News Portal, latest news from around the world.

Dubai (CNN) -- Forty years ago the Arabian oryx was extinct in the wild.

Today this large antelope, native to the Arabian peninsula, is back from the brink with 1,000 animals across five Middle Eastern countries, thanks to a breeding program and series of re-introductions.

It is an unprecedented conservation success story, according to the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), which recently re-classified the Arabian oryx from "endangered" to "vulnerable."

The organization said it was the first time that a species which was once "extinct in the wild" has improved in status by three full categories out of six on its Red List.

The conservation organization said it is believed that the last remaining wild individual was shot in Oman in 1972.

Thabet Zahran Al Abdessallam, of the Environment Agency, Abu Dhabi, said: "Hunting was the principal reason, but of course the loss of habitat due to the development and population increases (is) another reason. Now after the re-introduction into the wild, poaching is a threat."

Operation Oryx, which included the World Wildlife Fund and Phoenix Zoo, in the United States, was set up in 1962 to establish a herd in captivity -- comprising the last remaining animals and those in royal collections -- to prepare to reintroduce them into the wild. The first re-introduction of 10 animals was in Oman in 1982, and it was subsequently extended to Saudi Arabia, Israel, the United Arab Emirates and, most recently, Jordan.

Re-introductions in Kuwait, Iraq and Syria have also been proposed, according to the IUCN.

The animals were introduced to the United Arab Emirates 10 years ago, and the Al Maha Desert Resort, established in 2004, now has at least 450 oryx.

Al Abdessallam said: "We have formed an Oryx Conservation Group covering the original countries, and we are cooperating.

"United Arab Emirates is in the forefront. We have been responsible in the past few years (for) re-introducing them to Jordan, we have also a bilateral agreement with Syria.

Shouf, Lebanon (CNN) -- Lebanon's 2,000 hectares of cedar forest are a peaceful oasis for hikers, mountain bikers and bird-watchers, a world away from the hustle and bustle of Beirut.

In the Shouf Cedar Reserve, the country's largest natural forest, villagers make a living selling home-made jam, honey, pickled olives and wine to tourists.

The area was declared was declared a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve in 2005.

While sustainable tourism is booming, the ancient forests are under threat from climate change.

Nizar Hani, manager of Shouf Cedar Reserve, said: "Right now we have a new challenge for the cedar forest in Lebanon, which is the climate change.

"The expected threat to the cedar forest is (that) the natural regeneration will be affected, because the cedar seeds need to be under snow for two months minimum." Hani said it also affected the insects of the forest.

"Right now the impact of climate change is under control. Our role, and the role of the scientists in the universities in Lebanon, is to monitor the impact of climate change on cedar forests.

"We hope in the next year we'll have more snow and more rain to minimize that impact," he said.

The reserve is trying to raise awareness of biodiversity among its visitors and the local community, including schools and decision makers.

Hani said: "The eco-tourism is to raise the awareness of the visitors, always we talk to them about the importance of the protected areas, the importance of the cedar forest, the importance of biodiversity.

"We believe if you know something very well, you can protect it. If you don't know, you can't protect it."

The reserve had 40,000 visitors last year, 65% of them Lebanese and 35% foreigners. This year it is expecting to reach 50,000 visitors.

"Now we have the capacities to receive all those people, before we didn't have the capacities," said Hani.

"Now we have the infrastructure, we have the professional guides, we have the professional team to receive all the people, with a minimum impact on nature and on biodiversity."

Villagers in the forest benefit from a sustainable tourism program to sell 42 different home-made products, from honey to walnut jam, herbs and olive oil, to tourists. Hani said: "About 40 women benefit from this program. We increase their income and they work on a seasonal basis to prepare all the products.

Abu Dhabi, UAE (CNN) -- With the world's highest per capita ecological footprint, the United Arab Emirates is not an obvious green hub.

It is the world's eighth largest oil producer, according to the CIA World Factbook, and came top of the WWF's 2010 Living Planet report on per capita ecological footprint -- mainly due to its high carbon emissions from burning fossil fuels.

However, the country has been chosen to host the new International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), a fact that environmentalists hope may be just what is needed to turn around attitudes to the environment.

The agency will be based in the new low-carbon development, Masdar City in Abu Dhabi.
Burgers and biofuel

Adnan Amin, director general of IRENA, said: "This is really actually becoming quite a hub for discussion of renewable energy."

He added: "Although it's an oil economy they make more money exporting oil than they do subsidizing it and selling it locally.

"Local consumption is increasing quite a lot so it makes economic sense for them to start looking at alternatives and they've invested very ambitiously in renewable energy projects."

Areeba Hanif, a Dubai-based filmmaker, who recently made a documentary about environmental awareness, said: "I realized that our ecological footprint was the largest in the world. That put me in a very disturbed state of mind.

