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Reporting on the Middle East, Science, and Education for October 2, 2008 - ג' תשרי תשס"ט
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By Karin Kloosterman, Israel 21C, October 02, 2008
The cost of housing in Israel’s capital city Jerusalem is soaring, the disparity between rich and poor is growing wider, while the trust between Arabs and Jews remains thin.
The issue of poverty is especially dire for Jerusalem’s poorer Orthodox Jews and religious Muslims who are gearing up for major holidays at this time of the year. The Jews are already making advance preparations for the Jewish New Year in late September, while the month-long half day of fasting - and then feasting - for the Muslim holiday of Ramadan is underway.
Like in America during Thanksgiving and Christmas time, it’s easy to see in Israel how the poor suffer during holiday time. There are reports of food insecurity in the local newspapers and food banks beg for donations. Charitable acts take on a deeper meaning for those that have the means to give - and they do give. But what about the rest of the year? Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by CNP Webmaster as Business and Commerce, Islam, Judaism, Middle East Report, Monotheistic Religions, Recent Posts on October 2, 2008 - ג' תשרי תשס"ט at 9:50 am
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By William R. Thomson, 321Gold, Oct 1, 2008
The United States prides itself on being the home of free market capitalism, governed by the rule of law. However, the rapidly developing capital market crisis demonstrates once again that, faced with a systemic crisis, rules and ideology take second place to pragmatism. A similar incident happened on 15 August 1971 when Nixon arbitrarily ditched the solemn US international pledge to honour the Bretton Woods Agreements making the dollar convertible into gold at US$35 an ounce. Cynics might say that the US lives by the Gold Rule: he who has the gold makes the rules.
Hence, the unprecedented developments in which the free market took second place to untrammelled state socialism as the national debt was effectively doubled in the blink of an eye as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac with their $5 trillion indebtedness were nationalised, to be followed in rapid succession by the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers and the nationalisation of the world’s largest insurance company AIG at a cost of $85 billion. Merrill Lynch was forced into a shotgun marriage and the last two major investment banks were forced to convert to commercial banks to stay in business and get the support of the Federal Reserve Board. Then Washington Mutual, the fourth largest bank was closed down and Wachovia, that two weeks earlier was touted as the saviour of Merrill Lynch, was folded into Citicorp. Finally, in an effort to solve a systemic crisis, there is the unprecedented proposal to use $700 billion of taxpayer funds to buy the toxic debt of a banking system bordering on bankruptcy. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by CNP Webmaster as Business and Commerce, Opinion, Recent Posts on October 2, 2008 - ג' תשרי תשס"ט at 7:03 am
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by Andy Sambidge, Arabian Business, 31 August 2008
A group of UAE companies on Sunday announced a partnership with a US organisation in an initiative to build desperately needed homes for those living in poverty.
Property developer ETA Star, Dubai Lifestyle City, Homes r Us and Star Cement have teamed up with the Habitat for Humanity International (HFHI).
ETA Star and its partners will donate a percentage of their total sales during the holy month of Ramadan towards building homes for the destitute in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Ethiopia.
The initiative follows ETA Star’s Homes for the Homeless programme last year when a contribution of two million dirhams was made to the Red Crescent Authority.
Rapid population growth and urbanization has added to the urgency of the housing need.
Posted by CNP Webmaster as Business and Commerce, Middle East Report, News Articles, Recent Posts on August 31, 2008 - ל' אב תשס"ח at 9:50 am
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By Avi Bar-Eli, The Marker Correspondent, August 28, 2008
Israel’s first solar power station is up and running. Moshe Tenne built the plant on his Negev farm for NIS 1.3 million, and he estimates he will sell NIS 220,000 of electricity a year to the national power grid.
The state incentives to produce solar power took effect on July 1; they allow home and industrial customers to install solar power panels and receive NIS 2.01 per kilowatt hour for the electricity they produce compared with the NIS 0.50 per kilowatt hour they pay the Israel Electric Corporation.
The new agreement is for photovoltaic cell array technology, and the power produced is intended for the producer’s use, while any extra power may be sold to the IEC. The state limits household power plants to 15 kilowatts, and business customers to 50 kilowatts.
Tenne inaugurated his 50-kilowatt solar array this week. It will provide two-thirds of the needs of his central Negev farm, located on the region’s so-called Wine Route. The Tenne family established its farm three years ago, and makes its living from a sophisticated dairy barn with 70 cows producing about 800,000 liters of milk a year.
