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Did You Know?

Israel engineers are behind the development of the largest communications router in the world, launched by Cisco.

Friday, July 27, 2012

Wives of Israeli and Japanese Ambassadors visit Japan


















On June 19th, the wives of the Israeli and Japaneste Ambassadors to Washington, Mrs. Sally Oren and Mrs. Yoriko Fujisaki, visited IsraAID programs in Japan's Tohoku region which was devastated by the last year's Tsunami. The senior diplomats' wives, who are also close personal friends, attended a Post Trauma training workshop for kindergarten teachers in Shinchi-machi, led by Israeli music therapist Ayala Gerber-Snapir.

Oren and Fujisaki were greeted by the mayors of both Shinchi-machi and the nearby Watari-cho, cities where IsraAID arrived just weeks after the disaster, and has been operating in ever since. The mayors thanked IsraAID for its ongoing support to the people of Japan, and requested that this message be conveyed to the respective embassies.

During the session in Shinchi-machi, Mrs. Sally Oren, previously a dance teacher, taught 40 children and 8 teachers an Israeli song and dance called 'Sim Yadcha Be'yadi' - put your hand in mine. Of the visit Mrs. Oren remarked "I am so thrilled to have taken part in this IsraAID project in Japan. The profound impact on the children is obvious, and I have been personally moved by the experience."

Mr. Yotam Polizer, IsraAID's Japan Country Director, was delighted with the diplomatic visit and thanked Oren and Fujisaki for coming: "It means so much to us, and to the people of Tohoku. Visits like this one give us the strength to continue and support the people of Tohoku for years to come".

IsraAID arrived on the ground in Japan less than 4 days after the March earthquake and ensuing Tsunami. While initial efforts went into distributing vital relief items, IsraAID quickly shifted its focus to the mental needs of tens of thousands of tsunami survivors. Today, IsraAID is active in 8 cities, and is training nearly 1,000 educational professionals from the Miyagi and Fukushima prefectures of Tohoku.

UJA Federation of Greater Toronto is the world’s largest financial supporter of IsraAId.

UK Chief Rabbi’s Prayer for the 1972 Olympic Tragedy

Chief Rabbi Lord Sacks of the UK composed a special prayer to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the massacre at the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich, in which 11 Israeli athletes were murdered by Palestinian terrorists..



Chief Rabbi Lord Sacks is the Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the Commonwealth. The Commonwealth of Nations is an intergovernmental organisation of 54 independent member states including The United Kingdom, Australia, Canada and South Africa.

Here are the words of Chief Rabbi Lord Sacks (prayer is found down below):

“The massacre of eleven Israeli athletes and coaches at the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich was a tragic event in the history of the Olympic Games. But for the Jewish people, Munich 1972 is more than history.”

“It is an event forever etched into the hearts and minds of our collective Jewish memory. History is his story – an event that happened sometime else to someone else. Memory is my story – something that happened to me and is part of who I am.”

“History is information. Memory, by contrast, is part of identity. The eleven Israeli athletes and coaches were targeted not just because of their nationality, but because they were Jews.”

“The attack was carried out on a world stage because it had a global target: the Jewish people. We are a people whose faith is central to our identity. It is therefore not sufficient for the Munich 11 to be remembered simply in the secular setting. It requires an expression of religious remembrance as well. That is why I have composed a special prayer of remembrance to commemorate the fortieth anniversary of the massacre and to ensure it has a place on the map of Jewish memory.”

“Coming at a time in the Jewish calendar when we recall the many tragedies that have befallen our people throughout history, the fortieth anniversary of the Munich massacre is also a moment when we can recall how, despite the many attempts to destroy our people, our faith has remained intact and the Jewish people, together with the memory of those lost, lives on.”

The Chief Rabbi Lord Sacks has composed the following prayer:

Almighty God,
We, the members of this holy congregation,
Together with members of the United Hebrew Congregations of the Commonwealth,
Join our prayers to the prayers of others throughout the world,
In remembrance of the eleven Israeli athletes
Brutally murdered in an act of terrorism,
At the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich,
Because they were Israelis,
Because they were Jews.

At this time in the Jewish year,
When we remember the destructions of our holy Temples,
And the many tragedies that have befallen our people throughout history,
We mourn their loss
And continue to protest against those who hate our people.

