years will test their capacity for water diplomacy.

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A new study by the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) paints a stark picture of agricultural land degradation, particularly in the Arab region. More than 46 million hectares—nearly two-thirds of all land suffering human-induced damage in the region—are now at risk. The findings, published in Agriculture (MDPI), stress the urgent need to restore degraded land to safeguard food supplies, especially where climate pressures are mounting.

The Arab Spring started because of the price of bread and the lack of water resources to grow food. The civil war in Syria began for the same reasons. As the Arab world gets drier, conflicts in countries such as Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran and Pakistan will only get more intense.

Globally, an estimated 1.66 billion hectares of land have been degraded by human activities such as deforestation, overgrazing, mismanaged irrigation, and heavy chemical use. Over 60 percent of that damage falls on croplands and pastures—the soils that feed 95 percent of the world’s population. If allowed to worsen, degradation could undercut entire agrifood systems and the communities that depend on them.

Related: this greenhouse technology grows food on salty aquifers 

Across the Arab world, croplands face a perfect storm of stressors. Excessive fertilizers and pesticides erode soil ecology. Poor drainage and over-irrigation drive salinization, leaving fields crusted with salt. Rising temperatures, dwindling groundwater, and more frequent sand-and-dust storms—all amplified by climate change—compound the crisis. These are unmistakably human-driven pressures, and they are accelerating. Consider that Morocco lost half its wheat last year from drought. How many more migrants and climate refugees from the Middle East and North Africa can Europe accept? The solution is to help.

Less than 4 percent of degraded land in the Arab region is currently earmarked for restoration. FAO analysts calculate that rehabilitating 26 million hectares of worn-out cropland could trim yield gaps by as much as 50 percent for oil crops and lift cereals, roots, and tubers toward their full potential—a direct boost to local food security and rural incomes.

The study urges governments, farmers, investors, and researchers to adopt integrated soil, water, and land-management strategies designed to stop further degradation and rebuild fertility. Rather than relying on one-off projects, it recommends coordinated regional programs that share data, finance, and know-how—tailored to the diverse ecological zones from Morocco’s Atlantic coast to Iraq’s river valleys. Israel has water technologies from water companies such as Netafim to help rip irrigation deliver more drops per crop.

Momentum is growing. Recent ministerial meetings in Riyadh committed to ambitious restoration targets, and the UN’s FAO-backed NENA Regional Investment Framework for Ecosystem Restoration is lining up “champion countries” to pilot scalable projects. Innovative tools such as the Suitability Crop Platform—an open database of soil profiles, climate metrics, and crop requirements—are making it easier for farmers and planners to match the right crops to recovering lands.

See this museum of Middle East soil in the UAE

Healthy soils do more than grow food. They store carbon, regulate water, and support biodiversity—services that underpin every other climate-adaptation effort. By restoring degraded fields, countries in the Arab region can build jobs, reduce rural poverty, and bolster resilience against heat and drought. The lesson is clear: investing in the ground beneath our feet is the fastest way to secure food sovereignty in a hotter, drier future.

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I first heard about seed banks years ago when I joined a Rainbow Family Gathering in a desert in Israel. Before the month-long hippie camp and festival would begin, the experienced would start up a week before, trading seeds for their personal seed banks. Why were people making their own seed banks, I wondered?

Like gardeners who use regenerative and permaculture gardening as activism against pesticides and conventional agriculture (download the Victory Garden handbook here), seed savers are worried that the state of biodiversity in the world is at risk. For this reason they have started their own seed saving in areas local to them. You might have heard of heirloom varieties? These are seeds from plants found in the wild or growing among small-hold farmers and which have unique traits such as taste, drought tolerance, smell or beauty.

You can start your own seed bank in a freezer and roots cellar around the world. I have a friend who collects seeds for cannabis plants, another for unique tomatoes. If these varieties aren’t stored, we might lose them forever much in the way we are losing large mammals. You can’t keep animals dormant forever, but seeds, as we learned in Israel and the 2000-year-old date seeds that grew, you can keep seeds dormant for times when the might be needed.

Seed saving has become increasingly important in the Middle East as a means of preserving biodiversity and ensuring food security in times of climate change and severe water shortages. It’s a global issue. 

