Damascus, capital of Syria

29 April 2015 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, UNESCO World Heritage, Union for the Mediterranean Reading Time:  8 minutes

Saladin mouselum tomb © flickr.com - Jan Smith/cc-by-2.0

Saladin mouselum tomb © flickr.com – Jan Smith/cc-by-2.0

Damascus is the capital and largest city of Syria. Aleppo comes in second. It is commonly known in Syria as ash-Sham (Arabic: ash-Shām) and nicknamed as the City of Jasmine (Arabic: Madīnat al-Yāsmīn). In addition to being one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world, Damascus is a major cultural and religious center of the Levant. The city has an estimated population of 1,711,000 (2009 est.). Located in southwestern Syria, Damascus is the center of a large metropolitan area of 2.6 million people (2004). Geographically embedded on the eastern foothills of the Anti-Lebanon mountain range 80 kilometres (50 mi) inland from the eastern shore of the Mediterranean on a plateau 680 metres (2,230 ft) above sea-level, Damascus experiences a semi-arid climate due to the rain shadow effect. The Barada River flows through Damascus.   read more…

The Desertec concept

7 January 2012 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, Green Technologies, Environment Reading Time:  6 minutes

© desertec.org

© desertec.org

DESERTEC is a concept proposed by the DESERTEC Foundation for making use of solar energy and wind energy. This concept will be implemented in North Africa and the Middle East by the consortium Dii GmbH, formed by a group of European companies and the DESERTEC Foundation. The DESERTEC concept was initiated under the auspices of the Club of Rome and the German Trans-Mediterranean Renewable Energy Cooperation (TREC). Construction of the Desertec’s first 500 MW solar farm in Morocco is schedueled to start in 2012.   read more…

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