We pray to You, O God:
Comfort the families and friends of the Israeli athletes who continue to grieve
And grant eternal life to those so cruelly robbed of life on earth.
Just as we are united in grief,
Help us stay united in hope.
As we comfort one another under the shadow of death,
Help us strengthen one another in honouring life.

The Olympic message is one of peace, of harmony and of unity,
Teach us, Almighty God, to bring reconciliation and respect between faiths,
As we pray for the peace of Israel,
And for the peace of the world.
May this be Your will and let us say: Amen



David Berger
Yossef Gutfreund
Moshe Weinberg
Eliezer Halfin
Mark Slavin
Yossef Romano
Kehat Shorr
Andre Spitzer
Amitzur Shapira
Yakov Springer
Ze’ev Friedman

Source: ChiefRabbi.org

Wednesday, July 25, 2012

MAP FOUND: Jerusalem circa 19th century


The map, sketched by a German tourist in 1823, is considered to be the second modern map of the city; ‘It replicates the boundaries and key structures with precision,’ says Israeli historical geographer.

A map of Jerusalem that was drafted some 190 years ago by a German tourist was recently unearthed by two researchers – one Israeli, the other German – in an archive in Berlin. The map, sketched by hand in 1823, was discovered in the course of a study conducted in tandem by Israeli researchers and scholars at the Leibniz Institute for Regional Geography, in Leipzig, Germany.
The study, funded by the German-Israeli Foundation for Scientific Research and Development, is intended to conduct a profound reappraisal of the cartography of 19th-century Palestine between the years 1830-1880.
The rediscovered map is highly significant. “It was sketched by hand by a German tourist named Westphal, who arrived in Jerusalem for a visit in 1823,” Prof. Chaim Goren, a historical geographer at the Tel Hai Academic College, told Haaretz. Goren is conducting the study together with Prof. Rehav Rubin of the Hebrew University and scholars from the German institute, including Dr. Bruno Schelhaas.
“We know that additional maps were subsequently drafted on the basis of this one and that numerous research studies of the history of Jerusalem, conducted by scholars all over the world, relied on them,” explains Goren.
Maps are an important basis for every research study, Goren notes. In the history of the cartography of Israel, the mapping of Jerusalem holds a special place, given the city’s holiness and meaning to the three major monotheistic religions. “The development of cartography began with imaginary maps that showed the city in the mind’s eye and perspective of the mapmaker. Later, these maps became realistic maps, which are based mainly on compilation – the compiling of material from various sources, such as textual accounts, graphic depictions and so on,” he says.
The more advanced stage is represented by the survey maps, which rely on the execution of measurements by means of various devices. In the 19th century, these devices were primitive and very simple, but during the 20th century they became more sophisticated. It was not until the end of the second decade of the 19th century that the scientific mapping of Jerusalem began. It was based on exact geographic and topographic data, and on trigonometric calculations and measurements.
“The first survey map of Jerusalem known to scholars was drafted in 1818 by the physician and naturalist Franz Wilhelm Sieber. Prof. Yehoshua Ben-Arieh was among the first scholars to write about these maps,” says Goren.
Aside from this initial map, scholars were aware of another map that was sketched in 1823, according to which later maps were drawn. However, the 1823 map has only now come to light.
In the framework of the current research project, Goren met several months ago with Schelhaas at the map archive of the University of Berlin, where hundreds of thousands of maps have only recently been catalogued.
“It took quite a few years to consolidate and catalogue the two map collections, one of which had been in eastern Berlin and the other at the university in western Berlin,” says Goren. “We sat for weeks on end and studied all of the maps that might have been related to Palestine in general and to Jerusalem specifically, when suddenly we found six sketches done by this same Westphal, drafted in his handwriting. They included the Old City, its division into quarters, the important structures, holy sites, etc.”
“When you’re sitting in an archive, you just pounce on things like this. You’re looking at thousands of items, and you have to be patient and have to love what you’re doing. In the end, the 1001st item gives you what you were looking for.”
The map is drafted on A5 greaseproof paper. It correctly and precisely reflects the boundaries of the city, the correct outline of the city’s walls and the location of the key structures,” says Goren. “This map constitutes a very important – and until now, unknown – stage in the history of cartographic research of Jerusalem,” he concludes.
Source: Haaretz.com

Israeli app enables you to nail dangerous drivers


Nirsham has developed a platform for documenting and reporting traffic violations.

