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Palestinians looted dozens of greenhouses on Tuesday, walking off with irrigation hoses, water pumps and plastic sheeting in a blow to fledgling efforts to reconstruct the Gaza Strip. American Jewish donors had bought more than 3,000 greenhouses from Israeli settlers in Gaza for $14 million last month and transferred them to the Palestinian Authority. Former World Bank President James Wolfensohn, who brokered the deal, put up $500,000 of his own cash. Palestinian police stood by helplessly Tuesday as looters carted off materials from greenhouses in several settlements, and commanders complained they did not have enough manpower to protect the prized...

Plants grown in this 'smart' greenhouse fared as well or better than plants grown in conventional greenhouses. The first crops of tomatoes and cucumbers grown inside electricity-generating solar greenhouses were as healthy as those raised in conventional greenhouses, signaling that "smart" greenhouses hold great promise for dual-use farming and renewable electricity production. "We have demonstrated that 'smart greenhouses' can capture solar energy for electricity without reducing plant growth, which is pretty exciting," said Michael Loik, professor of environmental studies at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and lead author on a paper that appears in the current issue of the...

In an unprecedented award, the Israeli government transferred more than two million shekels last week in compensation payments to the families of two Palestinian residents of the Gaza Strip who were killed in 2005 by rockets fired by Hamas terrorists. Each family received NIS 1,070,000 ($295,000) in compensation for the deaths. According to a Channel 10 report on Sunday, the two Palestinians were employed in a greenhouse at the Gaza settlement of Ganei Tal. They were killed when a Hamas-fired rocket exploded at the site, the TV report said. As far as The Times of Israel could ascertain on Sunday...

Driving south on Interstate 80, you get a tantalizing glimpse of the old greenhouses near the Richmond-El Cerrito border. Closed in 2006 when the Sakai and Oishi families sold their properties to the city of Richmond, they're the vestige of a once-thriving community of Japanese American cut-flower growers. The greenhouses will be demolished to make way for a housing development called, in the fine tradition of necronyms, Miraflores. Fortunately, several local photographers found the site before the bulldozers arrived, and the nurseries and the families who ran them star in concurrent special exhibitions at the Richmond Art Center and the...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Change a light bulb and stop a war. Build smarter homes and keep the seas from rising. These are the kinds of arguments U.S. environmentalists use to promote their cause. Others say forget "save the planet," Americans respond better to "save some money." Regardless of the sales pitch, energy efficiency is an opportunity that Americans shun, as less than 5 percent of the world's population consumes almost 25 percent of global oil production. While gas-guzzling vehicles draw the most criticism, homes and businesses consume even more energy -- 40 percent of the U.S. total in 2005...

Hamas and Fatah forces engaged in armed clashes again on Monday as an explosive device was detonated in the northern Gaza strip, next to the residence of a Fatah operative, though no one was injured, Israel Radio reported. Clashes were renewed on Sunday, when Hamas activists shot a Palestinian Preventative Security Service officer in Gaza, and a Hamas operative was shot and seriously wounded by Fatah operatives. Threats against Palestinian reporters and editors have also intensified over the past few weeks, prompting some of them to keep a low profile or to go underground. The threats coincide with growing tension...

NETZARIM, Gaza Strip -- The harvest is underway inside a row of greenhouses here on the grounds of a razed Israeli settlement. But most of the tomatoes and sweet peppers, usually shipped to European markets, will rot in a nearby ravine. "We keep getting it, but we don't know what to do with it," said Abdul Fatah al-Eilah, the greenhouse manager, as workers stacked boxes of vegetables in a storage shed while tractors towing flatbeds full of produce lined up to enter. The main trade passage between the Gaza Strip and Israel has been closed for much of the year,...

The reported stated that last week, 85 trucks loaded with 450 tons of agricultural produce arrived at the Karni crossing, but were forced to return. The company had to destroy all the produce that the trucks were transporting last week, plus 70 tons of fresh vegetables.

