The Syfy Channel might have conquered our solar system with shows such as The Expanse, but there are parts of the Earth that it hasn’t quite reached until now. Earlier this week the channel announced that they would be expanding into the Middle East and North Africa.
New research shows that temperatures are set to skyrocket in parts of the Middle East and Africa, making human habitation next to impossible. In a region that’s home to 500 million people, that could trigger a climate-exodus of epic proportions.
Yemen is not known for its tropical storms, yet the desert country is now facing its second major cyclone within a single week. Ravaged by civil war—and still recovering from Cyclone Chapala—Yemen is once again preparing for a bout of rainfall and flooding.
Traveling abroad is inherently thrilling — but then there’s that interminable, soul-sucking trek to get there. In the future, things might be very different.
The authors of stunning new study on climate change in the Middle East start off with a very symmetrical observation: The region that gives the world so much of its fuel could be made dangerously hot by the emissions created by that fuel–unless we as a planet decide to mitigate our CO2 emissions.
It’s the drought but it’s not just the drought: California is currently facing unprecedented environmental challenges. It might not seem like they have a lot in common, but Saudi Arabia can teach California how to deal with its current water, energy, and transportation crises. Because, in a way, looking at Saudi…
Air pollution is decreasing over parts of the Middle East. But researchers say that for most Middle Eastern cities, the clearer air is actually a symptom of conflict, not a sign of progress.
The ongoing civil war in Syria is literally sending the country back to the dark ages. New satellite imagery reveals that 83% of nighttime illumination has disappeared in Syria since the start of the four-year conflict that has claimed the lives of 200,000 people and displaced nearly half its population.
In an effort to rescue 38 soldiers and the remains of Suleyman Shah — the "grandfather of the Ottoman Empire" — from ISIS forces, Turkey yesterday dispatched hundreds of soldiers, tanks, aircraft, and drones to a tomb in Syria.
Bloomberg News asked foreign policy analysts, military experts and economists to identify the possible worst-case scenarios in 2015. Potential future crises include armed conflict in the South China Sea, the collapse of Nigeria and political upheaval in Saudi Arabia prompted by the death of 90-year-old King Abdullah.
The military wing of Hamas just posted a five-minute-long video of an apparently fully armed drone flying over the Gaza Strip. It's impossible to know if the four, real-looking missiles attached to the drone's wings are armed. They sure look like they are.
As it braced for more rocket attacks, Israel's military says it intercepted a Palestinian drone on Monday. According to media reports, this is the first time that a drone flying from Gaza has entered Israeli air space. And according to the Israelis, the drone did not last long at all.
When the sun comes up, the flowers come out. Inspired by the design of Arabic windows known as mashrabiya, these 45-foot wide, flower-shaped sunshades "blossom" in minutes to cover the facades of these twin towers designed for two (anonymous!) Middle Eastern media companies.
Time bender Michael Shainblum works his time lapse magic on a place where I would totally believe magic still exists: Doha, Qatar. He shows the bustling new city of skyscrapers and constant construction next to the old world and its ancient culture. Just going around the city will feel like time traveling.
Back in 2006, Ralph Peters came up with this fascinating map of the Middle East. It reorganized countries and territories attending to "organic" criteria rather than the leftover arbitrary frontiers of 19th century imperialism. He thought that this may solve many of the conflicts that constantly torment the region. It…
Syria's violent crackdown on the uprising has already claimed 92,901 lives, and that very specific number was reached by human rights groups collecting the actual names of those killed from family and friends in Syria since fighting began two years ago. Still, analysts admit the real number is much higher.
A secret memo leaked to the New York Times proves that the United States knows the Syrian regime is using sarin gas against rebels there. John McCain wants a war. Barack Obama, the president, is more cautious.
Iran's telecommunications chief has stated that, in two years, the Iranian people will have use a state-controlled internet as a way to enforce Islamic values and combat Western influence. Right. Because turning off the internet worked in the region before.
The world is potentially headed into a serious food crisis, thanks to a combination of climate change, land degradation, and depletion of natural resources. And the solution to all this might mean taking plant species back to before their domestication.
These are the remains of a "desert kite", a giant animal corral built out of stones some 5,500 years ago. They were effectively the world's first slaughterhouses, as dozens of animals at a time were herded inside and killed.