Often, while driving or walking down the street, we witness various traffic violations, some of them serious and especially infuriating, and we are frustrated that there is no simple way to document the violation and ensure that it will be handled by the law enforcement authorities. A new Israeli venture is trying to correct this.
Nirsham Ltd. is a new Israeli start-up founded by brothers Shlomo and Elazar Goldman, which has developed a proprietary platform to document and report traffic violations via smartphone app and website.
How does it work? The user can use the app to document various traffic violations by drivers in the area. A long press on the camera key takes a series of high-speed stills that make a continuous record of the incident. While taking the pictures, the user says out loud the vehicle’s license plate number. When the documentation is completed, it is automatically sent to Nirsham’s servers.
The material received at Nirsham undergoes initial review, and the company then uploads it onto its website. Visitor to site can view the documentation and vote whether, in their opinion, the incident is a “clear violation” or “no violation”.
Each incident is available on the website for one week for viewers to vote. If the viewers vote that a traffic violation occurred, Nirsham will file a complaint with the Israel Police, with the aim of bringing the violator to justice. If the motor vehicle belongs to a company car fleet, Nirsham will file a complaint with the company, documenting the violation.
“Israel Police receive 5,000 complaints about traffic violations a year from people who saw them and wrote down the license plate number of the vehicle,” Shlomo Goldman told “Globes”. “The police have trouble handling a complaint of this kind because it’s one person’s word against another’s. The use of documentation that is as clear as possible and the filing of an official complaint by us, will make it much easier for the police to act against the violators.”
When using the app to document a traffic violation, the user can classify the incident in one of four categories: traffic violation, road hooliganism, traffic accident, and traffic hazard. Until now, Nirsham has been operating below the radar, and most of the documented traffic violations on the site have been photographed by 100 users, including the Goldmans.
“We both sit a cafe on one of Jerusalem’s streets, and within 30 minutes, we’re able to document five or six incidents of running a red light,” said Shlomo Goldman. “Our basic idea with the venture is that if enough people use the app, it will become the best surprise and deterrent factors for other drivers on the road.”
Nirsham’s app is currently available for devices running Android versions 2.2 or higher devices. An iPhone version will be available in two weeks. Both versions are free.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news – www.globes-online.com – on July 23, 2012


