Good news from the 100th smallest country, with less than 1/1000th of the world's population.

Israel!

Good News from
Home | Comments? | Subscribe | Archives |

Israeli Lee Korsitz - youngest women's world windsurfing champion ever
Lee Korsitz, 19, sailed to a gold medal in the 2003 World Mistral Championship, the first Israeli woman ever to win a world championship.

Israel to launch space telescope on Indian rocket Israel plans to send a telescope into space on an Indian rocket in 2005 as part of growing cooperation between the two countries. The Israel Space Agency has already spent US$15 million on the telescope, which is to be used to map new galaxies, The Indian Express newspaper said. The data from the telescope will be purely scientific and will be shared by the two countries, it said.

Winner of the first Alzheimer's Disease Drug Discovery Award goes to Israeli scientist . The Institute for the Study of Aging (ISOA) announced that the Alzheimer's Drug Discovery Award for 2003 is awarded to Israeli scientist Marta Weinstock, B. Pharm, M.Sc., Ph.D. The award and a prize of $100,000 is given to a scientist whose innovative research has made a significant impact on the discovery and development of new medicines for Alzheimer's disease.

Israeli Equestrians Riding High in the Saddle Young Israeli girl has won the European champion of the Western Riding event for youth in the 14th European Quarter Horse Championships.

U.S. Supreme Court Justice says U.S. can learn from Israel's decisions on human rights . The United States could learn from compromises Israeli courts have struck to balance terrorism and human rights concerns, Supreme Court Justice Stephen G. Breyer said last week according to AP. Israeli judges have adopted what Breyer called "intermediate solutions'" that acknowledge the security risks the country faces, the justice told an audience at Columbia Law School. "There are many solutions that ... solve nothing to everyone's satisfaction but are not quite as restrictive of human rights as an extreme solution, nor as dangerous as some other extremes," Breyer said. He gave an example drawn from Israeli courts of terror defendants who might try to use visits from lawyers to communicate terror instructions from behind bars. The security risk might make it impossible to allow such defendants to receive visits from any lawyer they choose, Breyer said, but not impossible to ensure a defendant has a lawyer nonetheless. Defendants could still choose lawyers from an approved list, Breyer said.

Burst in Tourism to Israel 'I don't recall anything like it in all my years in the travel business,' says Meir Weingarten, President of Ariel Tours in Brooklyn, New York - referring to the tremendously increased demand for tour packages to Israel in the coming months.

Israeli Basktestball Team in Top 8 in European Quarter-Finals! Israel's all-star basketball team reached the quarter-finals in Europe with a dramatic and surprise win over Slovenia yesterday. After trailing by 17 points in the first quarter, and then surrendering a 10-point lead in the final quarter, a dramatic basket by Tal Burstein gave the Israeli team a 78-76 victory.

Israelis Discover Anti-Cancer Enzyme. Israeli scientists say they may have discovered why some smokers develop lung cancer and others do not. They say smokers with low levels of a particular enzyme are 100 times more likely to get the disease than those with normal levels. And non-smokers with low levels of the OGG enzyme are almost five times as likely to develop the disease than non-smokers with normal levels of OGG.

Israel offers support to India to fight terrorism Pledging to fight global terrorism, Israel on Tuesday offered India both material and moral support in fighting the menace. "We can train and teach and supply material we have developed in fighting terrorism. We have developed a very advanced technology...," Israeli Deputy Prime Minister Yosef Lapid told reporters after a meeting with All India Anti-Terrorist Front chairman M S Bitta.

Israelis develop West Nile vaccine Israeli microbiologists have developed the first passive vaccine against the mosquito-borne West Nile virus, which has killed thousands and infected many more around the world. In the U.S. alone, it has killed 282 and infected 4,156. "

Israel21c: "Peres to deliver keynote Nanotech address at U.S. conference. When Shimon Peres appears in Washington DC this week to deliver a crucial keynote address, it will not be in any of his current roles as Labor party leader, Nobel peace prize laureate, nor even as a highly-respected elder statesman for Israel. Instead, Mr. Peres will be speaking in his newest role: that of nanotechnologist. That role was taken on last spring with a speech given before the Knesset, during which Peres unequivocally declared Israel's need to be among those nations leading the development and commercialization of this fundamental new technology. "

Israeli Jets Break Auschwitz Silence Three Israeli Air Force F-15 fighter jets thundered over the Auschwitz death camp in Poland on Thursday afternoon. In the cockpits, the Israeli aircrews carried the names of all those recorded murdered in Auschwitz on this date exactly 60 years ago. They had picked the names out of the records at the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial in Jerusalem prior to flying to Poland last week. The jets followed the railroad tracks leading into the camp and crematoriums at Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp. "They are passing over this most awful place on earth, a place where the allies did nothing to even show they were even trying to save us," said Prof. Shevach Weiss, Israel's ambassador to Warsaw. "They asked me here in Poland why we were disturbing the quiet (at Auschwitz). This quiet is the silence that was forced upon us."