Seed banks in Syria

Syria has a long history of agriculture, with the Euphrates River Valley serving as the cradle of civilization (see Kish in Bagdadh) and the birthplace of wheat. Ongoing conflicts in Syria between their government and rebel forces and tribes, has had a devastating impact on the country’s agricultural sector, with many farmers forced to abandon their land and crops. Some say that conflict led to this problem but back in 2007 when we started Green Prophet we could see how water shortages and drought actually created the conflict. In 2010 for instance we reported on murders in Iraq, over water. 

So seed saving in Syria is more important than ever. Seeds of important include local wheat, barley, lentils, chickpeas, and sesame seeds. The International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA) has been working to preserve the genetic diversity of crops in Syria through its gene bank, which is located in the city of Aleppo. But at the height of Syria’s civil war researchers believed the seed vault in Aleppo was at risk and they went on an emergency mission to ship them out of Syria with the saga described in this Nature paper. The center has collected and conserved over 155,000 samples of crop seeds from across the region, including varieties of wheat, barley, lentils, and chickpeas. These seeds are stored in a state-of-the-art facility that is designed to withstand natural disasters, wars, and other threats.

The researchers forced to leave the Syrian seedbank wrote: 

“The situation in Syria illustrates well the inextricable but complex links between climate change, food security and sociopolitical stability in fragile states. A series of droughts during 2006 to 2009 linked to climate change probably played a role in the uprising in Syria in 2011. It is clear that climate change-induced droughts alone do not account for the Syrian tragedy, but rather was one ingredient in a concoction of social, economic and political factors which together triggered the events that escalated into civil war. 

About the seeds at risk in Syria: “they represent some of the most precious biodiversity to humanity on the planet. Genebanks such as ICARDAs are so-called ex situ (outside their natural habitats) conservation facilities for crop diversity, or to use the technical term, Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (PGRFA)— seeds, plants and plant parts useful in crop breeding, research or conservation for their genetic attributes. This biodiversity has shaped human societies and cultures for millennia, enabling the growth of sophisticated cities and feeding the expansion of empires. The ICARDA genebank is particularly important in this regard as it harbours the largest collection of crop diversity from the earliest centre of origin of agriculture, the Fertile Crescent.”

Seed banks in Israel

Israel is home to one of the most advanced seed banks in the Middle East. The country’s national seed bank, the Israel Plant Genebank which is located at the Agricultural Research Organization (ARO) in Beit Dagan (also known as the Volcani Center), was established in 1921 and has since become one of the world’s leading centers for plant genetic resources conservation. The center engages in traditional crop breeding as well as high-tech gene research.

The Israel Gene Bank and ARO collections include 30,000 samples from approximately 2070 different species. Around 15,000 of these samples were collected in Israel, primarily from wild populations.

The seed banks also hold cultivars and commercial varieties from 152 countries on missions when Israeli scientists look for seeds that can adapt to commercial cultivation in Israel. This kind of research started in Israel in the 1800s at Mikve Israel, a Jewish settlement and agricultural school between Jaffa and Jerusalem. The village is now home to Tel Aviv’s Waldorf School, Hinuch Aviv.

The Arava Institute in the desert also holds a seed bank.

Seed bank in Lebanon

Lebanon is home to the Lebanese Agricultural Research Institute (LARI), which is responsible for conserving and preserving the genetic resources of crops in the country. The institute has collected and conserved thousands of samples of crop seeds from across Lebanon, including varieties of wheat, barley, lentils, and chickpeas. A quick look and the website is not working, a sign of the lack of functioning in the Lebanese government experiencing major power outages daily. 

But ICARDA, which opened the seed bank in Syria is headquartered in Lebanon. ICARDA’s work in Lebanon is made possible through the support of Lebanon’s LARI, the FAO, UNDP, GCDT, European Commission and in collaboration with the Lebanese University, and the American University of Beirut. 

ICARDA today runs four main research stations in the Central Bekaa Valley: Tel Amara, Haush-Sneid, Kfardan and Terbol. Together these centers reflect the three different agro-climatic zones in Lebanon: Mediterranean, coastal and semi-arid climates. Scientists there run trials of winter crops, spring chickpea, and summer crops at the centers.