אודות נרשם:
החזון של "נרשם" הוא להפחית בצורה ניכרת את מספר התאונות על ידי הרחבת גורם ההרתעה בכבישי הארץ. "נרשם" מפשט את התהליך שאזרח צריך לעבור בכדי לדווח על אירוע שנהג מבצע אשר מסכן את עצמו את משפחתו ואת כולנו. נרשם משלבת טכנולוגיות mobile, אינטרנט ומעורבות כלל קהילתי, אשר מאפשרת דיווח מדיוק, מידי ואפקטיבי. למספר רב של גופים אשר בכוחם להמשיך טיפול באירוע אשר התרחש.
כיצד המיזם פועל?
"נרשם" פיתחה אפליקציה חינמית לטלפונים חכמים אשר מאפשרת למשתמשים לצלם סידרה של תמונות רציפות, התמונות נועדו לתעד מקרים של נהיגה פראית, בריונית ופסולה אשר מתרחשים בדרכים וקורים אל מול עיניהם הפקוחות של הציבור באופן יומיומי . בסיום הצילום, המשתמש בקלות יבחר קטגוריה אחת מתוך ארבע אשר תאפיין בצורה הטובה ביותר את אשר תיעד. הקטגוריות הם:
א. עבירות תנועה ב. בריונות בכביש ג. תאונות ד. מפגעים בדרך.
לאחר מכן האפליקציה תשלח באופן אוטומטי ומידי את התמונות לשרתים של "נרשם". תמונות אלו יעברו סינון ומיון ראשוני, ולאחר מכן יועלו לאתרwww.nirsham.co.il . התמונות יופיעו באתר לפרק זמן של שבוע שבמהלכה גולשים יוכלו לבוא ולצפות בתמונות שהם ואחרים צילמו. גולשים באתר יחליטו ויצביעו בכל מקרה מתועד, האם לדעתם התמונות מעידות שאכן היתה נהיגה פראית בריונית או פסולה. או שמא התמונות אינם מעידות על נהיגה בלתי הולמת, ודעתם שהנהג פעל באופן אחראי ובטוח.
לאחר שבוע יסתיים שלב ההצבעה, צוות נרשם יאסוף את תוצאות הבחירות ויפעל בהתאם לתוצאותיו. נרשם ידווח לגוף שלישי (משטרה, מנהלי צי רכב, רשויות מקומיות וכו') במידה והגולשים החליטו שאכן הייתה נהיגה בלתי הולמת, ומצריכה המשך טיפול בנושא. או המקרה ייסגר במידה והגולשים החליטו שאינו מצביע על נהיגה בלתי הולמת. האתר "נרשם" אינו נועד למטרות הכפשה אלא למטרת דיווח לגורם רלוונטי אשר יוכל להבטיח טיפול הולם בכל מקרה. במידה ואכן תהיה הפניה לגורם שלישי אשר המשיך את הטיפול במקרה, המצלם אשר צילם את האירוע יקבל הודעה מנרשם על הטיפול.
גורם ההרתעה מהווה כלי עצמתי בהפחתת תאונות הדרכים. כולנו עדים לתופעת האטה של נהגים במקום שבו הוצבו מצלמות המהירות. אנו רואים שתהליך קבלת ההחלטות של הנהג מושפע באופן ישיר מהחשיבה של האם יתפס או לא. ברור שאלפי מצלמות אשר מוצבות בכל צומת, בכל פינה בכל כביש מהיר. יהווה את אותו גורם ההרתעה אשר בכוחה לעצב מחדש את התרבות של הנהיגה כאן בארץ.
"נרשם" יודע שהרוב המוחלט של הציבור נוהג באופן אחראי ומציית לחוקים ונהלים בכביש, אך לצער כולנו, ביטחון הכבישים אינו נמדד על פי רוב, אלא על בסיס המיעוט המסכן את כולנו. ולפיכך למרות שהרוב נוהגים כהלכה הכביש עדיין מהווה מקום מסוכן לכולנו. בעזרת המיזם של "נרשם" נוכל להשפיע על תהליך קבלת ההחלטות של אותם נהגים אשר הם המיעוט המסכן, ועל ידי כך להוריד את רמת הסיכון בכביש, ולעלות את תחושת הביטחון שלנו כולנו.
בתודה על שיתוף הפעולה.
צוות "נרשם".

Israeli Ad Students Redesign ‘Ugly’ Arab Web Hacks To Make Them More Cheerful


Students from HaBezefer, the Israeli school of advertising and art, and ad agency McCann Digital Israel, came up with an unconventional response to cyberattacks: Re-design hacked takeover pages so they look more aesthetically pleasing.

McCann Digital art director Nir Refuah told BI that “Israel is under constant cyber attacks each month, dozens of Israeli websites are being hacked by Arab hacker groups and replaced with anti-Israeli web pages.”
While McCann and the students didn’t have an immediate answer to end the wave of cyberattacks, they did come up with a way to solve their other hacking qualms, the “uninspired designs each time: black background, grotesque low-res images and unbearable amounts of text.”
The solution? Students found 50 hacked pages, and while they kept the content, they redesigned the pages to look more cheerful. Refuah told BI that the students sent the redesign templates to various hacker group forums with the message, “We would like to end all cyber wars, but in the meantime — if you must hack our sites, at least leave something beautiful.”
They made contact with five hackers thus far, although none of the work has appeared on a hacked site.

Tel Aviv shop sells vintage jeans with a twist


With its hippie allure, Deadenim looks like it belongs in San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury neighborhood of the 1960s.