Israeli Scientists Crack GSM Mobile Call Security TEL AVIV (Reuters) - An Israeli scientist said on Wednesday his team had found a way to break into mobile phone calls made on the popular GSM network, allowing eavesdroppers to listen in on calls and even take on a caller's identity. The GSM Association, representing vendors who sell the world's largest mobile system, which is used by more than 860 million consumers in 197 countries. Professor Eli Biham of the Technion Institute in Haifa said he was shocked when doctoral student Elad Barkan told him he had found a fundamental error in the GSM (Global System for Mobile communications) code.

Facts about the 100th smallest country, with less than 1/1000th of the world's population.


  • Israel has the highest ratio of university degrees to the population in the world.
  • Israel is the only liberal democracy in the Middle East.
  • In 1984 and 1991, Israel airlifted a total of 22,000 Ethiopian Jews at risk in Ethiopia to safety in Israel.
  • When Golda Meir was elected Prime Minister of Israel in 1969, she became the world's second elected female leader in modern times.
  • When the U. S. Embassy in Nairobi, Kenya was bombed in 1998, Israeli rescue teams were on the scene within a day - and saved three victims from the rubble.
  • Israel has the third highest rate of entrepreneurship - and the highest rate among women and among people over 55 - in the world.
  • Relative to its population, Israel is the largest immigrant-absorbing nation on earth. Immigrants come in search of democracy, religious freedom, and economic opportunity.
  • Israel was the first nation in the world to adopt the Kimberly process, an international standard that certifies diamonds as "conflict free."
  • Israel has the world's second highest per capita of new books.
  • Israel is the only country in the world that entered the 21st century with a net gain in its number of trees, made more remarkable because this was achieved in an area considered mainly desert.
  • Israel has more museums per capita than any other country.
  • Israel leads the world in the number of scientists and technicians in the workforce, with 145 per 10,000, as opposed to 85 in the U.S., over 70 in Japan, and less than 60 in Germany. With over 25% of its work force employed in technical professions. Israel places first in this category as well.
  • Israel has the highest per capita ratio of scientific publications in the world by a large margin, as well as one of the highest per capita rates of patents filed.
  • In proportion to its population, Israel has the largest number of startup companies in the world. In absolute terms, Israel has the largest number of startup companies than any other country in the world, except the US (3,500 companies mostly in hi-tech).
  • Israel is ranked #2 in the world for VC funds right behind the US.
  • Israel has the highest percentage in the world of home computers per capita.
  • Outside the United States and Canada, Israel has the largest number of NASDAQ listed companies
  • Israel has the highest average living standards in the Middle East. The per capita income in 2000 is over $17,500, exceeding that of the UK.
  • With more than 3,000 high-tech companies and start-ups, Israel has the highest concentration of hi-tech companies in the world (apart from the Silicon Valley).
  • With an aerial arsenal of over 250 F-16s, Israel has the largest fleet of the aircraft outside of the US.
  • Israel's $100 billion economy is larger than all of its immediate neighbors combined.
  • The cell phone was developed in Israel by Motorola-Israel. Motorola built its largest development center worldwide in Israel.
  • Windows NT software was developed by Microsoft-Israel.
  • The Pentium MMX Chip technology was designed in Israel at Intel.
  • Voice mail technology was developed in Israel.
  • AOL's instant message program was designed by an Israeli software company.
  • Both Microsoft and Cisco built their only R&D facilities outside the US in Israel
  • The city of Beer Sheva in Israel has the highest percentage in the world of Chess Grand Masters per capita – one for every 22,875 residents.
  • On a per capita basis, Israel has the largest number of biotech start-ups
  • Israel has the largest raptor migration in the world, with hundreds of thousands of African birds of prey crossing as they fan out into Asia.
  • Twenty-four percent of Israel's workforce holds university degrees -- ranking third in the industrialized world, after the United States and Holland -- and 12 percent hold advanced degrees.