Terbol, the biggest of the four research stations, is an excellent site for disease screening mainly for durum wheat, bread wheat, and food legumes. Tests contributing to the development of improved production systems for barley, lentil, grasspea and faba beans.

Seed banks in Turkey

Turkey is home to several seed banks, including the Turkish Seed Gene Bank (TSGB), established in 2010 as a unit of Central Research Institute for Field Crops. Turkey is also home to the Aegean Agricultural Research Institute (AARI), which is responsible for conserving and preserving the genetic resources of crops in the Aegean region. Like all the websites in the Middle East, information is outdated and lacking so contact specific researchers for the most current research in the field.

Back in 2020 Turkey raided a British Institute in Ankara and seized a seed collection collected by a British researcher in 1969. The Turks said they don’t want their seeds plundered. There is an important debate on ownership of seed diversity. Should it belong to one culture, nationality or time? Or do these seeds belong to all humanity? Questions worth asking.

Many of the seed varieties that are stored in the Levant area seed banks are at risk of extinction due to a range of factors, including climate change, urbanization, and conflicts which seem to be never-ending. If archeologists and researchers from the past didn’t save them, would they have been saved?

For example, many varieties of emmer wheat that have been grown in the Middle East for thousands of years are at risk of disappearing due to the increasing use of high-yield modern varieties that are more resistant to pests and diseases. Should they be held for safe-guarding by other nations? Or should they stay in the Middle East?

There are local heroes starting to grow local and heirloom varieties. You will find them when you start looking. Now is the time to start the debate and actions towards saving our seeds. 

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Earthquake energy can travel vast distances, shaking the ground far from its origin. This energy moves even more swiftly along tectonic plate boundaries and across their intersections. When powerful earthquakes struck along the East Anatolian Fault in February 2023, between Syria and Turkey, their impact was expected to extend along the Dead Sea Fault, from the Red Sea to Turkey, and affect its surrounding regions. These significant faults are well-known as intersecting plate boundaries.

Nonetheless, the anticipated strong earthquakes did not occur along the Dead Sea Fault.

While this may seem like an anomaly, researchers from the School of Environmental Sciences at the University of Haifa and the Geological Survey of Israel claim that the initial perception was wrong, claiming that the plate boundaries are not connected.

“Our study shows that the strong earthquakes of the East Anatolian Fault were not channeled along the Dead Sea Fault since they are not tectonically connected, as most scientists assume. The seismic energy produced by the source is absorbed through small aftershocks in the intermediate regions – i.e., in Syria and Lebanon, but not preferably channeled along the Dead Sea Fault ” explained Prof. Uri Schattner of the University of Haifa, one of the authors of the study.

In February 2023, some of the strongest earthquakes in the history of the Middle East occurred in southeast Turkey, killing tens of thousands of people. The current study, published recently in the journal Tectonophysics, was conducted jointly with Dr. Amit Segev and Dr. Nadav Wetzler from the Geological Survey of Israel. The researchers sought to examine why the major earthquakes in Turkey did not cause significant aftershocks along the Dead Sea Fault and the countries along its 1000+ km trace.

They gathered the earthquake data from the Israeli and Turkish seismic monitoring networks, collected between 2000-2022 from Eilat to Turkey and in all the neighboring countries, and analyzed all their seismological components. The researchers also reviewed all previous geological, geophysical, volcanic and tectonic studies to better understand the Dead Sea fault development in the past millions of years. “We wanted to go back to square one and re-examine if these two major fault systems are actually connected,” explained Dr. Segev.

The findings confirm the northward development of the Dead Sea Fault, gradually separating between the Sinai and the Arabian plate over millions of years. However, they show an interesting trend. The modern earthquakes are concentrated along the southern portion of the fault, from the Red Sea to the Sea of Galilee, where the cumulative displacement is 105 km between Sinai and Arabia (the east side is moving north relative to the western side). From Lebanon northwards, earthquakes occur across a much wider area, including the Syrian Palmyra and Aleppo regions. In these areas, displacement along the Dead Sea Fault diminishes significantly—around 16-4 km in northwestern Syria—and is absent at its supposed junction with the East Anatolian Fault.

