By Hana Namrouqa – Mar 17,2018 AMMAN — A man was sentenced to one year in prison and fined around JD20,000 for drilling an illegal well in Tafileh, a government official said on Saturday. Following the court ruling, authorities on Saturday sealed the illegal well, the official at the Ministry of Water and Irrigation said, […]

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By Hana Namrouqa – Mar 12,2018 AMMAN — Authorities have sealed five illegal wells in one day in the southern Maan Governorate, a government official said on Monday. The emergency unified number 117116 at the Ministry of Water and Irrigation received information from an area resident about the suspected drilling of a well in Athruh […]

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March 14, 2018 initiative to rationalize city residents’ water usage, claiming that inhabitants use too much water in the form of unnecessary spraying of streets and washing cars with excessive amounts of water in addition to ineffective irrigation procedures. In a press statement, Cairo governor Atef Abdel Hamid warned against wasting water, pointing out that […]

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NAJIB SAAB 2/3/2018 Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in Arab countries requires an additional $57 billion annually in investments until 2030, according to Arab Forum for Environment and Development (AFED) reports. Countries had agreed on the 2030 deadline to achieve ambitious goals set by the United Nations, including eradicating poverty and hunger, ensuring health […]

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By Mohammad Ghazal – Mar 10,2018 AMMAN — Jordan is awaiting technical and financial offers to implement six wind and solar energy power plants with a total capacity of 300 megawatts (MW), the government said on Saturday. “We have shortlisted 45 companies and consortia under the third direct proposals stage and we will get their […]

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Motivated by economic need, environmental awareness and public relations, local governments look to bio-gas, solar energy and reusing construction waste Zafrir Rinat Mar 09, 2018 In the central Israeli town of Kfar Sava, a team meets every few weeks at city hall to discuss a utopian-sounding project to recycle nearly all of the city’s garbage. […]

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By DANIEL K. EISENBUD 03/06/2018 The suit documents massive contamination from Rotem Amfert Negev and Dead Sea Priclase Fused Products of the Havurat Yehudah aquifer. A consortium of Tel Aviv University professors and internationally recognized environmental experts filed a request to the Beersheba District Court on Monday in one of the country’s most ambitious class […]

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Heba Helmy March 8, 2018 Mona al-Khodairy dreamed of breaking the long-held practice in Egypt of restricting certain jobs to men. Her dream evolved into an even bigger goal: to give women new employment opportunities. While playing a vital role in safeguarding the environment. Khodairy, a graduate from the Faculty of Engineering in Assiut, launched […]

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With Gaza’s sewage treatment facility still nonoperational and Israel having to bear the load of its wastewater, Israeli wastewater reservoirs in strip’s perimeter are paying a toll, as their water becomes so contaminated it can no longer be used for irrigation—hurting the region’s farmers. Matan Tzuri|Published: 03.07.18 The Ministry of Health instructed farmers in Israeli […]

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Only 1941 and 1955 had higher average daytime temperatures, report finds; rain levels remain unfortunately unchanged compared to previous years Zafrir Rinat Mar 04, 2018 The just-departed month of February was one of the hottest Februaries in the last hundred years, according to the Israel meteorological service (IMS). Since recordings began, only 1941 and 1955 […]

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The field is estimated to hold over 1 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, the equivalent of Spain’s consumption in 2016. 6 Mar 2018 Royal Dutch Shell is giving up its stake in an undeveloped natural gas field off the Gaza Strip, sending the Palestinians looking for a new global company to replace it, Palestinian […]

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5/3/2018 Libya’s giant El Sharara oilfield was shut down on Sunday after a local landowner closed a valve in protest against pollution near a pipeline crossing his land. The closure, which was confirmed by an oilfield engineer and separate Libyan oil sources, is a major blow to the North African country a little more than […]

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Farah Tawfeek February 25, 2018 Egypt has the natural potential to become one of the world’s strongest energy players as it contains the three main natural elements to develop an abundance of energy: sunlight, wind and hydro-energy. Despite that, Egypt has been failing to provide a stable source of electricity to its ever-growing population. The […]

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Feb 28,2018 AMMAN — Renewable energy projects provided the Kingdom’s national power grid with 402 megawatts of electricity in 2017, which is expected to increase to 1,700 megawatts by 2019, Energy Minister Saleh Kharabsheh said on Wednesday. In a statement following a visit to the Sahara Forest Project (SFP), Kharabsheh said that Jordan is rich […]

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By Hana Namrouqa – Mar 04,2018 AMMAN — In two weeks from now, a 15-dunum plot of land which suffered illegal logging and wildfires over the past decade, rendering it bare, is scheduled to be rehabilitated back to its once-thick forest status, conservationists said on Saturday. The vacant tract, except for trunks of chopped and […]

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By Hana Namrouqa – Mar 04,2018 AMMAN — Authorities have sealed an illegal well found hidden inside a hanger in a private farm in Irbid Governorate, a government official said on Saturday. A team from the Ministry of Water and Irrigation/the Water Authority of Jordan (WAJ) and security forces on Friday morning raided the location […]

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By Hana Namrouqa – Mar 08,2018 AMMAN — The Ministry of Water and Irrigation is searching for donor agencies to fund a 200-million-dollar expansion for As-Samra Wastewater Treatment Plant, Jordan’s largest sewage treatment facility, according to government officials. The expansion seeks to meet the demands of the ever-increasing discharge of wastewater in the central region, […]

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New routes target areas around BRT stations, public transport lines in ‘feeder-line’ approach By Ana V. Ibáñez Prieto – Mar 05,2018 AMMAN — The Greater Amman Municipality (GAM) on Saturday announced measures to improve the public transportation service in residential areas within its administrative boundaries, waiving the previous permits granted to fixed-route taxis to expand […]

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Three environmentalists have been detained in Iran, a conservative-linked news website reported late Friday, the latest in a series of arrests of wildlife campaigners in the Islamic republic. “Members of the Association for the Protection of Nature in Lavardin were arrested by a security agency. The allegations against them are unknown,” Tabnak reported. The environmentalists […]

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TEHRAN — The controversial directive from the Supreme Council of Environment on revision of national protected areas will definitely leave such regions in an exposed position. Under the new directive, issued on February 21 during a session headed by President Hassan Rouhani, the protected areas which have caused difficulties (!) for different sectors will be […]

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