Good News, Israel

Compliments of Anglo Raannana Real Estate

Quote for the Week

Blessed are You… who has given us life, sustained us, and brought us to this time.

(Mr Yitzchak Teshuva, controlling shareholder of Delek intoned this blessing when announcing the reassessed extent of the natural gas fields off Israel’s coastline [see item below:

· We actually could be forgiven for thinking that this week was perhaps not the best in the history of the House of Israel, but:

Mr Yitzchak Teshuva [see Quote for the Week above] had some really GN for the whole of Israel today, but first a few words about Mr Teshuva: He is a very rich man and he is a lot richer today [Thursday] than he was yesterday but he doesn’t project the supercharged image of the high powered businessman that he unquestionably is, rather he comes across as a humble man with an abiding concern for others and that is very endearing. This is some of what he had to say:

ü “Today is a holiday for every citizen of Israel. It’s a day of joy,”

ü “The results [of the drilling tests] indicate that in addition to the gas, there are signs of oil at a greater depth.”

ü “We have turned Israel into a great energy power.”

ü “Israel has become energy independent or at least only dependent on Blue and White energy sources.”

ü “The results of the survey… are way beyond expectations.”

ü “There are more than 100 years of reserves for Israel at Leviathan [the latest field discovered].

ü ”Israel will become a gas exporter.”

ü “The results will strengthen the whole of Israel’s economy”

· And a great deal more. GN doesn’t get much better than that.

· The number of unemployed Israelis dropped by 0.7 percent in April – the latest figure available – after falling by 0.1% over the previous three months and in purely human terms that is 1,300 more mums and dads, sons and daughters who were gainfully employed in April than there were in March, the lowest level of unemployment since January 2009. Since April of that year the labor market has been undergoing a steady recovery. In the months ‘04 ‘09 to ‘03 10, the number of new jobseekers dropped by a monthly average of 2.5% after rising by a monthly average of 3.4% in the previous 13 month period and if that’s not GN we don’t know what is.

· An Israeli biochemist Baruch Minke has received one of Spain’s Prince of Asturias awards for his research in a field that affects all of us at one time or another, the investigation of how pain works. The Prince of Asturias Foundation said Wednesday that Minke is recognized by the scientific community as a world leader in sensorial neurobiology, and that his findings have opened up new avenues for treating pain. The Organization confers eight awards each year in categories including arts, literature, communications, sports and scientific research. The prizes are among Spain’s most prestigious and are presented by Prince Felipe each fall in Oviedo. Prof Minke should be in for a whale of a time.

· ‘They’ve got an awful lot of coffee in Brazil’ or so the song goes but obviously the songwriter didn’t know Israel. Apart from the local coffee shop chains hitting the international scene with great success, Strauss Elite, Israel’s largest supplier of the delectable bean is breaking new records on a regular basis. Sales rose 7.5% to NIS 827 million for the first quarter from NIS 770 million for Q1 ‘09. Where did all this happen? In Poland, Israel, Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia and Brazil, Brazil?! we hear you exclaim. Yes Brazil. Talk about selling refrigerators to Eskimos. But Elite does it, and how.

· Bill shock sounds like a frightening syndrome and so it is, and it’s an aspect of mobile telephones well-known to all of us users. The issue is not just the unpleasant surprises that the small print in the contracts with the mobile operator often provide, but the uncontrolled usage of the mobile telephone, especially by children and teenagers –and adults too we might add – which cause unplanned expenses. But never fear Comverse Technology Inc. is here and they have launched a solution for dealing with “bill shock” among mobile telephone addicts and that’s probably a good 90% of us. The new cure enables a user to program his or her mobile telephone to restrict or cap the use of a service and it can also notify the user when a service – or a family member, that’ll be the kids again- is nearing the cap. Neat.

· Israeli doubles specialist Andy Ram and his Austrian partner, Julian Knowle, advanced to the semifinals of the French Open at the time of writing [Wednesday] beating their Brazilian opponents in three sets, 6-7 (3-7), 6-2, 6-0. This is the farthest the Ram-Knowle pairing has ever advanced. But for Andy it’s the fourth time in his career that he will appear in a Grand Slam semifinal. Ram, who along with Knowle is ranked 10th in the tournament, has never been past the third round at Roland Garros. To date the twosome have pocketed €80 000 in prize money.

· Prof. Pnina Klein has developed a program that is being accepted in many parts of the world: individually tailored to each child it focuses on the roots of human interaction – on feelings, the ABC of love; smiles, looks, eye to eye contact, mutual respect. Universities sponsor the program in Norway, Indonesia and for Ethiopian children in Israel. Mediational Intervention for Sensitizing Caregivers [MISC] is taught to child caregivers and at its core it consists of three basic messages: ‘I love you,’ which conveys the message of self-worth, ‘I am with you,’ which conveys security and a message that says ‘It is worthwhile to do” that provides task-centred motivation. So simple, so basic and so successful. These reinforcements allow a child to feel his significance and importance in the world, something which of course we all need.

· Israeli scientists have isolated a strain of microalgae with a scientific name about 10 000 times the size of the creature itself, but that’s par for the scientific course. – Actually we always thought that ordinary algae were small enough to begin with, but microalgae? Oh well -. Fact is it produces large amounts of polyunsaturated fatty acids that could be used to reduce blood pressure, chronic inflammation and blood cholesterol level, lowering the risk of heart attacks and that’s really GN. The researchers from Beersheba’s Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU) believe the algae is the only known plant source capable of producing such significant amounts of a polyunsaturated fatty acid (PUFA)

· This week is Book Week. Starting 49 years ago as a day devoted to books it has now become a week – some say a ten day ‘week’ – involving most of Israel’s cities towns and villages and a rich variety of activities centred around – you guessed it – books and reading So it would seem that Facebook may come and tweeters may go but books go on forever and to prove it, in a competition for elementary school children held in Jerusalem, 9 year old Avishag Ifergen, took out and read 500 books from the public library, in 2009. She was first but thousands of kids participated. Are we the People of the Book? Yes we are. But more accurately we are the People of books and that’s GN