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 surgical team starts saving hearts in China. A 16-person Israeli surgical team arrived in north China's Hebei Province Friday to help children with heart defects, said the Israeli Embassy in China. The team from an Israeli humanitarian project called 'Save A Child's Heart' will first go to the Children's Hospital of Hebei Province and then to the Hospital Affiliated to the Gansu Provincial Medical University in northwest China, on a 14-day tour of duty. An embassy spokesman said the medical team was on its fifth visit to China since 1998. The team would operate on more than 20 children suffering congenital heart defects and run a three-day training course for over 50 medical workers. The team has performed heart operations on about 50 patients from the two provinces, including two who were sent to Israel for surgical treatment. The project was initiated by the late Dr. Amram Cohen in 1995. It is the world's largest humanitarian project to provide urgently-needed pediatric heart surgery and follow-up care and many services are free.

Fighting Cancer With Israeli ResearchThirty years of Israeli research at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa has come to fruition in a new drug to fight cancer, which was recently approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration."

Forbes Manazine: Israeli Amnon Landan named 'Entrepreneur of The Year' At one time he spent four years hunting terrorists in Lebanon with the Israel Defense Forces. Now the company he leads--Mercury Interactive (nasdaq: MERQ - news - people ), in Sunnyvale, Calif.--is one of the hottest software firms in the world. Its tools catch glitches in software projects, make crucial Web and business programs run smoothly and help automate the job of running information technology departments. Revenue is up 36% annually since 1997 and 24% in the past year (the company ranks 15 on our list). Sales should reach $500 million for 2003, with $85 million in net profit and more than $1 billion in the bank.

World First! An Optical Microprocessor! Small Israeli processor as fast as a super-computer Israeli company Lenslet will next week reveal a revolutionary electro-optic processor, which operates at the imaginary speed of 8 tera (8,000 billion) calculation operations per second. This is 1000 times faster than the current state-of-the-art. The new optical processor will be revealed at the Microtech 2003 exhibition, which will be held in Tel Aviv, and at the exhibition for military technology, MILCOM, which will take place next week in the US. The revolutionary processor was developed over three years by the company's research and development team in Israel, with the support of a group of well-known professors in the optics, physics and signal processing fields. Despite its amazing processing speed, it is no larger than a regular electronic card, but its capability is equal to the super-computers of the super-powers, which are constructed from a network of dozens of powerful computers.

Israeli scientists develop new technique of cancer diagnose. Many patients can avoid the pain and risk of biopsies used to diagnose solid malignant tumors thanks to a new diagnostic imaging technique. The cost-effective technique was developed by a research team in the famous Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel. The technique will enable doctors to distinguish between malignant tumors and benign lumps by scanning instead of cutting. The technique has been recently approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for detecting breast and prostate cancer, and it is slated for distribution as early as next year.

FedEx Express selects Israeli enhanced vision system. Elbit Systems Ltd. announced that its US subsidiary's first Enhanced Vision System will be installed on large air transport class aircraft operated by FedEx. The product, called All Weather Window EVS, will be standard equipment on the FedEx Express Boeing MD-10 and MD-11 and Airbus A300 and A310 aircraft fleet. The EVS system employs an advanced InfraRed (IR) sensor which presents an image projected on a Head Up Display and Head Down Display, providing the pilot with a forward-looking picture overlaying the outside view. The system allows the pilot to view lights and ground features, such as runways, aircraft and buildings, at night and in low visibility conditions.

Israeli Gesher Theater visits Moscow for first time. The Israeli Gesher Theater starts its tour of Moscow on Thursday, October 9. The Moscow critics have already called the tour the biggest event of the theater season. "

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.