Nearly 65% of adults in the Arab region remain excluded from formal financial systems, according to a new report by the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA). The Annual SDG Review 2025 paints a sobering picture of persistent financial exclusion that is undermining the region’s ability …
Israel, Jordan and the Palestinian Authority on Monday signed a water-sharing agreement that includes the building of a desalination plant on the Gulf of Aqaba and a pilot study for a pipeline linking the Red Sea with the Dead Sea, the World Bank said. The agreement brings a long-awaited Red …
The disease, like SARS which had its origin in south-east Asia some years ago, has already claimed close to 90 lives. The Indian travel industry is still in denial on the impact that Middle-Eastern Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) could have on tourism. The disease, like SARS which had its origin in …
During the summer of 2012, in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, a hitherto unknown coronavirus (CoV) was isolated from the sputum of a patient with acute pneumonia and renal failure. The isolate was provisionally called human coronavirus Erasmus Medical Center (EMC). Shortly thereafter, in September 2012, the same type of virus, named …
Five people in Saudi Arabia have died from a Sars-like virus and two more are seriously ill, officials say. The seven cases were all from al-Ahsa governorate in the east of the country, the Saudi news agency SPA said citing health officials. The novel coronavirus (NCoV) causes pneumonia and sometimes …
Jordan is close to commissioning two nuclear reactors, to be built about 100km south of the Syrian border, widening the spread of atomic energy through the Arab world even as uprisings convulse the region. Amman will decide next month which of competing Russian and French-Japanese led consortiums will build two …
A coalition of countries and agencies seeking to curb Earth-warming pollutants like soot released by wood-fired ovens and methane from oil extraction, on Tuesday welcomed seven new members to its fold. At a meeting in Paris, the Clean Air and Climate Coalition, launched by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton …
Solid waste management (SWM) strategies offer huge potentials to contribute to climate change mitigation. To assess the potentials of SWM to contribute to greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction and resource recovery, available technologies and strategies have to be analyzed. In this work, a SWM-GHG calculator was used to compare different potential …
Energy-poor Jordan said on Sunday a Russian firm and a French-Japanese consortium are to compete to build the kingdom’s first nuclear plant. “Following a thorough examination, the offers provided by Russia’s Atomstroyexport and a consortium by France’s Areva and Japan’s Mitsubishi were the best proposals that meet Jordan’s requirements,” Atomic …
The objective of the study was to determine how data on water source quality affect assessments of progress towards the 2015 Millennium Development Goal (MDG) target on access to safe drinking-water.
Mental, neurological, and substance use (MNS) disorders are highly prevalent and are responsible for 14% of the global burden of disease expressed in disability-adjusted life years (DALYs). The resources that have been provided in countries to tackle the huge burden are insufficient, inequitably distributed, and inefficiently used, which results in …
A village in northern Jordan depends on polluted water from a spring, as four German and Arab students discovered. Their final report shows how matters could be improved.
Saboteurs blew up a pipeline carrying natural gas from Egypt to Israel and Jordan on Monday, forcing the line to shut down, Egyptian security sources said. The explosion took place in the early morning at a station in the northern Sinai Peninsula at Bir Abd, 37 miles east of the …
An invasive alien weed, silverleaf nightshade, is threatening cotton and wheat crops in Syria and Iraq and could spread to Lebanon and Jordan, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said on Tuesday. More than 60 percent of the farmland in Syria, growing mainly cotton and wheat, has been …
Although texts and wall paintings suggest that bees were kept in the Ancient Near East for the production of precious wax and honey, archaeological evidence for beekeeping has never been found. The Biblical term
The once mighty Jordan river, where Christians believe Jesus was baptised, is now little more than a polluted stream that could die next year unless the decay is halted, environmentalists said on Monday. The famed river "has been reduced to a trickle south of the Sea of Galilee, devastated by …
A source of conflict between Israel and its neighbors for decades, the Jordan River is now depleted by drought, pollution, and overuse. Could the fight to save it forge a path toward peace?
With water level falling by a metre a year and no measures has been taken yet to reverse the decline, the Dead Sea may soon shrink to a pond or even dry out completely by 2050. According to officials, the political strife in West Asia has been undermining measures to …
The links between human rights and biodiversity and natural resource conservation are many and complex. The conservation community is being challenged to take stronger measures to respect human rights and is taking opportunities to further their realisation.
In a region already considered the world's most water scarce and where, in many places, demand for water already outstrips supply, climate models are predicting a hotter, drier and less predictable climate in the Middle East. By redrawing maps of water availability, food security, disease prevalence, population distribution and coastal …