A small shop recently added to the row of fashion stores at the top of Geula Street in Tel Aviv might at first glance look more like a project by an art school graduate than a regular boutique. The timing of the graduates’ exhibitions arouses this suspicion, of course, but also something in the orderly rows of jeans that have been cut off wildly, as seen through the glass facade, sharpens this sense. It is hard to believe that anyone would conceive of devoting a store to this specific fashionable item. And perhaps in fact it is the stylized presentation of the clothing displayed in the small show window and glass door beside it, which is locked most of the time, that bring to mind the mock-up of a Prada boutique built by a pair of Scandinavian artists, Michael Elmgreen and Ingar Dragset, in the Texas desert.
“Lots of people complain that the store isn’t open when they walk down the street,” says Tomer Glerenter, owner of Deadenim. “That’s strange, because it’s open every day between noon and seven.”
Glerenter, 28, launched the boutique about a month and a half ago after focusing his activity for the past two and a half years on websites like Etsy, Abie and recently also the online store Marmalada. The long activity on the Internet can perhaps explain the somewhat practical look of the real boutique, in which old wooden crates serve as storage and seating, and old iron water pipes painted red have become a stand for hanging clothes and a shelf for art and design books.
He says he honestly had never thought of opening a store. For years he lived and worked in a loft apartment in south Tel Aviv, where he kept his stock of jeans (which now number about 2,000 pairs ), a sewing machine and other equipment, and from there the shipments would leave for abroad.
About two months ago, as he was walking down the street he saw the small space that was serving as a kind of office for an antique dealer, and suddenly the desire arose in him.
“On the Internet I sell only to clients abroad, even when those sites operate in Israel as well,” he says, so Deadenim is an opportunity to get into the local market. He says it has also provided him with a good opportunity to expand the offering of styles he designs, integrating into them studs in various configurations, or embroidered fabrics or experimenting with non-uniform dying of buttoned woven cloth shirts.
Alongside these is a display of vintage leather bags Glerenter has collected in Israel and abroad, among them a shirt with a large Adidas logo on the front of the bag and a small leather bag by Salvatore Ferragamo. Despite the familiar brand names, he says he puts the emphasis on the age of the items more than on their logos. He attributes the fact that most of the jeans in the store bear a Levi’s label to the quality of the veteran denim brand.
“Jeans are judged above all by the way they fit on the body, but beyond that there is the quality of the cloth, the sewing and the small details. Because I have been dealing with this for a long time I can identify the differences in the sewing – a single seam or a double seam, threads in two colors rather than one, and also the type of belt loops or the studs reinforcing the various parts.”

A fashion autodidact

Among the styles now on display in the shop are dark denim shorts on which an acid imprint of Glerenter’s hand is located under the back pocket. On another style he has added colorful ethnic embroidery to the side of the pocket. “This is a piece of an embroidery I found. There is something Mexican or Indian about it and for some reason this is terribly fashionable now,” he says.
It is impossible not to smile at this declaration, which is made in a quizzical tone. Hard, too, not to be amused by another pair of shorts, one side of which is covered in black cloth embroidered in a similar primitive style (also on the back pocket ), or by yet another pair on which one leg is covered in cloth with a kitschy tropical print of a blue sea, tall palm trees and a large orange sun. The sewing is not very precise but in this case that fits in as part of the rough language of the styles.
“I didn’t study fashion design but I am aware of what is happening in fashion, and from time to time I have a look at street fashion blogs,” he says.
It turns out this is enough to give relevance to products like tailored woven shirts in classical cuts and dyed in optimistic shades like pistachio or purple, or from white to blue, or non-uniform dying that slips from light blue to pale pink in airy splotches or pale shades of purple or yellow.
The dying process is accomplished by a method of trial and error and therefore, says Glerenter says, he can’t commit himself on the appearance of the final product. “This depends on many factors like the kind of fabric or the dye and therefore I don’t always have complete control of this process.”
This also applies to the jeans shorts he dyes. One pair in black has been mottled with acid in a marble pattern while other pairs have been dyed entirely in two shades, these too in cheery combinations of purple and yellow or peach and pale blue.
On the whole, the store has a certain hippie look about it. The clothes are dyed in a non-uniform way, the edges are unraveled and the immediacy of the styles that have been roughly cut bring to mind a wardrobe that could have been sold in a similar shop in the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood of San Francisco in the 1960s. The view down the street – the road leading to the beach and the strip of blue sea framed between the buildings – of course increase this impression. “There is a general feeling in fashion of bohemian chic, which is something between hippie and urban,” he says. “I don’t know,” he adds, dismissing what he has just finished saying with a wave of his hand. “I try not to be too guided by trends but I do relate to things I see and absorb.”
The contrast between Glerenter’s claimed distance from fashion and the so very contemporary colors of the items he shows in the store is surprising. Upon close scrutiny, Deadenim looks like it has been designed by a typical Tel Aviv hipster, a woman involved in one sort of creative work or another, someone who frequents the fashionable cafe across the street and documents its regulars in the blog she writes.
However, it takes only one look at its owner to understand how far he is from this model. Dressed in a white T-shirt and long jeans (“By chance you’ve caught me without shorts today. I’ve simply decided to vary a bit” ), he does not conform to the above characterization.
Nor does it seem that Glerenter himself wears the clothes he redesigns. “The truth is that I have a vest with studs that I’ve just made, which I could take, but in general that’s right – my style is pretty solid.”
And when you think about it, the wardrobe he offers is based on two basic items of clothing, such as jeans and buttoned fabric shirts, but Gelrenter puts them through assorted adaptations that give them a new, varied life.
Apparently it is not by chance that he chose to call his brand Deadenim (dead denim ). In a sense it constitutes a kind of revitalization institute for jeans items that have vanished from this world. But this too has a simpler explanation: “I was looking for a name that would best describe the ideas of vintage and jeans and that’s what turned up.”
Deadenim, 49 Geula Street, Tel Aviv. Prices: Pants, NIS 150-888; T-shirts, NIS 80-100; buttoned woven cloth shirts, NIS 350-650; leather bags, NIS 200-800. Open 12:00 noon to 7 P.M.
Source: Haaretz.com

