Hariri presides over emergency meeting to discuss management of similar crises BEIRUT: Showers that poured heavily Monday morning after a month of drought helped contain fires that raged across Lebanon over the weekend. Rains put out a major fire in the Jbeil town of Fitri, which came over swathes of woodland and threatened residences. The […]

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BEIT OREN, Israel (AFP) — A fine rain fell Monday morning on the forests of Mount Carmel, near the northern Israel city of Haifa, where a the country’s worst forest fire raged for four days, killing 42 people. Around five millimetres of rain had already fallen on the area, dampening the ground, and another 10 […]

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Operations of firefighting aircraft have been called off until Saturday morning, leaving ground crews with the task of battling the blaze overnight. By Yaniv Kubovich, Fadi Eyadat and Anshel Pfeffer The wildfire in the Carmel hills continued to spread on Friday evening, approaching Haifa University, the Denya neighborhood of Haifa and the Carmel Forest Hotel […]

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By YAAKOV LAPPIN AND JPOST.COM STAFF Fire crews fighting blaze’s spread towards Denya neighborhood of Haifa; 8,600 acres scorched in Carmel; planes forced to stop flying for the night; forest fires burn in lower Galilee near Tal-El, Kfar Mashad. Over 8,600 acres (35,000 dunams) had burned in the Carmel fire, as of Friday evening. Firefighters […]

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PM thanks Erdogan for airplanes to battle Carmel fire, praises Israeli rescue workers; firefighting plane lands from Russia. Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu on Friday evening carried out telephone conversations with leaders from Norway, Finland, Belgium, Holland and Germany in an attempt to secure additional firefighting planes. A firefighting plane landed in Israel from Russia to […]

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The lives of hundreds of rare animals are threatened as flames spread towards the Hai-Bar nature reserve. By Zafrir Rinat The Hai-Bar nature reserve is again under threat from the wildfire that is blazing in the Carmel hills. Earlier Friday, the nature reserve appeared to be safe after firefighters had contained the blaze in the […]

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Friday, December 03, 2010 Rami Amichai HAIFA, Israel: A huge fire swept through a forest in northern Israel Thursday, killing up to 40 people, many of them prison guards who were trapped in a bus trying to flee the flames, security services said. Israel called on Greece, Italy, Cyprus and Russia to send aircraft to […]

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NABLUS (Ma’an) — Palestinian firefighters are aiding efforts to control a forest fire which has spread across northern Israel, Palestinian civil defense officials said. The blaze, which has killed at least 41 people and devastated more than 10,000 acres of land, was still burning out of control 24 hours after it started in the Carmel […]

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Manama-Beirut, 25 November 2010 The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) has announced a regional consultation meeting for civil society organizations in West Asia region, to be held in Beirut on 30 November and 1 December, in cooperation with the Arab Forum for Environment and Development (AFED). The meeting will group some 35 representatives of civil […]

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Researchers observe five dolphins swimming 5 kilometers from the shore. By Zafrir Rinat Researchers observed Saturday a group of five dolphins near the Rishon Letzion coastline. In a survey carried out by members of the Israel Marine Mammal Research & Assistance Center, five dolphins of the species Tursiops truncates, were found swimming 5 kilometers from […]

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By EHUD ZION WALDOKS 11/29/2010 05:00 Hi-tech millionaire Moshe Yanai has decided to contribute NIS 1 million a year over the next 10 years for research, habitat preservation, bird rescue. Israel’s national bird – the hoopoe – will now have a generous fund named after it that will promote bird research and education. Hi-tech millionaire […]

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By EHUD ZION WALDOKS 11/30/2010 04:06 Security services contact Parks Authority to pave road through sand dune in order to provide more security for prime minister. The Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel (SPNI) sent a letter to Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu on Sunday asking him not to allow an access road to […]

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By EHUD ZION WALDOKS 11/21/2010 03:05 Buildings are the biggest producers of greenhouse gases, vehicles are the biggest emitters of air pollution. Buildings emit 67 to 87 percent of greenhouse gases (GHG) and transportation is responsible for more than 80% of air pollution in Israel’s biggest cities. That’s the bottom line of a new set […]

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By Ahmad El-Atrash Palestine is a small country that is engulfed by problems that have evolved throughout modern history as a serious challenge to the sustainable development of contemporary Palestinian society. Inevitably, un-harmonised urbanisation within the Palestinian context is one of the most persistent challenges that undermine the development of Palestinian statehood. One tangible cause […]

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National planning bodies approved a park but threw cold water on Petah Tikva’s plan to pay for it by building more homes and shops By Zafrir Rinat The city of Petah Tikva found out the hard way that the state won’t stand for paying for the preservation of a green area by developing more land. […]

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By EHUD ZION WALDOKS 11/25/2010 20:24 November set to be worst ever for Kinneret, forecasters predict dry spell to continue into December; cabinet to discuss emergency water plan. With no significant rainfall thus far, the dire predictions about this winter have become a reality, the Water Authority said on Thursday. With November nearing its end, […]

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Rain seems to elude the Kingdom, although traditionally the wet season will have started quite some time ago. Unless the weather changes, the country could be facing a worrisome development: acute lack of water, not only for agricultural but also for domestic use, a fear that never really leaves countries poor in this precious commodity. […]

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By Mohammad Ben Hussein AMMAN – The Muslim Brotherhood movement on Thursday organised a mass prayer for rain in Tabarbour amid concerns that the delay in the onset of the wet season could lead to a substantial decline in the Kingdom’s water reserves. Hundreds participated in the event, including women, children and the elderly. This […]

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by Arieh O’Sullivan 25 November 2010 JERUSALEM – It’s been said that everyone talks about the weather, but no one does anything about it. Well, seven years of drought in the Holy Land has been so bad that it has brought together Muslim, Christian and Jewish clerics to offer prayers for rain. The rainy season […]

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GAZA CITY (Ma’an) — The first concrete was poured Thursday morning in the Western-funded construction of a new wastewater treatment plant in Beit Lahiya, in the northern Gaza Strip. French Consul General Frederic Desagneaux participated in the ceremony along with representatives of the other donors, which include the World Bank, the European Union, Belgium, and […]

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