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 …
Lebanon's ski resorts have survived civil war but now face an insidious threat from climate change expected to cut snow cover by 40 percent by 2040. The effects of global warming are still a low priority for conflict-prone Lebanon, where environmental neglect rules. Skiers and the tourist businesses that depend …
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 …
The hookah, a waterpipe, originated in India and became popular for smoking tobacco. It spread elsewhere and acquired other names like nargile, shisha, goza and hubble-bubble, before its popularity declined in India. A resurgence of hookah smoking is occurring in India and around the world, and is being promoted as …
For a Cold War after-dinner television drama, Twelve Angry Men has travelled unusually far. Set in a hot, stuffy New York courthouse, the play focuses on a jury deliberating the fate of an 18-year-old accused of patricide. The script was made into the now-classic film starring Henry Fonda. The parable …
The municipality of Sidon, Lebanon, has announced a state of environmental emergency after a storm that battered the Lebanese coast caused a landslide at a huge seaside garbage dump and sent more than 150 tonnes of waste into the sea. Authorities say they are taking all possible measures to reduce …
The southern Mediterranean region faces one of the most important water crises in the world. The combination of aridity, foreign dependency, climate change, misallocation of the resources and escalating human demand make water supply a primary issue for health, economy and poverty reduction. In this context, institutional reform of the …
Why did you go to Lebanon? Survival was a struggle. My husband earned a pittance as a vegetable vendor and we had to take care of our two boys and three girls. The children were then 19, 17, 15, 14 and 4, respectively. They needed food, clothes, books and shoes. …
Lebanon to sue Israel: Lebanon is preparing legal action to sue Israel for damages over a huge oil spill, which occurred when Israeli warplanes bombed the Jiyyeh power station on the Mediterranean coast off Beirut in mid-July. The bombing spilled around 110,000 barrels of oil into the sea and has …
Following a truce between Israel and the Hizbollah, cleanup of the huge oil spill off the coast of Lebanon has begun. Around 15,000 tonnes of oil had spilled into the Mediterranean after the Jiyyeh power plant near Beirut was hit in an Israeli airstrike between July 13 and 15 (see
holocaust-denial laws are the ultimate bunkum. Just think about it. The state of Israel has used the history of the Nazis to perpetrate untold miseries on the Arab world. This is not a rant. Think about recent history. The Western powers divided west Asia, creating Israel, a Jewish oasis in …
As Israel continues airstrikes on Lebanon, the country is now threatened by its worst ecological disaster. At least 35,000 tonnes of oil gushed into the Mediterranean, after Israeli warplanes hit fuel tanks of the Jiyyeh power plant, south of Beirut. The spill has spread along 80 km of the Lebanese …
israel and Lebanon are at loggerheads once again. But this time the bone of contention is Wazzani river, which flows from Lebanon into the Sea of Galilee. Two years after Israel withdrew from Lebanese territory, diplomatic parleys are on again by the us to prevent a flare-up between the two …
activists of Greenpeace, the international pressure group, have raised concerns about toxic sludge being dumped in the Mediterranean sea near Selaata, off the Lebanese coast. The sludge, dumped by the Lebanese Chemical Company (lcc), has destroyed most of the area's sea life. Greenpeace has urged the Lebanese environment ministry to …
THE Mediterranean coastline has become a dumping ground for cement, asbestos and chemical companies in northern Lebanon, which release cancer- causing toxins into it. According to the environmental group Greenpeace, tests carried out at the Lebanese cities of Chekka and Selaata showed that emissions from five cement factories in the …
CLOSE on the heels of the bitter land wars in the West Asia comes the bitter conflict over water. Israel and the West Bank Palestinians are at odds over scarce water; its Arab neighbours - Palestine, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria all contend that they have considerable legal rights to the …
The International Conference on Technologies and Materials for Renewable Energy, Environment and Sustainability (TMREES15) organized by the Euro-Mediterranean Institute for Sustainable Development (EUMISD) will be held in April 17-20, 2015 in Beirut, Lebanon. TMREES15 has a main objective to promote sustainable, healthy and diverse ecosystems; encourage and support the national …