Meet Team Israel – Shahar Zubari – Olympic windsurfer

Shahar Zubari won a bronze medal for windsurfing at the Beijing Olympics, a “life-changing experience,” he says. His interest in the sport is thanks to some early coaching from his dad.



Shahar Zubari won a bronze medal for windsurfing at the Beijing Olympics, a "life-changing experience," he says. His interest in the sport is thanks to some early coaching from his dad.

Zubari is a native of the Red Sea resort city of Eilat, and says it's very peaceful. "There's a lot of Eilat in me. I'm really peaceful in the way I windsurf, and I'm really calm. This is what makes me a better windsurfer."

Film editing by Michael Grynszpan; Reporting by Viva Sarah Press

Revolutionary Israeli toilet gets Gates foundation grant


Earmarked for homes in developing nations, the device needs no water and generates its own power to turn waste into sterile, odorless compost.

An Israeli-invented toilet that needs no water and leaves no waste caught the interest of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which awarded parent company Paulee CleanTec $110,000 “to create next generation sanitation technology to help make sanitation services truly safe and sustainable for the poor.”
“We are one of only very, very few Israeli companies that have received any grants from this foundation,” points out Oded Halperin, one of the company’s original investors
The toilet is based on the same principle as the high-tech pooper-scooper featured on ISRAEL21c last October.
Invented by renowned Hebrew University biotech innovator Prof. Oded Shoseyov based on an idea Halperin thought up, the device gathers droppings and turns them into odorless, sterile powder within seconds after the dog-walker pushes a button to release an activation capsule from the cartridge inside the unit. The resulting powder is a fertile composting material.
Earmarked for developing countries by the Gates Foundation, the toilet will go a step further.
No water or electricity needed
“For the solid waste, which also can include toilet paper, we are mixing it with our chemical formula for not more than 30 seconds and it will turn immediately into odorless, sterile fertilizer,” Halperin tells ISRAEL21c. “The fertilizer will be automatically dropped into a removable canister where it can be collected from time to time and than be used for field and/or home crops.”
The liquid waste will be sterilized separately in another reservoir, and then pumped up to flush the toilet – powered by heat energy created from the solid-waste process and stored in a battery. According to the still-secret drawings of the patent-pending device, the internally created heat would even power a light inside the stall.
“Just to back up the energy source, we will also use a small solar panel on the roof,” says Halperin. “There’s no need for any sewerage or electricity infrastructures or connections. No need for water to flush. No special maintenance — the chemicals can be put in its dispenser once a month, and the cost of one use is only a few cents.”
‘Reinvent the Toilet Challenge’
These features are a good fit for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s “Reinvent the Toilet Challenge,” which aims to improve on the limitations of the 18th-century toilet still in use today, for 2.6 billion people lacking access to sanitation.
According to the foundation, reinventing the toilet could save millions of lives and help end poverty. About 80 percent of human waste goes into rivers and streams untreated, and 1.1 billion people don’t use a toilet.
The winning solution must be hygienic and sustainable, with an operational cost of no more than five cents per user, per day. It may not discharge pollutants and must generate energy and recover salt, water and other nutrients. It may not rely on water to flush waste or a septic system to process and store waste.
The one-year Gates grant is first-phase funding. If the foundation likes what it sees, Paulee CleanTec will then submit a second proposal for a $1 million or $1.5 million grant to complete development and build a prototype.
Meanwhile, Paulee CleanTec signed a deal with a major international player in the pet market, which will allow for the development of different kinds of devices for collecting and disposing of dog and cat droppings based on the existing patents.
In addition, the Ramat Gan-based company is considering opportunities for raising funds from private and strategic investors as it looks to widen its potential applications to hygienic solutions for trains, airplanes, boats, motor homes and other modes of transportation.
Source: Israel21c.org

