Teddy On The Go is a whimsical Kuwait-based photoblog depicting a day-in-life of one very active stuffed bear at various locations throughout the country. Curious viewers have adopted the bear as a “blank slate,” using it as a reflection of their own lives and the local social issues taking place.

The Arabian Gulf’s first metro system was launched in Dubai this past Thursday to much fanfare.

The latest issue of Bidoun (#18) is the magazine’s second interview issue, where various artists, writers, designers, and public figures share insight into the Middle East’s artistic and cultural scenes.

Sophie Maxwell of the design and brand image shop Pearlfisher has introduced Creativity to some of the most inspiring designers emerging from Beirut, Lebanon.

While media attention on Iran has dwindled as popular protests have been suppressed, social media has continued to maintain a picture into what is happening in the country. The Iran Rooftop Project blog posts videos every night of the protests that continue from the roof tops of homes in Tehran.
In reaction to the recent election results, every night people shout and scream Allah-o-Akbar which literally means ‘god is great’ but also is the recognized cry for freedom.

The site explains its motivations:
One of the most compelling elements of the continued uprising in Iran has been when each night under the [...]

Artists Bar&Shay took it upon themselves to do a bit of street redecorating in a Tel Aviv underground tunnel. The crew replaced the regular, drab lighting with a rainbow of assorted colors.
[via Wooster Collective]

“The Soccer Project” is the story of two soccer players who quit their 9-to-5 jobs and take off around the globe exploring the less glorified side of soccer: pick up games and impromptu contests.
In Bolivia, the duo plays with inmates in a prison courtyard; in Palestine, they play with a sixteen-year-old girl who defies tradition and plays on the streets with the local boys; and in Kenya, with moonshine brewers in the slums of Nairobi.  The team travels to over twenty countries and tells the stories of the people they meet through the game.  Below is a 15 minute [...]

What first appears to be an average American-style comic book, on closer inspection is far from it.  Yes the hero’s in The 99 wear tights and sport massive, well-defined muscles; but each of the characters are superheros from the Islamic world,  representing the ‘99′ qualities of Allah.  The series is a creation of Naif al-Mutawa, a Kuwaiti businessman and former writer who wanted to “focus on a concept that has core human universal values.”
Also trained in psychology, al-Mutawa first thought about the ‘modern day hero’ whilst in New York, treating child torture victims from Iraq.  Reflecting on Saddam Hussein’s [...]

At the PSFK Conference Asia 2008, Charles Ogilvie (Panasonic), Creative Designer and Inventor of RED, the award winning in-flight entertainment system for Virgin America, speaks about service innovation, new revenue models, and the use of airborne technology throughout Asia and the world at large.
From the drab grey seats and drop down projectors of just ten years ago, Charles describes the process he and his team went through when challenged by Richard Branson to figure out “What’s next in aviation?”
Interestingly, Charles explains that in addition to personal entertainment systems, mood lighting, and all the wizzy-wig technological concepts being tossed around, Asian [...]

“Socializing and politics” are what people around the world most searched for in 2008, according to Marissa Mayer, VP of Search at Google. The company’s year-end roundup of popular searches showcased Sarah Palin, the Republican Party’s vice presidential nominee for the 2008 United States Presidential Election as the number 1 rising search query for the year. After the Beijing Olympics, we notice Facebook as the 3rd most sought, then the Spanish social networking site Tuenti…often referred to as the Spanish Facebook.
Fascinatingly enough, it’s also revealed that when the Dow dropped 733 points in a single day, Google searches spiked through [...]

The Abu Dhabi urban planning council recently unveiled their plans to create a second city center to handle the exponential growth of the city from 1,000,000 to 3,000,000 people by 2030. The new center, to be situated in the Khlaifa C district, will potentially set off a controlled urban sprawl, luring city residents out of the over-congested center in Abu Dhabi island’s north eastern corner and into the city’s suburbs. The council hopes to turn the second center into as much of a metropolitan hub as possible though, providing transportation to and from the two city centers with a [...]

A group of Israeli scientists may hold the key to reducing a hurricane’s destructive potential. The team from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem believe distributing smoke particles within a tropical storm will reduce wind speed, and so too the storms destructive power.
Hurricanes draw their energy from the warm evaporative conditions found over tropical oceans.  Water evaporating off the warm ocean condenses and forms rain, releasing further heat energy as it falls.
When injected within the lower altitudes of the hurricane, smoke particles force water to prematurely condense, the droplets from forming rain.  The small droplets are then swept into the outer [...]

Skateistan is making waves amongst Afghani youth, with the country’s first ever ‘co-educational’ skateboarding school. The idea was first conceived when Australian skateboarders Oliver Percovich, Sharna Nolan and Travis Beard passed through Kabul, and were bombarded with local children begging for a go and a lesson on their boards.  The idea has now grown into a full-fledged skate school for local Afghani kids, providing not only skate know-how and English skills, but a cross-cultural interaction and education platform. Students are chosen from a wide range of cultural and socio-economic backgrounds, with the program aiming to “empower youth to take leadership [...]