“This finding enhances our understanding of how seismic energy dissipates in earthquake-prone areas. It may help improve our preparedness for seismic events by showing that the Dead Sea Fault is not directly connected to the East Anatolian Fault. This finding is critical in managing seismic risk in our region and raises new questions concerning the type of earthquakes that may occur in northern Israel,” noted Dr. Wetzler from the Seismological Division of the Geological Survey of Israel.

The researchers add that the meeting area between the Dead Sea and East Anatolian Faults may be considered a natural laboratory for studying the processes in which tectonic junctions are formed between plate boundaries. “A plate boundary such as the Dead Sea Fault can be found in many other places, such as the San Andreas Fault in California. They are part of the global tectonic network of plate boundaries. Our study shows how a plate boundary junction is created,” Dr. Segev explained.

“Our findings enhance our understanding of crustal structures across the Middle East,” concluded the researchers. “This knowledge provides better tools for assessing earthquake distribution and propagation, marking a significant step towards improving regional seismic risk and hazard assessment”.

The post Why Turkey earthquakes don’t hit Israel? It’s the Dead Sea Fault appeared first on Green Prophet.

Me and my family travelled to Ethiopia this past April. People were dirt poor and happy for small handouts and our business, but they were happy. It was clear that if they could many people in Ethiopia would leave. One must be in a terrible place to want to leave one’s home and culture. Instead of focusing on refugees, the world needs to put more attention in helping people stay in their country, supports the UN. Happy, healthy people don’t want to leave home.

“We must come up with better ways to help people and communities become more resilient to climate change’s impacts, to ensure that people who are especially vulnerable have the chance to adapt and thrive,” said Director General Amy Pope of the UN’s International Organization for Migration (IOM).

As world leaders gather at the 29th session of the Conference of the Parties (known as COP29) in Azerbaijan this year this organization says they need more concrete and sustainable solutions for the communities most affected by the impact of climate change to help them stay.

Related: Is COP29 suppressing climate change activists? 

Climate adaptation and resilience measures are needed for people who want to remain in their home, ensuring their livelihoods can sustain and recover from the impacts of climate change: “We must come up with better ways to help people and communities become more resilient to climate change’s impacts, to ensure that people who are especially vulnerable have the chance to adapt and thrive,” she said.

Flooding in Spain and North Carolina this year makes people worry about how unprepared we are when climate events hit. Climate migration is not just a concern of the future, it is the present reality for millions globally, DG Pope noted. Last year alone, disasters caused more than 26 million internal displacements (GRID 2024, IDMC). Syria is a prime example.

In the Horn of Africa, for instance, recurrent droughts and flash floods have pushed entire communities, especially pastoralists and smallholder farmers, to relocate in search of water and grazing land. In Bangladesh, rising sea levels and frequent cyclones have led to the displacement of coastal populations, forcing families to migrate to urban areas in search of stability.

Meanwhile, parts of Central America have experienced severe droughts that have decimated agricultural livelihoods, compelling thousands to move in search of work and resources. These examples demonstrate that climate migration is a pressing issue today, affecting diverse populations across continents.

Around the world, climate change is influencing how and why people move.  It prompts some to move for job opportunities as its impacts change livelihoods. In extreme cases, communities dealing with extreme impact of climate change and are no longer possible to adapt are compelled to relocate to safer areas. It is important that there are solutions in place that protect and support those who want to stay, those on the move and those needing or wanting to move.

Millions of people were displaced during the Syrian civil war, a conflict created by drought. Hundreds of thousands died. In the best scenario the world won’t move to Europe or America. People around the world will be able to adapt in place and thrive for generations.

The post How nations can avoid climate refugees appeared first on Green Prophet.

Children as young as 8 years have fingerprints on 4,500 year-old pottery vessels found in an archeology site in Syria 

Archaeologists analyzed 450 pottery vessels made in Tel Hama, a town at the edge of the Ebla Kingdom, one of the most important Syrian kingdoms in the Early Bronze Age (about 4,500 years ago), and found that two thirds of the pottery vessels were made by children – starting at the ages of seven and eight.

Along with the use of children for the needs of the kingdom, they also found evidence of the children’s’ independent creations outside the industrial framework, which illustrate the spark of childhood even in early urban societies. The research was led by Akiva Sanders from Tel Aviv University in cooperation with researchers from Copenhagen.

The findings were published in the journal Childhood in the Past.

