Natural gas deposits aimed at replacing 60 percent of oil use in Israel by 2025, as switching from oil could bring consumer savings, tax income to add another percentage point to GDP Reuters Israel plans to cut oil use in transportation by 60 percent by 2025, an aggressive target by world standards, and will tap […]

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By SHARON UDASIN 01/02/2014 After two sufficiently wet winters, Israel will be operating its desalination facilities at only 70 percent capacity during 2014, government officials recently decided. Although the country’s desalination facilities in 2014 will have a collective capacity of 510 million cubic meters annually, this year they will only be generating a total of […]

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by Hana Namrouqa | Jan 02, 2014 AMMAN — The expansion of the Kufranjah Wastewater Treatment Plant in Ajloun Governorate is expected to be completed later this year, according to government officials. The expansion, which is also accompanied by a project to extend new sewage networks in the governorate, some 70km northwest of Amman, will […]

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by Hana Namrouqa | Dec 30, 2013 AMMAN — The Ministry of Water and Irrigation has launched a project to rehabilitate water networks in Ajloun Governorate, according to government officials. Under the project, a local contractor will renovate water systems in Ajloun in the north of the country, increase the capacity of pumping stations and […]

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Bird brought by ambulance found to be suffering from acute lead poisoning. By Ruth Schuster | Dec. 31, 2013 Israel is the single land bridge between Africa and Eurasia, making the land a paradise for bird-watchers, especially in migration season. Fish farmers are somewhat less enthused as flocks of ravenous avians descend on their ponds, […]

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By SHARON UDASIN 12/31/2013 Knesset c’tee to discuss potential prohibition of the sport on Wednesday; currently, hunting allowed from Sept-Jan. Some 72 percent of the public favor a prohibition on hunting, a survey commissioned by the Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel revealed on Tuesday. SPNI will present this figure and other results […]

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GAZA CITY (Ma’an) — Gaza’s sole power plant began to function as normal after Israel reopened the Kerem Shalom crossing on Sunday, allowing shipments of diesel fuel to enter the Strip, a Palestinian source said. Raed Fattough, who coordinates the entry of goods into the Gaza Strip, told Ma’an that shipments of diesel and gasoline […]

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Environmental Protection Ministry currently lacks power to enforce environmental laws beyond the Green Line. By Zafrir Rinat | Dec. 25, 2013 Efforts to deal with environmental problems in the West Bank are being severely hampered by the inability of the defense establishment and the Environmental Protection Ministry to reach an agreement on the latter’s enforcement […]

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GAZA CITY (AFP) — Lack of fuel from Israel brought Gaza’s lone power plant to a halt on Friday, days after it was fired back to life following a seven-week shutdown, the electricity company said. “The plant stopped working on Friday morning due to a lack of fuel caused by Israel’s closure of the Kerem […]

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Israel’s offshore oil and gas production are well underway; but on environmental protection, Israel is playing catch up with the world. By Zafrir Rinat | Dec. 26, 2013 Governmental officials scrambled to a Knesset discussion on drilling “like students who always remember at the last moment that they have homework and that they must do […]

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Why has Israel not learned from history and is instead risking its national security on desalinated water? By Peretz Darr | Dec. 26, 2013 Israel’s megalomaniac rate of construction of desalination plants, besides increasing poverty and deteriorating public health, has created what may be the greatest threat to its national security. The havoc created in […]

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by Hana Namrouqa | Dec 26, 2013 AMMAN — The Ministry of Water and Irrigation has launched a project for the rehabilitation of water networks in Madaba Governorate to improve supply, according to a senior official. Work on the water networks in the governorate is expected to be completed by mid-2015 under an agreement signed […]

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Dec 26, 2013 | 22:11 10 inShare “No, man! Just push in the other direction,” a youth told a person helping him push a car stuck in snow off Wasfi Tal Street in Amman during the recent snowstorm which hit the country. “Yallah, a little bit more and the driver will make it to the […]

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By SHARON UDASIN 12/24/2013 The park will be a home to research and development in energy conservation and environmental protection, among other industries. Aiming to integrate the Israeli innovative spirit with Chinese market capacity, private investors and government officials from China’s Zheijiang province have come together to build a future China-Israel Nanxun Innovation Industrial Park. […]

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Right-wing complaints have no basis; the government is working tirelessly and doing much to settle Jews in Israel’s Negev region. By Zafrir Rinat | Dec. 21, 2013 Recent right-wing complaints that the government is impotent when it comes to implementing plans to settle Jews in the Negev, supposedly out of fear of public criticism, are […]

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For many Palestinians ‘nature reserves’ means ‘reserved for Israeli settlements.’ By Zafrir Rinat | Dec. 18, 2013 Can Palestinians be recruited to fight for the environment? Not as long as preserving nature effectively means settlement expansion, as the case of the Nahal Kaneh nature reserve suggests. Palestinian farmers planted olive trees on part of the […]

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The Gaza Strip’s sewage treatment plants reportedly suffering frequent blackouts due to a dispute between Hamas and the Palestinian Authority. By Zafrir Rinat | Dec. 22, 2013 Repeated failures of sewage treatment plants in the Gaza Strip has caused significant beach pollution in and around Ashkelon and endangered water quality in the Mediterranean Sea, recent […]

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by Hana Namrouqa | Dec 23, 2013 As the weather warms up, more snow is melting and raising storage levels at the Kingdom’s dams, according to the Water Ministry (JT photo) AMMAN — Eighty-four per cent of the rainwater that entered the country’s dams since the start of the wet season was collected during the […]

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Re-diversion of water, law amendment and desalination operations are having major effect. By Zafrir Rinat | Dec. 22, 2013 The water flowing through Israel’s nature sites has increased tenfold over the past decade, and it’s expected to continue increasing due to new arrangements for supplying water to agriculture and the growing use of desalinated water. […]

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Dec 23, 2013 | 22:56 Updated: Dec 23, 2013 AMMAN — Jordan and the German Development Bank (KfW) on Monday signed a loan agreement for the project “Climate Protection in the Wastewater Sector”, according to a KfW statement. On behalf of the German government, KfW “will make available 20 million euros of loan financing”. The […]

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