"no one in the international community is going to take Israel seriously going forward," said Jon Cohen, CEO of the Arava Power Co. "The natural resource exists, the real national need exist — it's really a mystery why (solar) is being blocked."

no more large-scale projects have launched since Ketura Sun began operating in June 2011

Cohen has 10 projects in the works that envisage producing a total of 100 megawatts when completed. Three are still awaiting government approval, a situation he described as "tense and endless."

In 2008, Al-Ahram newspaper cited a study by Cairo University’s National Toxicology Centre which claimed that a half-million Egyptians suffer from various degrees of poisoning due to high levels of toxins in their drinking water. 

Fahim Brahm, a worker at Tunisia’s SONEDE water company, supported these claims. “The cut-off is due to an increase in consumption – especially in light of the hot weather – and is also due to weak electrical production capacity. The water cut-offs have nothing to do with people not paying the water distributor,” he asserted. Brahm explained that the water supply has been severed every day in the entire governorate of Sidi Bouzid from 9:00 am until 12:00 pm, with suspensions sometimes lasting the entire day.

Gazans are spending as much as one-third of their household income on drinking water, and are facing growing health risks

Monther Shublaq, the director of Gaza’s Coastal Municipal Water Utilities (CMWU) told The Media Line that Israel has recently raised prices for the water it provides from 75 cents per cubic meter to $1.00 per cubic meter. And while Israel has offered more water, he says, it will not say when it will provide it. “I don’t want it in the winter when I don’t really need it,” Shublaq said. “I want it all year.”

Israeli government spokesman Mark Regev says Israel is doing everything possible to help Gazans drink clean water. “Israel has been helping to improve the water infrastructure in Gaza and Israel was willing to double or even triple the amount of water going into Gaza,” Regev told The Media Line. “It is the same water that you and I drink, and the Gazans would pay less than what we pay but they weren’t willing to accept that solution.”

President Mohamed Mursi has asked Hisham Kandil, a relatively young water minister little known outside Egypt, to form a new government, disappointing investors who had hoped for a high-profile economy specialist. Kandil was a senior bureaucrat in the ministry until he was appointed minister in July last year after the fall of President Hosni Mubarak. He obtained a doctorate in irrigation from the University of North Carolina in the United States in 1993

"This is quite a surprise as most of the names put around had been from the financial sector. The market is definitely reacting negatively,"

The committee has confirmed that it will include an article in the constitution underlining the responsibility of public and private institutions towards protecting the environment.

a Constitutional Environmental Commission, comprised of environmental experts, politicians, and representatives of civil society

Selma Baccar, vice-president of the Rights and Liberties Committee, insisted that “the Tunisian constitution must be pioneering in all respects.”

the developed world tends to be profligate in its use of natural resources, because most western companies have in the last century experienced few limits on their ability to access raw materials in peacetime, thanks to the opening up of global trade

The failure of businesses, individuals and governments to improve their efficiency, even by relatively small amounts, has been one of the conundrums for resource economists in recent years. According to standard economic thinking, rising prices should prompt more efficiency, but this has happened at a much slower rate than should have been the case.

This obsession with perpetual economic growth (whether it's coming from consumer capitalism, nationalist industry expansion, or whatever) is a hideous destructive beast which must be slain, and quickly.

“During the last month, water access has been cut off a couple of times a day, but in the last few days people did not have any water access at all, which becomes more difficult as the heat increases. People could not find any water to drink, to cook, or even to shower,

a phosphate company in Gafsa, which uses most of the region’s water

“We have been suffering from a lack of rain for years, that’s why water tanks do not have enough water anymore,”

Nur Energy, a collaboration between the British solar plant developer NurEnergie and Tunisian investors, recently held a conference in Tunis announcing the commencement of construction on the world’s biggest solar energy export project.

Privileged by its proximity to Europe and an abundance of renewable natural resources, North Africa could play a central role in an envisioned integrated electrical network joining Europe and the Middle East. Consisting of solar, wind, and hydroelectric means of electrical production, the backbone of this network would be the sun-soaked deserts of North Africa.

“The countries of North Africa, the Middle East, and Europe are facing the challenge of giving future generations access to clean and sustainable energy. Thanks to the complementarity of their renewable resources and their seasonal demand for energy, these regions make ideal partners