Posted by CNP Webmaster as Alternative Energy, Business and Commerce, Middle East Report, Science and Technology, Solar Energy on August 27, 2008 - כ"ו אב תשס"ח at 9:10 pm
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Funding will help 639 small businesses and farmers save energy, improve operations
USDA Press Release, August 27, 2008
BISMARCK, North Dakota, August 27, 2008 -Agriculture Secretary Ed Schafer today announced that 639 individuals and businesses in 43 states and the Virgin Islands have been selected to receive $35 million in grants and loan guarantees for renewable energy systems or to improve energy efficiency in farm and business operations.
"America is a world leader in renewable energy and energy efficiency," Schafer said. "These projects are good for business, good for the economy, good for jobs, and they help secure more self sufficient energy resources for our country."
The grants and loan guarantees are being awarded through USDA Rural Development’s Section 9006 Renewable Energy Systems and Energy Efficiency Improvements program. The program provides financial assistance to agricultural producers and rural small businesses to support renewable energy projects across a wide range of technologies encompassing biomass (including anaerobic digesters), geothermal, hydrogen, solar and wind energy. It also provides support for energy efficiency improvements, helping recipients reduce energy consumption and improve operations. Of the $35 million announced today, $27.5 million are grants and $7.4 million are guaranteed loans.
Posted by CNP Webmaster as Alternative Energy, Business and Commerce, Recent Posts, Science and Technology on August 27, 2008 - כ"ו אב תשס"ח at 8:57 pm
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By Karin Kloosterman, Israel 21C, July 24, 2008
As soon as the summer is over and the fall begins, people in the northern United States start winterizing their vehicles. With more than 250 million cars on the road, and winter tires needed for many, it’s frightening to imagine where all those old tires go.
Most people do not realize that old tires are a health, safety and environmental hazard. Disease-carrying mosquitoes nest in them, and if they catch fire, they can burn for weeks, releasing toxic fumes into the air, and chemicals into our groundwater.
An Israeli company based in the Ukraine, has found a safe and environmentally friendly way to dispose of old tires: the pollution-free process consumes no energy and produces attractive byproducts, such as gas for your car.
Using an electromagnetic field and depriving the system of oxygen, Coral Group applies its “soft pyrolysis” method to break down old tires into basic components. Pyrolysis is a process that decomposes organic materials in the total absence of oxygen. And in Coral’s method, attractive end products are created. They include kerosene (jet fuel), benzene (automobile fuel), diesel, oil and black carbon.
Posted by CNP Webmaster as Alternative Energy, Business and Commerce, Climate Change, Middle East Report, Science and Technology on July 27, 2008 - כ"ד תמוז תשס"ח at 5:01 am
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By Mishaal Al Gergawi , The National, July 17, 2008
By then, 2040, Dubai will serve as the Brussels of the Gulf. The Khaleeji dinar will be priced against a weighted basket of dollars, euros and yuans. Dubai will have far eclipsed Singapore as a re-export and maritime powerhouse, while Hong Kong will be indirectly subsidised by China.
While protectionists in Washington and Brussels quarrel with Opec, a more significant era is beginning elsewhere. In four generations, this era will see the establishment of a new world power; a power arising out of a peaceful collaboration of countries with ever-closer domestic and foreign policies.
It will begin far from both the West and the Far East: in the Middle East – but not in Baghdad, Damascus or Cairo, the historical beacons of knowledge and power. No, it will begin in Dubai. Slowly, it will spread outwards, encompassing Abu Dhabi and Doha. A decade or so later, Kuwait and Saudi will join the accelerating movement.
This collective of realms will owe its birth to its wealth of oil, but the real impetus will derive from the subsequent redeployment of that wealth. This will be due as much to a number of cooperation programmes with Asian countries as it will to investment in European industrial giants. But first and foremost, its rise will be an indirect result of the democratisation project of the Middle East conceived by the US Republican party.
After the Gulf states have adopted many parts of the programme, this region, gradually but steadily, will find itself becoming one of the new centres of the world. My children, not yet born, will be distinctively pro-Western professionals who will read the new-New Yorker, intern in Shanghai, and may even characterise themselves as pragmatic neo-existentialists, but with a dream.