“Our research allows us a rare glimpse into the lives of children who lived in the area of ​​the Ebla Kingdom, one of the oldest kingdoms in the world,” says Sanders. “We discovered that at its peak, roughly from 2400 to 2000 BCE, the cities associated with the kingdom began to rely on child labor for the industrial production of pottery. The children worked in workshops starting at the age of seven, and were specially trained to create cups as uniformly as possible – which were used in the kingdom in everyday life and at royal banquets.” 

Related: This pottery glaze could work on Mars

As is well known, a person’s fingerprints do not change throughout their life. For this reason, the size of the palm can be roughly deduced from measuring the density of the margins of the fingerprint – and from the size of the palm, the age and sex of the person can estimated.

The pottery from Tel Hama, on the southern border of the Kingdom of Ebla, was excavated in the 1930s, and since then has been kept in the National Museum in Denmark. From the analysis of the fingerprints of the pottery it appears that most of them were made by children. In the city of Hama city two thirds of the pottery was made by children – the other third was created by older men.

“At the beginning of the Early Bronze Age, some of the world’s first city-kingdoms arose in the Levant and Mesopotamia,” says Sanders. “We wanted to use the fingerprints on the pottery to understand how processes such as urbanization and the centralization government functions affected the demographics of the ceramic industry. In the town of Hama, an ancient center for the production of ceramics, we initially see potters around the age of 12 and 13, with half the potters being under 18, and with boys and girls in equal proportions.

“This statistic changes with the formation of the Kingdom of Ebla, when we see that potters were starting to produce more goblets for banquets. And since more and more alcohol-fueled feasts were held, the cups were frequently broken – and therefore more cups needed to be made.

“Not only did the Kingdom begin to rely more and more on child labor, but the children were trained to make the cups as similar to each other as possible. This is a phenomenon we also see in the industrial revolution in Europe and America: it is very easy to control children and teach them specific movements to create standardization in handicrafts.”

However, there was one bright spot in the children’s lives: making tiny figurines and and miniature vessels for themselves. “These children taught each other to make miniature figurines and vessels, without the involvement of the adults,” says Dr. Sanders. “It is safe to say that they were created by children – and probably including those skilled children from the cup-making workshops. It seems that in these figurines the children expressed their creativity and their imagination.”

Ancient artifacts are easy to find and loot from Syria. Most of the archeology sites are without strict security. And terror groups like ISIS have blown up major archeology sites in Syria and the Middle East over the years.

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The Iraqi city of Nasiriyah has clocked the world’s highest temperature in the last day reaching a scorching 48.7°C (119.7°F), according to data from the American Placerville station. The Nasiriyah News Network reported that the Placerville station’s data showed that there are 15 cities worldwide registering extremely high temperatures due to climate change.

Nasiriyah was top of the list, followed by another Iraqi city, Basra, which recorded 48°C (118.4°F).

Already prone to high temperatures, climate change is expected to have a disastrous effect on the Middle East. Syria’s drought 15 years ago led to a violent civil war that has left millions of people refugees –– people who now continue to seek refugee status in countries such as Canada and in Europe.

Iraq, home to the Euphrates River, and the ancestral birthplace of Abraham, has been experiencing more frequent heatwaves in recent years. Neighbors Iran and Kuwait also record record temperatures. A heatwave in Saudi Arabia this year in Mecca turned tragic when more than1,300 died from heat exhaustion –– tour companies took advantage of lax visa requirements, which led to overcrowding making the heat wave intolerable.

Local authorities have not yet commented on any measures being taken in Iraq to address this extreme weather event or how they will protect people. Iraq is asking people to turn down their air conditioners as not to strain the electricity grid.

TotalEnergies are looking to build a solar power plant in the Basra area.

Iraq’s state-run power company Tavanir reported on August 8, electricity consumption peaked at 79,872 MW – about 10% higher than the same period last year — and that brown and blackouts would face the nation.

One weather station in the south of the country reached a heat index of 82.2°C (180°F) and a dew point of 36.1°C (97°F), which might be the highest such readings ever recorded on Planet Earth. Welcome to our new reality.

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We visited Palmyra 20 years. Its pillars preserved standing tall in the middle of the desert and strangely out of place in Syria, a memory from another time when Romans were expanding their empire. Some say this ancient city would make Rome blush.

