By SHARON UDASIN 11/26/20 Agriculture Ministry nixes plan for uprooting on school grounds The Agriculture Ministry’s chief forester has abolished the Tel Aviv Municipality’s plans to uproot trees growing on school grounds in the city’s Florentine neighborhood. This motion follows massive appeals from residents of the neighborhood and Society for the Protection of Nature in […]

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By SHARON UDASIN 11/26/2013 12:10 TASE reports signs of hydrocarbons, petroleum; findings are still “estimates and assumptions, which contain no certainty.” Stakeholders in a potential new natural gas reservoir announced significant signs of hydrocarbons in the field, based on tests carried out during exploratory drilling trials. Although the partners involved in exploring the new field […]

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EcoPeace / Friends of the Earth Middle East (FoEME) would like to bring to your attention 2 regional conferences that we held last week in the Middle East: “Rehabilitation of the Jordan River: A Commitment to Faith” FoEME held a region wide conference on November 10-12, 2013 on the northern shore of the Dead Sea […]

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By SHARON UDASIN 11/19/2013 Bureaucracy involved with developing energy resources in Israel may chase foreign companies away, Maj.-Gen. Yossi Peled warns. The bureaucratic impediments plaguing Israel’s natural gas sector are deterring foreign investment and putting the country at risk of falling behind potential competitors like Lebanon, an industry veteran stressed at a conference on Tuesday […]

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By NIV ELIS 11/13/2013 It could take 5 to 10 years to commercialize the patent-pending technology, researcher says at Tel Aviv conference. Researchers from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev on Wednesday unveiled research on how to create fuel using carbon dioxide and water. “The technology is based on novel specially tailored catalysts and catalytic processes,” […]

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By SHARON UDASIN Region launches its second major solar field, an 8-megawatt medium-sized field at Kibbutz Neot Smadar. Under the constantly beaming rays of the Arava Desert sun, the Eilat-Eilot region has vowed to become entirely energy independent within two years’ time. The region launched its second major solar field, an eight-megawatt medium-sized field at […]

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Instead of constructing new neighborhoods on the outskirts of cities, the government should build in the open spaces within existing neighborhoods and strengthen run-down veteran locales. By Zafrir Rinat | Nov. 21, 2013 Concentration of power to the point of bureaucratic tyranny and disregard for the environmental repercussions of building plans − that’s the direction […]

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By SHARON UDASIN 11/20/2013 Reaching a state in which the army is recycling 50% of its waste is a lofty goal, as the IDF is currently only recycling about 11 to 12%. Aiming to contribute to the environmental revolution that has swept up so many Israelis, the nation’s defense force intends to significantly slash its […]

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by Hana Namrouqa | Nov 21, 2013 | 21:56 AMMAN — Restoration work on Dana Village, a gateway for the Dana Biosphere Reserve, is scheduled to be completed in the first quarter of next year, a conservationist said on Thursday. “Properties and houses under restoration in Dana Village will be handed over to their owners […]

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Dolphin Reef placed nets over the coral and installed an iron structure on the sea floor, in the process damaging countless coral colonies, judge rules. By Zafrir Rinat | Nov. 14, 2013 The company that runs the Dolphin Reef in Eilat was fined NIS 350,000 on Tuesday for damaging coral in the Red Sea. The […]

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November 12, 2013 04:14 PM By Marc Preel Agence France Presse PARIS: Global warming is set to heat up with temperatures rising to nearly twice targets set by the United Nations, the International Energy Agency warned on Tuesday. This is despite pushes towards energy efficiency and a raft of international pledges to curb global warming, […]

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Sustainable Energy in Arab Countries: AFED report 2013 Ibrahim Abdel Gelil, Mohamed El-Ashry, Najib Saab 07/11/2013 Like many parts of the world, energy systems in the Arab region, which are dominated by fossil fuels, are not sustainable in economic, environmental or social terms. Although energy intensity and per capita carbon emissions are among the highest […]

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11/11/2013 Another Year AFED Working for Arab Environment: Revolutions do not Substitute Resource Management Najib Saab November 2013, issue 188 “Sustainable Energy” is the sixth annual report of the Arab Forum for Environment and Development (AFED) on the state of Arab environment. It is released at a time of decisive transformations across the Arab region. […]

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MAAN – Sewage floods Gaza streets as lack of fuel plunges strip into darkness Published Friday 15/11/2013 By Alex Shams BETHLEHEM (Ma’an) — Sewage has flooded the streets of a central Gaza City neighborhood as an ongoing fuel shortage and the shutdown of the besieged region’s sole functioning power plant has caused the failure of […]

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RAMALLAH, November 19, 2013 (WAFA) – A report by the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS) on household environmental survey for 2013 said Tuesday that new data showed a significant increase in the percentage of households connected to a water network in Palestine compared to previous years. The percentage of households living in a housing […]

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A plan to convert the normally dry river from a sewage-ridden dump into a water park is underway. Can it really emulate San Antonio? By Zafrir Rinat | Nov. 11, 2013 The Be’er Sheva River looked like a vision from an apocalypse. Piled garbage sat on the remains of the dry riverbed. from which land […]

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By SHARON UDASIN 11/06/2013 To Dr. Rafael Aharon, globs of raw biological sewage are nothing less than a gold mine. “When you mine something, it means you get value and recycle,” Aharon, CEO of the Jerusalem-based firm Applied CleanTech told The Jerusalem Post in an interview two weeks ago. Through its Sewage Recycling System, Applied […]

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The businessman who created the mountain of garbage is financing its removal. By Zafrir Rinat | Nov. 13, 2013 Drivers on Route 6, the Trans-Israel Highway, have become used to the eyesore they see as they approach the town of Kalansua – a huge mound of garbage. But this week they were treated to a […]

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November 18, 2013 12:32 AM By Mohammed Zaatari TYRE, Lebanon: The municipality of Tyre is teaming up with civil society groups and environmental activists to launch a campaign to stop sand mining in the basin of Tyre’s Resthouse, a publicly owned resort property that is rented out to investors. “The sand-mining project will not get […]

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RAMALLAH, November 16, 2013 (WAFA) – An Israeli committee’s approval of the construction of a controversial so-called biblical park that would end up seizing hundreds of dunums of Arab land in two East Jerusalem neighborhoods was the focus of two of the three Palestinian dailies on Saturday. Al-Quds said in the headline that an Israeli […]

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