レバノンのベッカ渓谷にある国際乾燥地農業研究センター（ICARDA）には14万以上の種子や植物のサンプルが保管されている。ビル・ゲイツが「これほど最貧層の家族が栄養のある食事を食べられるようにしてくれた組織はない」と書くこの研究センターネットワークの種子銀行は、いまやシリア内戦の混乱を乗り越え、温暖化した世界に食糧を供給するのに役立つ遺伝子を見つけるという最重要な課題に取り組んでいる。
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Mansaf is both a dish and an idea
For Many Members of the Arab American Diaspora, Mansaf Offers a Taste of Home. [slNYT] We were Arab at home, mostly, and American in public. On weekends, Arabic music and the scents of cumin and sumac spilled through the windows in our otherwise sedate…
Original Observer Photography
A succession of actors, environmental activists and some live music – the best photographs commissioned by the Observer in October 2021 Continue reading…
War still rages in Syrian border town at heart of Iran’s regional ambition
The site of Islamic State’s last stand is now the most hotly contested pocket of the Middle EastFrom a ridge known locally as Baghouz Mountain, the most contested corner of the Middle East resembles an oasis: it’s a splash of green on a desert horizon …
Interpol faces criticism for allowing Syria to rejoin its network
Global policing body gives Damascus powers to pursue refugees and dissidents living outside the countryInterpol has allowed Syria to rejoin its communications network, a widely criticised decision that gives Damascus new powers to pursue refugees and d…
Guardian angel: a Syrian feeding the homeless who dreams of his own street food van
In our new column, in which we make nice things happen for nice people, Khaled Wakkaa starts to turn his passion into a livelihoodIn a Lebanese hospital in 2015, Khaled Wakkaa watched as his wife Dalal grew weaker. She was emaciated and jaundiced. In t…
Flayed and depraved: the Tunisian film that satirises the art world
Yahya Mahayni, the Syrian star of The Man Who Sold His Skin, discusses Kaouther Ben Hania’s Oscar-nominated work, depictions of refugees on screen and working with Monica BellucciThe first thing we see in The Man Who Sold His Skin is human hide: flayed…
‘Something magical happens’: the cameras helping refugee children to heal
We talk to the man behind an extraordinary project in Turkey, where children, most of them refugees, have been given old analogue cameras and taught the art of photographySerbest Salih studied photography at college in Aleppo, before fleeing Syria with…
Syria cement plant at centre of terror finance investigation ‘used by western spies’
Jordanian intelligence officer tells Guardian Lafarge factory was used by intelligence agencies to gather information on IS hostagesA cement plant in Syria at the centre of a terror financing investigation in France was used by western intelligence age…
“archival practices have not changed much in over 4,000 years”
Ebla, the Official Site of the Italian Archaeological Mission in Syria gives details about the excavation of Ebla, the capital of a bronze age empire in what is now northern Syria which flourished in the third millennium BCE. Archaeologist Paolo Matthi…