March 2012 Archives

Hamas: We’ll continue fighting Israel in political arena

During visit to Turkey, Mashaal calls on Palestinians to leave differences aside for sake of national unity, claims recent rocket fire was act of self defense

Hamas politburo chief Khaled Mashaal said Sunday during a visit to Turkey, “We will naturally continue our fight against Israel in political, diplomatic and media fields. We will try to get the greatest support possible from the world.”

He said that the recent missile attacks on Israel were in self-defense, asserting that Palestinian missiles are fired only after Israeli attacks. He also accused Israel of using Gaza as a “guinea pig” when testing its missile capabilities as tensions between Israel and Iran increase. Continue Reading »

Category: Mid-East News | Tags: hamas, Turkey

Israel: Palestinian economy not stable enough for independent state

The government report obtained by Haaretz, to be presented before donor meeting on Palestinian aid in Brussels, rules Palestinians are still dependent on foreign aid.

Israel is expected to present a report Wednesday at a donor meeting on Palestinian aid in Brussels claiming that the Palestinian Authority is not sufficiently stable to meet the standards of a well-functioning state.

The 44-page report, written by the Foreign Ministry and several other government ministries, will be presented by the Israeli delegation to the representatives at the donor meeting, including Norwegian Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Store who serves as the chairman of the committee, European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, and the Mideast Quartet envoy Tony Blair.

Category: Israel News | Tags: Gaza, Palestinian Authority, Palestinians, West Bank

Intel Banks on Israel for Profit, Hangs Out ‘Help Wanted’ Sign

Intel Israel once again is hanging out the “help wanted” sign as the company says the Israeli branch provides it with 40 percent of its profits.

Maxine Fassberg, general manager of Intel Israel, told the company’s annual news conference in the southern city of Kiryat Gat, 20 miles north of Be’er Sheva, that it will hire another 600 employees this year.

Intel Israel hired 700 new employees last year, bringing its total work force in Israel to 7,800.

Intel logo

“Intel Israel’s exports totaled $22.4 billion in 1999-2011,” said Fassberg, and last year’s exports totaled $2.2 billion, helping Israel’s balance of trade and strengthening the shekel. Continue Reading »

Category: Innovations & Discoveries, Israel News | Tags: Intel

BGU develops new way of testing for cancer

Health Scan: “Fingering” Obesity – why babies should learn to feed themselves; protective Parkinson gene.

A simple blood test is being developed by researchers at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev and Soroka University Medical Center in Beersheba that may provide early detection of many types of cancer.

cancer cell - Photo By Thinkstock/Imagebank

Prof. Joseph Kapelushnik of BGU’s Faculty of Health Sciences and colleagues developed a device that uses infrared light to illuminate cancer cells in less than a teaspoon of blood. The experimental test detects minuscule changes in the blood of a person who has a cancerous growth somewhere, even before the disease has spread.

Category: Innovations & Discoveries, Israel News | Tags: BGU, cancer

Israel to UN: Fire worker over false Gaza Tweet

Ambassador Prosor says OCHA rep in Jerusalem must be dismissed for claiming photo she posted via Twitter was of Palestinian girl killed in IAF strike; Israel found girl was killed in car crash

The Israel Mission to the UN has formally requested that the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) fire its national officer in Jerusalem, Khulood Badawi, due to her blatant anti-Israel activism, Fox News reported over the weekend.

Last week, the report said, Badawi used Twitter to send a picture of a bloodied child in her father’s arms with a caption: “Palestine is bleeding. Another child killed by Israel. Continue Reading »

Category: Israel News, Mid-East News | Tags: Palestinian insitement, UN

Rainwater reaching Israel’s Kinneret fell 13% in two decades

Report also foresees a further decrease in natural water resources due to climate change.

The amount of rainwater reaching Lake Kinneret and groundwater reservoirs in Israel has decreased by 11 percent in the last two decades, according to a recent report by the Israel Water Authority. According to the report, which studied the natural water resources between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River, the decrease in water reaching the Sea of Galilee was even higher, at 13 percent. The report also foresees a further decrease in natural water resources due to climate change.

Staff of the Israel Hydrological Service at the Water Authority carried out a comprehensive study of yearly rainwater in Israel and the overall replenishment volume of water reservoirs after rains.

Category: Israel News | Tags: Water conservation

Erdogan Blocked from German ‘Tolerance Prize’

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan was blocked Saturday by German protesters from receiving an award for “humanity and tolerance.”

The 2012 Steiger Award was originally set to be awarded to Erdogan at a ceremony Saturday night in the western Germany city of Bochum. “Steiger” translates as “miner,” and is intended to reflect the qualities of responsibility, honesty, openness and hard work valued in the North Rhine Westphalia region where the award is presented. The award was created in 2005 under a private initiative.