The Temple of Bel stands in the ancient Syrian city of Palmyra, adjoining a desert oasis with palm trees and bountiful water. Constructed in the first two centuries of the Common Era, the temple served for nearly two thousand years as a sanctuary for locals and as a site of significant archaeological interest. In 2015, the temple was destroyed by ISIS explosives. ISIS went on a blowing up rampage and destroyed whatever was in its way, such as Jonah’s Tomb.

Palmyra was the capital of an independent and far-reaching Roman-style empire, expanding its borders beyond Syria to Egypt and much of Asia Minor. Islamic jihads hated the idea that traces of ancient infidels should remain in Muslim countries.

In “The Future of the Temple of Bel in Palmyra after its Destruction,” a new paper from the Bulletin of the American Society of Overseas Research, authors Maamoun Abdulkarim and Jacques Seigne argue for the urgent need to intervene in the restoration of the temple, and to facilitate the return of the Palmyrene population, in order to ensure this World Heritage site’s enduring existence.

The Temple of Bel was built on an ancient tell and consecrated to a Mesopotamian god. The central cella structure stands in a courtyard, surrounded by Corinthian columns. During the temple’s long history, the building was variously used as a church, and then a mosque, before being converted into a residential shelter, which was its function through the early 20th century.

Between 1920 and 1946, Syria and Lebanon were governed under the French mandate, and during this time, French authorities interested themselves in the preservation of Syria’s antiquities. The villagers of Palmyra were displaced from the Bel sanctuary into a settlement constructed nearby while the French administration catalogued and cleaned the temple site.

And although the residents of Palmyra returned to their home following the French archaeological mission, they would be forced to flee again in 2015 and 2016, during two occupations by ISIS. Once a population of some 40,000, by 2022, only 2,000 people had returned to the village inside the temple walls.

The bombs ISIS detonated in the summer of 2015 caused great damage to the Temple of Bel, but did not succeed in destroying the structure entirely. Specialists visiting the site after its 2016 liberation from the terrorist group were able to confirm that although the walls of the cella had collapsed, along with columns of the surrounding porticos, a large western gate and the foundations of the temple walls remained intact.

Nevertheless, write Abdulkarim and Seigne, the structure’s devastation disastrously impacted not only the site itself but also the lives of the citizens surrounding it. The return of the Palmyra community is crucial, the article authors write, “not only because they are a source of labor and practical expertise, but also due to their collective memory and ownership of the site. They are a part of its story.”

The story of the Temple of Bel is long and complex, including not just its origins in the age of the Roman Empire and its archaeological significance to visitors from across the world, but even, the authors note, its catastrophic bombing at the hands of extremists. The marks of destruction, they write, “are only another stage in the life of an exceptional, unique monument.”

Yet despite this context, preservation, continue Abdulkarim and Seigne, is ultimately paramount. The site in its current state could pose dangers to those that visit it. Furthermore, the Temple of Bel’s place in the history of Syria must be stabilized. They add, “Palmyra has witnessed the worst of times—the authors’ plea is for global cooperation and a shared ambition to protect the Temple of Bel, ensuring the return of a far more positive narrative.”

My experience in Syria is that nothing was being protected or preserved by western standards. Visitors had no supervision to archeological sites, payment was a couple of dollars to explore and locals often tried to give us or sell artifacts looted from the rubble and monuments. Meanwhile Syria is building its economy on a drug trade, Captagon. The archeology that they overtook when Arabs moved to Palmyra should be preserved as a legacy to all Middle Eastern heritage.

The post The Islamic State blew up Palmyra in Syria: a plan to protect what’s left appeared first on Green Prophet.

London born and bred, Asma al-Assad, the first lady to the Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad, has announced she has leukemia. The announcement was made in Arabic and in English on her Instagram channel. Asma al-Assad was featured in a controversial paid Vogue article and has been regarded as one of the leaders of the Captagon drug trade coming out of Syria.

Acute myeloid leukemia (AML) is a rare cancer that affects one’s bone marrow and blood. It’s an aggressive cancer that, left untreated, may be life-threatening. AML typically affects people age 60 and older, but it can affect younger adults and children, according to Yale Medicine.