Armed Palestinian guards at a Gaza Strip greenhouse in the former settlement of Netzer Hazani opened fire at a group of Palestinian laborers who approached the structure Monday, wounding four people, hospital officials said. The laborers approached the greenhouse overnight Monday after hearing rumors that the business' owner planned to fire workers, officials said. Amed al-Masri, general director of the company that operates about 2,700 greenhouses in Gaza, said there were no plans to dismiss workers and accused unknown elements of trying to sabotage the buildings. Police blocked off the greenhouse, and bloodstains were seen on the ground. The greenhouses,...

Palestinians exported the first load of crops on Sunday grown in Gaza greenhouses left behind by evacuated settlers, boosting hopes that Israel's withdrawal from the Strip could jump-start Gaza's ailing economy. Officials from the Palestine Economic Development Company (PEDC), which is running the greenhouses, said 2.5 tons of peppers left Gaza through the Karni crossing for sale in Israeli markets. The shipment went ahead despite Israeli threats - made after a suicide bombing in Netanya last week in which five Israelis were killed - to limit trade across the Gaza border unless the Palestinian Authority cracks down on militants.

When James Wolfensohn and Mort Zuckerman raised $14 million to buy the Gush Katif hothouses from Israeli farmers to give to the Palestinians, many people were surprised. "We thought it was a chance to show the Palestinians that there were more benefits from cooperation than confrontation," Zuckerman explained. Zuckerman's New York Daily News reported on September 22 that "a week after they [Palestinians] descended like locusts on the greenhouses... looters continue to pillage what should be a prize asset for a fledgling Palestinian state." In response to this wanton destruction, Zuckerman said, "I'm just sad that they are cutting off...

UK Minister for the Middle East Dr. Kim Howells told the UK House of Commons on Wednesday: "It distressed many of us to see how the greenhouses were looted at disengagement....That was an act of incredible stupidity, because perhaps as many as 10,000 people were employed in those greenhouses. I was glad to hear over the past couple of weeks that the Saudis and Israelis, among others, have put money into replacing the components of the greenhouses that were looted and sold off, presumably on the streets of Gaza." "I was in Ramallah three weeks ago. I had not been...

<p>I am not a great fan of German achievement. I believe, horrors! horrors!, that a Lexus or a Cadillac is better than a BMW or Mercedes. But I do acknowledge that Germans have a way with words. They created words that other languages simply do not have. Schadenfreude is such a word. In case you are not familiar with it, it takes 7 English words to define it: "malicious satisfaction in the misfortunes of others". The dictionary also explains it with a quote from the New York Times about historian Peter Gay, who felt Schadenfreude as a Jewish child in Nazi-era Berlin, watching the Germans lose coveted gold medals in the 1936 Olympics; he said that it "can be one of the great joys of life."</p>

NEW YORK (AP) _ In the days leading up to Israel's pullout from the Gaza Strip, American Jewish philanthropists donated some $14 million to ensure Israeli greenhouses would pass into Palestinian hands unharmed, one of the donors said. While the Israeli government has paid for the land and buildings settlers are leaving behind, the American donation is meant to purchase the equipment that keeps the greenhouses running. The move could preserve some 3,500 Palestinian jobs, as well as one of the region's main sources of export income. The donors included billionaire Mortimer Zuckerman, who publishes the New York Daily News,...

Baby boomers have revolutionized music, food, fashion, childbirth and sex. Finally, they're focusing on something important. Nursing homes. "I aim to close every nursing home in America," says geriatrician William Thomas, 44. "And I have 77 million allies. [Boomers] are going to resist being institutionalized on a massive scale." Hell no, we won't go! But ... where else is there? Right now, Thomas admits, there aren't many options. Either you can live alone, which gets boring. Or you can enter a "home." To younger folks, maybe a 180-bed institution looks like a place to make 179 new friends. But to...