Recep Tayyip Erdogan - Photo by Reuters

The Turkish prime minister was to receive the prize “in the name of the Turkish people” on the 50th anniversary of the signing of the agreement that allowed hundreds of thousands of Turkish foreign workers to enter Germany. Continue Reading »

Category: Mid-East News | Tags: Erdoğan

Iran rebukes Azeri envoy over terror plot

Azeri ambassador summoned to Iranian Foreign Ministry following arrest of 22 suspects allegedly connected to Revolutionary Guards: ‘Zionist agents attempt to incriminate Iran’

Azeri Ambassador to Iran, Avanshir Akhundov, was summoned to Iranian Foreign Ministry offices on Saturday for a reprimand over the Azeris’ arrest of 22 people allegedly hired by Iran to carry out terrorist attacks against US and Israeli embassies. The suspects were trained in Iran by the Islamic Revolutionary Guards, an Azeri announcement said.

According to a report by Iran’s IRNA news agency, it was suggested in the meeting that agents of the Zionist regime were trying to incriminate Iranians. Continue Reading »

Category: Mid-East News | Tags: Hezbollah, Iran

‘Clinton may decide on Egypt aid next week’

State Dept. says decision forthcoming on military aid; progress on transition to civilian government is key.

US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton

WASHINGTON – US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton could decide next week whether to resume US military aid to Egypt, which has been embroiled in a dispute with the United States over democratic freedoms, the US State Department said on Friday.

State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland told reporters Clinton has not yet made any decisions despite a New York Times report that said the Obama administration planned to resume the assistance.

Congress has already approved $1.3 billion in military aid to Egypt for the current fiscal year, which ends on Sept.

Category: Mid-East News | Tags: Egypt

Fatah accuses Iran of trying to block Palestinian unity

Following Hamas visits to Iran, Fatah says the Islamic Republic is paying Hamas leaders in Gaza to block reconciliation efforts; attempts to implement unity agreement at an impasse.

Hamas PM Ismail Haniyeh arrives in Tehran - Photo By REUTERS/Mortez

Iran is funding some Hamas leaders in the Gaza Strip to encourage them to thwart efforts to achieve reconciliation with Fatah, Azzam al-Ahmed, member of the Fatah Central Committee, said Saturday.

Ahmed’s charges came in response to the visit of two top Hamas leaders, Mahmoud Zahar and Ismail Haniyeh, to Iran in the past few weeks.

“Iran does not want the Palestinians to end their divisions,” Ahmed told the Lebanese newspaper Al-Mustaqbal. Continue Reading »

Category: Israel News | Tags: hamas, Iran

Israeli leftist activists: We are being sexually harassed in the West Bank

Female activists accuse leftist organizations of belittling cases of harassment by Palestinians for the sake of the struggle against the occupation; Palestinian activist: It is unacceptable that Israeli or foreign women that come to protest in solidarity with us be harassed.

“Hi everyone, I’m writing this here because I’m not really sure when the next meeting will be. At the demonstration today (February 10, 2012) in Kfar a-Dik, I noticed looks and finger pointing from the shabab (nickname for young Palestinians) that made me feel some discomfort. They talked amongst themselves, and not with me, but the word that came up quite a lot was ‘slut,’ with glances directed toward me. Continue Reading »

Category: Mid-East News | Tags: Palestinians

IMF: Palestinians may face cuts without more aid

Report estimates financing gap of about $500 million, urges PA to cut expenditures; Aid donors meeting in Brussels next week

WASHINGTON – The International Monetary Fund on Saturday urged donors to meet their aid pledges to the Palestinian Authority, warning that unless funding was forthcoming it would be forced to cut public wages and social benefits to address a deepening fiscal crisis.

The IMF said the aid-dependent Palestinian economy had entered a “difficult phase” with a severe liquidity crunch worsening since last year due to a drop in aid from Western backers and wealthy Gulf states and Israeli restrictions on trade.

Category: Mid-East News | Tags: IMF, Palestinian

Israeli invention: Writing on sewage

Applied CleanTech company develops system capable of producing paper from wastewater residue

For decades we have been using notebooks said to be produced from “woodless paper”. A new Israeli invention is making it possible to produce “scentless paper” – from drain water.

Dr. Refael Aharon of Applied CleanTech has developed a system capable of turning stinking sewage into a renewable and profitable source of energy. How?

About 99.9% of the drainage which comes out of our homes and flows through pipes is water. The remaining 10% are comprised of solid substances which can be used for the production of cellulose, which is used to produce paper. Continue Reading »

Category: Innovations & Discoveries | Tags: Water conservation, water technology

Soldier ‘bans’ Prime Minister from IDF’s Facebook page

Editor of army’s Facebook page deletes a comment left by one Benjamin Netanyahu for being too political, then brags on his personal Facebook page that he ‘banned Bibi.’

When then IDF Spokesman Avi Benayahu told the Herzliya Conference that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had ordered his unit to train soldiers to be “new media warriors,” he probably never imagined that a year later one of those keyboard warriors would brazenly block the prime minister on Facebook.

Netanyahu has a number of Facebook pages: three official pages representing “The Prime Minister of Israel,” in Hebrew, English and Arabic, which are run by editors inside the Prime Minister’s Office, as well a political page run by Likud party spokespeople.

Category: Israel News | Tags: Facebook, IDF, Netanyahu