Here is her announcement on Youtube:

We do not wish ill health on anyone, but let’s take a look at the Assad’s family history.

Bashar al-Assad is labeled as a dictator due to his autocratic style of governance and the repressive measures his regime has employed to maintain power in Syria. Here are some key reasons why he is regarded as such:

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The Arab Energy Fund, previously known as the Arab Petroleum Investments Corporation (APICORP), has announced a significant commitment of $1 billion to drive energy transition and decarbonization efforts. APICORP is wholly owned by the ten member states of the Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries (OAPEC).

The Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries is a multi-governmental organization headquartered in Kuwait which coordinates energy policies among oil-producing Arab nations. Member countries include Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq, Kuwait, Libya, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, and the United Arab Emirates. (Egypt’s membership was suspended in 1979, but it was readmitted in 1989. Tunisia ceased to be a member in 1987.) The headquarters are in Kuwait.

This investment, revealed at COP28 in Dubai, is what the oil and gas companies say is part of a strategic shift towards environmentally and socially responsible initiatives, including technological advancements for enhanced energy efficiencies and developing new value chains in the region.

APICORP focused on the MENA energy sector  planned investment of up to US $1 billion over the next five years towards advancing energy transition with a focus on decarbonization and related technologies. These could include hydrogen energy and storage breakthroughs and carbon sequestration technologies.

The Arab Energy Fund will rebalance its overall portfolio with continued loan growth and an enhanced focus on equity investments while continuing to innovate to expand its range of financing and direct equity solutions and expert advisory services.

Khalid Ali Al-Ruwaigh, CEO of The Arab Energy Fund announced at COP28: “The Arab Energy Fund transformative strategy marks the institution’s next chapter, deeply rooted in our 50-year legacy and our distinctive role in the MENA energy sector.

“It highlights our commitment to impact-driven solutions, leveraging our deep industry expertise and regional access to enable the evolving energy landscape towards a net-zero world. Our strategy involves diversifying investments by championing technological advancements for enhanced energy efficiencies and driving sustained decarbonization efforts. Additionally, we are extending our investment scope beyond the core value chain, actively cultivating and shaping value chains within the region.”

He added: “Our new strategy and name signify not only our dedication to empowering the region’s energy ecosystem but also resonate with our mission to create a meaningful impact by promoting economic growth, boosting local value chains and local content, through skill development, and fostering knowledge creation.”

Following the establishment of its green bond framework in 2021, the institution set a precedent in sustainable finance by issuing the first-ever green bond issuance by an energy-focused financial institution in the MENA region. The US-denominated five-year benchmark issuance raised an impressive US $750 million, over US $610 million of which has already been allocated to 11 projects in the region.

Currently, 18% of the institution’s US $4.5 billion existing loan portfolio, is dedicated to supporting environmentally and socially responsible initiatives, fostering collaboration between the public and private sectors, and pioneering a path toward more sustainable financing.

The Arab Energy Fund is also in the process of enhancing its ESG Policy Framework, also introduced in 2021, demonstrating the institution’s strong commitment to incorporating responsible business practices into its operations. This effort reflects the institution’s leadership in shaping a more sustainable and responsible future for all.

As the MENA region’s only multilateral impact financial institution, The Arab Energy Fund is also committed to backing the 2050 net zero commitments made by its member countries. The institution has publicly affirmed the imperative need for collective climate action to align with the significant goals laid out in the UN Paris Agreement.

In line with this commitment, the institution introduced several innovative financial solutions that are considered regional firsts, including its pioneering US $75 million Murabaha facility for voluntary carbon offsets and financing of distributed power portfolios.

The Arab Energy Fund stands among the highest-rated financial institutions in the MENA region, boasting ‘AA’ rating from Fitch, alongside ‘Aa2’ from Moody’s and ‘AA-‘ from S&P. This strong endorsement from the rating agencies and the robust regional support from member countries, along with substantial backing from the region’s energy ministries, underpinned by strong liquidity and credit profiles, positions the institution as a key player in championing a pragmatic and sustainable energy future.

The Arab Energy Fund – formerly the Arab Petroleum Investments Corporation (APICORP) – is a multilateral impact financial institution focused on the MENA energy sector established in 1974 by the ten Arab oil-exporting countries.

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