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Reporting on the Middle East, Science, and Education for February 27, 2009 - ג' אדר תשס"ט
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“Having sung the praises of science as a transnational language, let me turn to as non-transnational a language as there is, a language that is not only not transnational but not even national. I refer here to Yiddish.”
By Leonard Fein, The Forward
Published February 25, 2009, issue of March 06, 2009.
Here are some reasons, even in these gloomy times, to feel good.
In Haifa, there’s a man named Hossam Haick. He’s all of 33 years old, and he is a senior lecturer in the Faculty of Chemical Engineering at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology. Last September, he was honored by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Technology Review, which named him one of 35 young scientists from around the world noteworthy “for achievements which have dramatic ramifications on the world as we know it.”
His distinctive achievement is the development of an electronic device based on nanometer-sized sensors that is essentially an artificial olfactory system which can detect cancer from the breath of the patient — an electronic nose. You exhale on the nose, and you learn whether you have cancer, even at a very early stage, before the tumor has actually formed. You’ll know the result within two or three minutes, and you’ll even know whether the cancer is in your lungs, colon or breast. (As lab work progresses, the goal is to add further discriminatory power.) Detected so early, the successful treatment rate from the detected cancers may be four or five times current rates.
The achievement would be worth noting on its own merits. But there are a couple of elements that make it still more enticing. First, Haick’s lab, the recipient of a $2.2 million grant from the European Union (the largest E.U. grant ever awarded an Israeli scientist) now employs 20 scientists and researchers from Germany, Singapore, China, India, Russia and, of course, Israel. The Israelis include Muslim and Christian Arabs, Russian immigrants and sabras. Science is an international language.
Posted by CNP Webmaster as Christianity, Health Sciences, Judaism, Middle East Report, Recent Posts, Science and Technology on February 27, 2009 - ג' אדר תשס"ט at 5:46 pm
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By Jonathan Ferziger, Bloomberg, February 26, 2009
Feb. 26 (Bloomberg) — Abeer Obaid adored the American International School in Gaza, a preppie refuge where she huddled with her friends in the computer lab and dreamed of going to Yale University.
The landscaped $5 million campus is now a heap of concrete slabs and rubble, blasted by Israel in a predawn air strike Jan. 3 during its 22-day military offensive against Hamas. Rebuilding may take as long as two years, as Obaid, 17, and the other students go to classes in temporary quarters.
The attack was the latest assault on Gaza’s only English- language school, which mixes boys and girls in classes and sends most graduates to Western colleges. In addition to getting caught in the conflict between Israel and Hamas, the school has also been the target of Palestinian militants who have blown up a classroom and kidnapped staff members.
Its travails demonstrate the difficulty of maintaining a bastion of liberalism in an area controlled by an Islamic movement the U.S. designates as a terrorist organization.
“Hamas has created an atmosphere in which people are afraid that they’re going to be accused of committing sin and that has encouraged the radicals to do things like attacking schools,” said Khalil Abu Shamala, director of Gaza’s Al-Dameer Association of Human Rights. “There’s a lot of hostility against anything that has to do with America.”
Posted by CNP Webmaster as Education, Islam, Middle East, Middle East Report, News Articles, Recent Posts on February 27, 2009 - ג' אדר תשס"ט at 9:53 am
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Anna Zacharias and Daniel Bardsley
Virginia-based George Mason University’s Ras Al Khaimah branch is being shut down, leaving many students in the lurch.
The National, February 26, 2009
Students at the local branch of a US university have been told it will close at the end of this term because of budgetary issues between the university and the RAK Government. It means George Mason University’s RAK campus may shut just three years after it launched undergraduate degrees.
In an e-mail to students, Dr Peter Stearns, the George Mason provost, said he was “truly sorry” for the planned closure.
“We have not been able to reach agreement with our RAK partner on a budget and administrative structure that, in our judgement, assures our ability to provide an education that meets Mason standards,” Dr Stearns wrote in the e-mail.
Students now fear they will be unable to transfer credits for work done to other universities in the country.