"I also discovered that it was partly due to our petrol consumption and, suddenly, also due to the vast amount of developments that were taking place."

The country is also catching up with other parts of the world through the Middle East's first scheme to recycle cooking oil into biodiesel.

When Karl Feilder, chairman of Neutral Fuels, moved to the United Arab Emirates he decided to try and bring in the practice which has been increasingly used in Europe in recent years.

(CNN) -- Diners at the Tawlet Souk el Tayeb restaurant in Beirut never know quite what to expect.

Their food is cooked by someone different every day, usually a woman preparing local specialties of her own village.

Tawlet Souk el Tayeb, which has been open for two years, uses only food from the Lebanon's only farmers' market, run by the same organization.

The cooks, almost all amateur women from villages all around the country, work on rotation, with new cooks starting all the time.

The emphasis on rustic home cooking is a long way from Beirut's reputation for chic nightlife, but reflects the country's obsession with food. Kamal Mouzawak, founder of both the restaurant and farmers' market said: "Food and food culture is very important in Lebanon as an expression of history and tradition."

He said nothing defined Lebanese culture more than tabbouleh, the salad of bulgur wheat and parsley.

That tradition and obsession is celebrated in an exhibition by graphic artist Maya Zankoul which recently opened in Tawlet Souk el Tayeb.

Zankoul, 25, said: "Every occasion or celebration has a particular traditional food attached to it. It's the best part of our culture.

"The posters are all different shapes, sizes and colors, just like meze."

The pictures include one chronicling the seven steps of a Lebanese lunch, the final step being into bed to sleep off all the food.

Another shows typical dishes served at celebrations of various life-stages, from a birth, the appearance of a baby's first tooth to graduation.

Zankoul said: "I asked my grandmother and mother about their typical traditions and recipes.

When Mohamed Bouazizi set himself on fire in Tunisia in January, he did not only ignite a series of unpredicted revolts but also heralded the first appearance of Arab youth on the stage of modern history.

Young people in the Arab world, who had been undermined and perceived as a development burden on the region, became a promise of progress in a new era.

Young people suddenly felt as if a new dimension was discovered through which they could mobilize. They finally exercised their rights and, more importantly, said "never again" to the era of absolute domination and authoritarian regimes.

Their ambitions led them to sacrifice their lives while calling for the replacement of the humiliation and dehumanization they have long experienced with human rights, democracy, equality and legitimate governance.

Millions of youth like me who lived an entire life under one autocratic ruler suddenly changed from being subjects in a society where public opinion didn't matter to being citizens reconfiguring the political, cultural and media spheres. With these movements, a few months of the Arab Spring created a sense of Arab solidarity that decades of political rhetoric and ideological slogans failed to achieve.

I was lucky to visit Tunisia, Libya, Egypt and other Arab countries a few months before the uprising and then witness after that how those historical moments reshaped the identity of young people living in these countries.

Visiting Cairo again in July during the renewed protests was a completely new experience and I could not feel this sense of solidarity anywhere more than in Tahrir Square.

I received exceptional greetings and a warm welcome every time protesters found out I was from Yemen, and many of them insisted on inviting me for a "freedom tea" during which we had endless discussions about the situation in Yemen and the progress of the revolution.

Everyone was surprisingly well-informed and up-to-date with the events in every Arab country going through a process of profound changes and reform. I felt as if Cairo's Tahrir was the headquarters of the Arab uprising.

The dramatic shift in how young people in different countries recognize each other is astonishing. In the past our ties were shallow and negatively affected by numerous crises and conflicts we witnessed in the past decades, offering youth more reasons to disagree and even demonize each other in many cases.

(CNN) -- Egyptian Gabriel Khoury's first foray into television drama "Dawaran Chobra" is being watched by millions on four channels every night during the holy month of Ramadan.

A time of fasting and prayer for Muslims, Ramadan is also peak television viewing season, much like Christmas in the U.S., and Egypt has long been the region's leading producer.

Movie producer Khoury had planned to make two series for this Ramadan, but the other had to be postponed until next year because several members of his team were too busy participating in the revolution to work on it.

It was not the only production to be be dropped because of the revolution: The number of drama series produced for Ramadan this year dropped from more than 50 last year to 32 this year, according to Egyptian newspaper AlMasry AlYoum.

A tradition has developed in recent years for families to watch television dramas together each evening after breaking fast.
According to figures for the first two weeks of Ramadan 2011 from market researchers IPSOS, TV viewership jumped up across the Middle East -- a significant proportion of that increase coming from Ramadan series.

In Egypt, so far, for example, viewership increased by 30% -- also affected by big audiences for the televised appearances of former president Hosni Mubarak and his sons in court on criminal charges following the January revolution.