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

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Israeli qualifier defeats No. 1 at U.S. Open With top-seeded Justine Henin-Hardenne on the other side of the net, serving for the match, Tzipi Obziler pulled a stunner at the U.S. Open on Thursday. The 31-year-old qualifier, making her Open debut, broke the No. 1 player in the world and then did it again to steal a set. But then, Obziler is not an ordinary player. She was the only veteran of the Israeli Army in this tournament.

Israeli Innovation Improves Underwater Photography. The quality of underwater photographs is on the verge of improving drastically due to an algorithm developed by Israeli researchers. The innovative new method used radically improves underwater photography by combining the Israeli algorithm with a filter normally used in land photography.

Big Night For Israeli Film. 'The Syrian Bride', an Israeli film, had a big night at the Montreal World Film Festival. The film took home four awards including the Grand Prix of the Americas, the top prize.

Israeli drones used by Arizona border police. Authorities in the southwestern state of Arizona have begun employing Israeli-built Unmanned Aerial Vehicles in border security, rescue and drug interdiction missions along the border with Mexico. The aircraft are being used by the state of Arizona in a special operation aimed at tightening security along the 2,000-mile Mexican border. Two Hermes 450 UAVs, developed and manufactured by Elbit Systems, have logged over 477 flight hours in missions along the U.S.-Mexico border, including several rescue missions.

Israeli IPOs gathering momentum. This is looking to be a hot month for Israeli IPOs in the United States. Following on the heels of Ness Technologies' $140 million initial public offering last week, at least two companies -- Shopping.com and GuruNet Corp. -- are expected to go public in the coming weeks. Shopping.com, whose Web site provides comparison shopping for consumer merchandise, is slated to hold the pricing stage of its share issue next Wednesday, with trading on the Nasdaq beginning the next day under the ticker symbol SHOP. The company, which was created when DealTime bought consumer-review site Epinions.com in April 2003, hopes to sell 5 million shares for $14-$16 apiece, raising $70m.-$80m. Its shareholders are expected to piggyback with another 1.9m. shares, raising an additional $26m.-$30m.

Israeli film wins at Hamburg festival Yet another Israeli movie has won a prize at an international festival, this time To Take A Wife, which won the critics' prize at the Hamburg Film Festival. The film, directed by the brother-sister directing team of Shlomi and Ronit Elkabetz, stars Ronit as a discontented wife in a Sephardi family. Last month, the film won a critics' prize and an audience award at the Venice International Film Festival. This has been a banner year for Israeli movies abroad; they have taken home 18 awards at several international festivals. The biggest winners have been Keren Yedaya's Or at Cannes, which won five awards, including the Camera d'Or Award, and Eran Riklis's The Syrian Bride, which won four at the Montreal World Film Festival, including that festival's top honor, the Grande Prix des Ameriques.

Israeli Researchers Slows Down Multiple Sclerosis Israeli researchers found that intravenous immunoglobulin therapy applied after the first signs of MS significantly reduced the probability of developing clinically definite multiple sclerosis. Patients receiving the therapy also suffered fewer brain lesions. The research was conducted by doctors at the Sheba Medical Center in Tel-Hoshomer.

Israeli judoka claims bronze in under-20 world championships. Israeli judoka Alice Schlesinger, 16, won a bronze medal at the junior world championships in Budapest on Saturday. She defeated a Chinese opponent to claim the medal. Schlesinger, who fights in the up to 57 kilogram category, defeated two opponents on Thursday and then lost on a technicality in her third fight, before winning her repechage bout and earning a place in the bronze medal clash. Schlesinger was the youngest competitor who participated in the championships."

Israelis Win Nobel for Chemistry!. Israelis Aaron Ciechanover and Avram Hershko won the 2004 Nobel Prize in chemistry Wednesday for discovering a key way cells destroy unwanted proteins starting with a chemical "kiss of death." Their work provides the basis for developing new therapies for diseases such as cervical cancer and cystic fibrosis. It's the first time an Israeli has won a Nobel science prize, although Israelis have won peace and literature Nobels. "I am as proud for myself as I am for my country," Ciechanover said.

Israeli team returns victorious from Paralympics. The Israeli Paralympic team returned Wednesday from Athens sporting 13 medals -- 4 gold, 4 silver and 5 bronze.

Israeli Innovators Honored. Two Israelis were named among the world's 100 top innovators. Kinneret Keren and Yaakov Benenson were both commended by Technology Review's innovation round-up this month. Keren was honored for her research at Israel's Technion - Israel Institute of Technology that used DNA to create the world's first self-assembling nanotransistor. Benenson was named for his research on miniaturizing medical techniques. Benenson is a doctoral student at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot. His machines 'represent a quantum leap not only in medicine but also in DNA computing,' said George Church, director of the Center for Computational Genetics at Harvard Medical School. "

Israeli researchers build first stem cell pacemaker. Imagine a day when doctors can repair the damaged parts of a heart which has suffered a heart attack with regenerated tissue that will contain a built-in natural pacemaker. The prospect of using human embryonic stem cells to treat heart attacks and other diseases appears a step closer as the result of a successful Israeli experiment that showed that the versatile cells can serve as 'biological pacemakers', correcting faulty heart rhythms when injected into the failing hearts of pigs. The Israeli breakthrough could result in developments that would offer relief for hundreds of thousands of people around the world who now use artificial pacemakers to regulate the beating of their heart because the normal cells that generate the rhythm work irregularly, or because they have a break in the cell system of the heart used to spread the natural pacemaking nerve signal. "

Israeli Pen Enables E-Handwriting. A new Israeli-developed electronic pen enables writing on ordinary paper to be saved to computer instantly. The pen enables handwriting to be entered directly into a computer, cell phone or personal digital assistant (PDA), enabling handwritten data to be sent via e-mail.

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.