George Mason opened under an agreement in which the RAK Government would provide the infrastructure and finances through the RAK Education Company (Edrak), and George Mason would oversee academic programmes. In his e-mail, Dr Stearns said he believed Edrak would set up its own university to replace the George Mason operation.
George Mason’s RAK branch, which maintains the same requirements on admission and English as its home campus in Virginia, opened with fewer than 40 undergraduates. It is accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools, a US body, and has a licence approved by the Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research. But its courses are not accredited by the ministry, so students cannot transfer credits to universities with accredited programmes.
Posted by CNP Webmaster as Education, Middle East Report, News Articles, Recent Posts on February 27, 2009 - ג' אדר תשס"ט at 9:44 am
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The rising cost of water and a severe drought in Israel in recent years have forced kibbutzim in the desolate region to look for new sources of revenue. The persistent sunshine in southern Israel and the government’s desire for energy independence have Arava Power poised to cash in
By Neal Sandler, Business Week, February 26, 2009
A promise of double-digit returns nowadays might seem like just another Ponzi scheme to investors. But a group of solar energy fans from a kibbutz, or collective, in southern Israel believes it can offer just that, by using government backing to turn farmland into photovoltaic fields. With water an increasingly scarce commodity in Israel—and both sun and land in abundance—the band of new-age socialists envisages turning the desert into a vast solar power plant. The first 5-megawatt field at Kibbutz Ketura is expected to be up and running by early next year.
“Within five years we’ll have 200 megawatts of photovoltaic fields on more than a dozen kibbutzim in southern Israel,” predicts Yosef Abramowitz, president and founder of Arava Power Co. Under a recently announced Israeli government subsidy for electricity produced by solar power plants, that translates into $110 million in revenues. The money would go directly to the kibbutzim and a group of mostly American investors in Israel’s first green energy utility.
The subsidy is part of a government initiative approved last month to produce at least 10% of Israel’s electricity from renewable sources by 2020. Another recent decision requires the government-controlled Israel Electric Corp. to purchase electricity generated by renewable energy producers under 20-year contracts—a way of ensuring long-term demand and price stability, and thus encouraging investment.
Posted by CNP Webmaster as Alternative Energy, Business and Commerce, Climate Change, Middle East Report, Recent Posts, Solar Energy on February 27, 2009 - ג' אדר תשס"ט at 9:30 am
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Reprinted from World Public Opinion.org
Support for Including Islamist Groups in Elections
Full Report (PDF)
Questionnaire/Methodology (PDF)
A study of public opinion in predominantly Muslim countries reveals that very large majorities continue to renounce the use of attacks on civilians as a means of pursuing political goals. At the same time large majorities agree with al Qaeda’s goal of pushing the United States to remove its military forces from all Muslim countries and substantial numbers, in some cases majorities, approve of attacks on US troops in Muslim countries.
People in majority-Muslim countries express mixed feelings about al Qaeda and other Islamist groups that use violence, perhaps due to this combination of support for al Qaeda’s goals and disapproval of its terrorist methods.
However large majorities support allowing Islamist groups to organize parties and participate in democratic elections. In some majority-Muslim countries, Islamist groups, such as the Muslim Brotherhood, are forbidden from participating in elections.
Steven Kull, director of WorldPublicOpinion.org, comments, “The US faces a conundrum. US efforts to fight terrorism with an expanded military presence in Muslim countries appear to have elicited a backlash and to have bred some sympathy for al Qaeda, even as most reject its terrorist methods.”
The survey is part of an ongoing study of Egypt, Pakistan, and Indonesia, with additional polling in Turkey, Jordan, the Palestinian territories, Azerbaijan and Nigeria. It was conducted by WorldPublicOpinion.org with support from the START Consortium at the University of Maryland.