Posted by CNP Webmaster as Business and Commerce, Islam, Middle East Report, Opinion, Recent Posts on July 20, 2008 - י"ז תמוז תשס"ח at 3:17 am
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by Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu, Arutz Sheva, July 18, 2008
(IsraelNN.com) First it was Citibank. Now it’s Barclay’s and New York City’s Chrysler Building skyscraper. Muslim Arabs are buying out collapsing Western banks and businesses and gaining growing international power, but some Arab investors are worried their investments may go down the drain with the American economy.
The current financial crisis in the United States has spread to other countries because of a massive debt that was not backed by enough real and liquid collateral. Banks and businesses gasping for financial breath are up for sale at basement prices, but no one is certain if the basement is the bottom.
“The possibility remains that more Arab white knights will be sought to rescue ailing financial institutions,” wrote Dr. Mohammed Ramady, a former banker and Visiting Associate Professor at the King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals in the Financial Adviser magazine. He said he fears that Arab investors will end up chasing their investments with more money to keep them from going under.
The Abu Dhabi Investment Council of the oil-rich United Arab Emirates kingdom of Abu Dhabi last November announced it was bailing out the mammoth Citibank financial institution, formerly headed by Bank of Israel Governor Prof. Stanley Fischer, with $7.5 billion.
Next in line was Britain’s Barclay’s Bank, which raised $9 billion from investors in the oil-rich kingdom of Qatar and in Asian countries. The Abu Dhabi Investment Council last month forked out approximately $800 million for a 75 percent stake in New York City’s 1,046-foot-tall Chrysler Building, which was the world’s tallest building for a year until the Empire State Building surpassed it.
Posted by CNP Webmaster as Business and Commerce, Middle East Report, Recent Posts on July 18, 2008 - ט"ו תמוז תשס"ח at 1:14 am
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Submitted By Fred Reifenberg, July 16, 2008
Richard Russell began publishing Dow Theory Letters in 1958, and he has been writing the Letters ever since (never once having skipped a Letter). Dow Theory Letters is the oldest service continuously written by one person in the business.
Russell gained wide recognition via a series of over 30 Dow Theory and technical articles that he wrote for Barron’s during the late-’50s through the ’90s. Through Barron’s and via word of mouth, he gained a wide following. Russell was the first (in 1960) to recommend gold stocks. He called the top of the 1949-’66 bull market. And almost to the day he called the bottom of the great 1972-’74 bear market, and the beginning of the great bull market which started in December 1974.
The Letters, published every three weeks, cover the US stock market, foreign markets, bonds, precious metals, commodities, economics –plus Russell’s widely-followed comments and observations and stock market philosophy.
In 1989 Russell took over Julian Snyder’s well-known advisory service, “International Moneyline”, a service which Mr. Synder ran from Switzerland. Then, in 1998 Russell took over the Zweig Forecast from famed market analyst, Martin Zweig. Russell has written articles and been quoted in such publications as Bloomberg magazine, Barron’s, Time, Newsweek, Money Magazine, the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, Reuters, and others. Subscribers to Dow Theory Letters number over 12,000, hailing from all 50 states and dozens of overseas counties.
Posted by CNP Webmaster as Business and Commerce, Recent Posts on July 17, 2008 - י"ד תמוז תשס"ח at 6:23 am
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By David Shamah, Israel21C, July 01, 2008
Zvi Schreiber’s G.ho.st (the Global Hosted Operating System, pronounced “ghost”) provides users with a virtual operating system, where they can store files, write and save documents, surf the Web, and even send instant messages to their friends. And he does it with a staff made up of residents of both Israel and the Palestinian Authority - who have to meet and collaborate virtually, through video chats and on-line conferences.
But all that virtual-ness is having a real impact on the lives of people in Israel and the PA, who for perhaps the first time are able to collaborate on high-tech projects, just like people in “normal” places, such as Silicon Valley.
In fact, the 30-strong staff at the Ramallah offices of G.ho.st, even have stock options in the company. “I’m not aware of any other company in the PA that gives out options to its employees,” Schreiber tells ISRAEL21c.
Those stock options are just one innovation Schreiber has introduced with G.ho.st, which provides users with a uniform desktop and interface for individual users from any computer, anywhere in the world.
Posted by CNP Webmaster as Business and Commerce, Middle East Report, Science and Technology on July 1, 2008 - כ"ח סיון תשס"ח at 12:33 pm
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