Hey BBC another Geography lesson by Haifa’s Mayor Yona Yahav


Yona Yahav, the mayor of Haifa is responding to the BBC’s questioning of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel



Yona Yahav, the mayor of Haifa is responding to the BBC's questioning of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel


יונה יהב ראש עיריית חיפה: " חבל שמה שיודע כל העולם לא יודעים ב- BBC, אנחנו מוכנים לעזור."

ראש העיר חיפה יונה יהב החליט להצטרף למאבק ברשת השידור הבריטית BBC, שבאתר שהקימה לקראת סיקור האולימפיאדה היא אינה מכירה בירושלים כבירתה של ישראל. יונה יהב מזכיר לערוץ הבריטי מיהי בירתה של ישראל ובנוסף הציע את עזרתו במידה וישנו מידע בסיסי נוסף שאינם מכירים.

מדבריו של ראש העיר: "העיר הקטנה ביותר בעולם עם כמות פרסי הנובל במדע הגבוהה ביותר. ידוע לכל שזו העיר היפה בישראל, אבל גם ידוע לכל שהעיר היפה ביותר בעולם היא ירושלים, בירת ישראל.
היה לי הכבוד לעבוד שם לצדו של ראש העיר האגדי טדי קולק. חבל שמה שיודע כל העולם לא יודעים ב- BBC.
מעניין אותי לדעת, מה עוד הם אינם יודעים, נשמח לעזור."

EU to upgrade Israel ties


Britain’s The Guardian says relations to be upgraded in more than 60 areas including agriculture, energy and migration

The EU will offer Israel upgraded trade and diplomatic relations in more than 60 areas at a high-level meeting in Brussels on Tuesday, just weeks after European foreign ministers warned that Israeli policies in the West Bank “threaten to make a two-state solution impossible,” The Guardian reported Monday.
A diplomatic source shared with the newspapers details of the package of benefits that will be offered to Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman.
According to the report, the EU will widen its relationship with Israel on a range of areas including migration, energy and agriculture. It will remove obstacles impeding Israel’s access to European government-controlled markets and enhance Israel’s co-operation with nine EU agencies, including Europol and the European Space Agency
One senior EU diplomat criticized the decision citing Israel’s non-compliance with its obligations under international law. He noted that not one minister was prepared to oppose Tuesday’s agreement for fear of irking Jewish communities.
“I was struck by the fact that a whole range of relations was offered to Israel – at the request of Israel – as if nothing is happening on the ground,” the diplomat said.
“Most ministers are too afraid to speak out in case they are singled out as being too critical towards Israel, because, in the end, relations with Israel are on the one hand relations with the Jewish community at large and on the other hand with Washington – nobody wants to have fuss with Washington.
“So (ministers) are fine with making political statements but they refrain from taking concrete action.”
In January 2009, during Operation Cast Lead, the EU and Israel postponed upgrade talks due to the situation in Gaza.
Source: Ynetnews.com