Posted by CNP Webmaster as Islam, Middle East Report, Monotheistic Religions, News Articles, Recent Posts on February 26, 2009 - ב' אדר תשס"ט at 11:33 am
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By David Frankfurter, February 25, 2009
I have burned many electrons over the years highlighting reports about the abuse of financial aid to the Palestinians. The Funding for Peace Coalition probably did the most comprehensive job back in late 2004 with their report Managing European Taxpayers’ Money: Supporting The Palestinian Arabs – A Study In Transparency. Not much seems to have changed since then.
The Palestinian Authority continues to be led by the same corrupt cronies, and continues to provide “terrorist insurance” payments to imprisoned murderers and their families. The Abbas led PA continues to incite violence against Israel through its public statements, television shows and hate education. And the JCPA reports that the internationally funded PA still has Hamas and other terrorists on the payroll.
In Gaza, the criminal Hamas government has been caught red handed time and again stealing international aid – either selling it back to the people to fund their war crimes, or diverting it directly to their guerilla terrorist forces. And Hamas keeps firing rockets into Israeli towns using their own human shields every day. And the smuggling tunnels bring in more weapons all the time.
Posted by CNP Webmaster as Middle East Report, Opinion, Recent Posts on February 26, 2009 - ב' אדר תשס"ט at 8:02 am
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Israeli forces took extraordinary steps not to harm Gazan civilians and yes, claims about misuse of weapons are being investigated
By Uri Dromi, Guardian UK, February 24, 2009
Foreign journalists who entered Gaza when the operation was over reported that the initial stories about the damage were grossly exaggerated.
In the wake of the Israeli operation in Gaza, aimed at putting an end to years of Hamas harassment of the south of Israel, there are now media reports about the possible use by the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) of white phosphorus and flechette shells. Now Amnesty International issues a report reiterating these claims.
Some words about these weapons.
White phosphorous is a chemical substance dispersed in artillery shells, used primarily to conceal the movement of troops. It burns on contact with oxygen and creates a smokescreen to mask the military manoeuvre. Unfortunately, it may have a negative side effect: when it comes into contact with people, it causes severe burns.
Flechettes are an anti-personnel weapon designed to strike a large number of enemy men. Basically, they are tiny metal darts packed into120mm shells. These shells explode in mid-air and scatter many flechettes in a conical pattern over an area around 300 metres wide and 100 metres long.
As frightening as they sound, these weapons are not banned by international law. Therefore, when the Israeli army used them in Gaza, it did nothing unprecedented. Peter Herby, the head of the Red Cross’s mines-arms unit, told the Associated Press: “In some of the strikes in Gaza, it’s pretty clear that phosphorus was used.” However, he added: “It’s not very unusual to use phosphorus to create smoke or illuminate a target. We have no evidence to suggest it’s being used in any other way.”
Posted by CNP Webmaster as Middle East Report, Opinion on February 25, 2009 - א' אדר תשס"ט at 11:46 am
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By Richard L. Cravatts, American Thinker, February 24, 2009
The idea that one group of college students believe they can and should decide what acceptable speech is at any given moment is a particularly chilling concept, particularly when those same students have defined their political beliefs with an unwavering support for the jihadist aggression of groups that threaten not only Israel, but the West, as well.
The fragile ceasefire between Hamas and Israel in the recent Gaza incursion may have brought a tentative peace to that region, but on campuses in California — the veritable ground zero of anti-Israel sentiment in the academy — the debate over the 60-year conflict has gained a new, and more insidious, momentum as student demonstrations, protests, and denunciations of racist Zionism, a “brutal occupation,” and “genocide” of Arabs were heard on campuses worldwide.
The virulence of anti-Israelism and antisemitism at The University of California, Irvine campus, for instance, has been so flagrant and endemic in recent years that it actually prompted an investigation by the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights, the findings of which were issued in a damning 2007 report. But San Francisco State University is not far behind in the ignoble way it has enabled its Muslim students’ organizations to create a veritable reign of terror on campus against Jewish and pro-Israel students, while simultaneously attempting to silence voices of opposition, a situation made evident this January when SFSU’s College Republicans were once again pushed into the limelight for their outspoken challenges to the school’s ubiquitous Palestinianism.
Playing off the recent indignity suffered by former president Bush when an insolent reporter hurled a shoe at the President’s head during a press conference, the College Republicans had set up a booth to let students who so wished to sign an anti-Hamas, anti-terror petition and throw a shoe at a Hamas flag. Deeply “offended” by the Republicans for daring to condemn terrorists, rather than the Israeli state in defending its civilians from genocidal attack, members of SFSU’s General Union of Palestinian Students (GUPS) and socialist club overturned the table, seized the Hamas flag, and were physically aggressive enough in their assault of the Republican students to result in two of their members, Muhammad Abdullah and Jeremy Stern, being put under arrest.
Posted by CNP Webmaster as Judaism, Middle East Report, Opinion, Recent Posts on February 25, 2009 - א' אדר תשס"ט at 7:53 am
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Royal seal impressions were discovered in excavations of the Israel Antiquities Authority at Umm Tuba, in the southern hills of Jerusalem.
Press Release, Israel Antiquities Authority, February 23, 2009
A large building that dates to the time of the First and Second Temples, in which there was an amazing wealth of inscriptions, was discovered in a salvage excavation conducted by Zubair Adawi, on behalf of the Israel Antiquities Authority, in the village of Umm Tuba in southern Jerusalem (between Zur Bahar and the Har Homa quarter), prior to construction work by a private contractor.
Considering the limited area of the excavation and the rural nature of the structure that was revealed, the excavators were surprised to discover in it so many royal seal impressions that date to the reign of Hezekiah, King of Judah (end of the eighth century BCE). Four “LMLK” type impressions were discovered on handles of large jars that were used to store wine and oil in royal administrative centers. These were found together with the seal impressions of two high ranking officials named Ahimelekh ben Amadyahu and Yehokhil ben Shahar, who served in the kingdom’s government. The Yehokhil seal was stamped on one of the LMLK impressions before the jar was fired in a kiln and this is a very rare instance in which two such impressions appear together on a single handle.
Posted by CNP Webmaster as Judaism, Middle East Report, News Articles, Recent Posts on February 24, 2009 - ל' שבט תשס"ט at 10:43 am
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By Rachel Neiman, Israel21C, February 22, 2009
A new US-Israel agreement of cooperation in renewable energy was announced at the opening of the 2nd Eilat-Eilot International Renewable Energy Conference last week. The US-Israel Energy Cooperation Act is an international collaboration aimed at creating a renewable energy storage initiative to reduce the world’s oil dependence.
The Cooperation Act will fund eligible joint ventures between US and Israeli businesses. Two million dollars, or $1 million from each country, has already been allocated for this year with a significant increase expected in future years.
At the opening, Jonathan Shrier, acting assistant secretary at the Office of Policy and International Affairs of the US Department of Energy, told the conference plenum that the agreement had the support of Dr. Steven Chu, the new US Secretary of Energy. “The secretary sees the power of international arrangements,” such as those brokered by the Binational US-Israel R&D Foundation (BIRD), the US-Israel Binational Science Foundation and others. “These various parties are involved because we need to push R&D of already available technologies and not neglect the cutting edge research at the basic science level.”
Shrier told ISRAEL21c that, while the US has similar agreements with countries such as Japan and the EU, “This one is special because we have a partner who brings a lot to the table. Israel is world-renowned in the field and we meet as equals,” he said.
US-Israel already in cooperation
Examples of US-Israel cooperation in renewable energy are already underway, noted Shrier. Seambiotic and Better Place, have already received approval. Seambiotic is the first company in the world utilizing flue gas from coal burning power stations for algae cultivation. The company aims to grow and process marine microalgae using an ecologically based environmental system to reduce air pollution and global warming. Better Place is a venture-backed company aiming to reduce global dependency on oil through the creation of an electric car network with a swappable battery.
Posted by CNP Webmaster as Alternative Energy, Clean Coal, Climate Change, Middle East Report, Recent Posts, Science and Technology, Solar Energy on February 23, 2009 - כ"ט שבט תשס"ט at 1:56 pm
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