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 Really GN to start with is that manufacturing output rose by 8.5% in Q1 of ’07. While figures are a little boring we at GN feel that a somewhat more detailed look at the overall picture might in fact prove quite interesting, Hi-tech companies, and that includes electronics, aerospace (see below) and medical equipment producers posted a dramatic increase of 8.1% in this period compared to 1.9% in the last quarter of the previous year. Really GN is that the low-tech sector announced output upswings of between 12 and 13%, building on ‘06’s final Q’s growth of 13.9%. Israel is making more, selling more and employing more people to do both, and that really is GN. -
 The Ben Gurion University of the Negev may be one of Israel’s newer universities, but its right up with the best of them when it comes to innovating over a wide range of disciplines. One of their newest contributions to medicine is the Phogolum an instrument that assesses a patient’s condition, identifies and quantifies the severity of infections, and monitors the success of treatment. Sounds miraculous to us and that really is GN. - Israel has become a festival powerhouse. There are piano festivals, jazz and dance festivals, film festivals and food festivals, drama festivals and festivals devoted to women and children, and that’s the short list. All of them attracting the best that the world has to offer. But the jewel in the crown is the Israel Festival that kicks off – if you’ll pardon the expression – as we write .Now in its 46th year the festival attracts a galaxy of stars in the music, drama, dance and entertainment firmament from Israel and 17 different countries around the world (see below)
- Nothing pleases us more than to be able to report GN on the ecology front – so here goes. Those most devoted of all scientists, botanists – it takes a special human being to lavish unrequited love on a shrub – have discovered two types of plants thought to have been extinct in Israel. The discovery was made in the Kishon River Valley and we share the botanists’ opinion that for these plants alone, the area deserves to be protected and restored.
- Mr Yitchak Tshuva, one of Israel’s multi – billionaires genuinely tries to keep out of the limelight but it’s one of the things, one of the only things in fact, that he doesn’t succeed at. And this week he made history-again- by selling an apartment in Manhattan’s Plaza Hotel for more than $50m the highest price ever paid for an apartment in NY-and in many other places we’d be prepared to bet. The previous record price? $45m. See last week’s GN for Mr Tshuva’s $5bn plan for his Las Vegas property development. How does he expect to keep off center stage with money like that flying around!?
- And staying with the big money. The London Financial Times reports that Sun Pharmaceuticals, an Indian generic drug manufacturer has just acquired Israel’s Taro Pharmaceutical Industries for $454m. The purchase will give the Indian drug company a stronger foothold in the US market.
- The GN is that cow’s milk is definitely healthy-but only for calves. The not so GN is that it’s not all that good for human beings. The really GN, for the dairy produce industry at any rate, is that Israelis obviously haven’t heard the not so GN and have just splurged NIS 35m ($8.7m approx)-an all time record- on a wide range of flavored yoghurts, buttermilk, whipped cream and cheese, particularly Mozzarella, in honor of the Shavuot (Pentecost) Festival, where the eating of these delicacies in many different forms is a tradition going back millennia. According to the folk who analyze these things, the dramatic rise in sales reflects a corresponding enrichment in the quality of life right here in the Holy Land and that’s GN all round.
- Hard on the heels of the first appointment of an Israeli to head an important United Nations Committee comes the news that the UN Economic Commission (UNECE) will meet in Israel for the first time at the beginning of June. Ministers from a number of European countries and the US will be participating. But more about that when it actually happens.
- A group of Israeli investors will establish a medical center in the capital of El Salvador. A wide range of sophisticated medical services and therapy will be available in the complex which will be built on a five acre site on the outskirts of the city.
- Noa Naftali is a name to watch. This young lady who is in the 11th year at school, raised $100,000 by organizing a benefit performance by some of Israel’s leading artists. Noa has decided that the money will go to Friendship’s Way, a program for at-risk Jewish and Arab children. With young people like Miss Naftali, the future of the Jewish tradition of giving is assured. And that’s Good News.
- The Israeli Ambassador to Vietnam has launched an operation to provide medical care and financial aid to the weaker populations in the remote Vietnamese jungle The team of 54 doctors and nurses treated some 2,500 children that had never seen a doctor before. These good people also distributed food, clothing and toys, much to the joy of the parents and their families and the Vietnamese government which was generous in its praise for the members of the mission.
- Some GN but perhaps a little overdue is the announcement that the Knesset had passed a law banning the testing of cosmetic products on live animals. These procedures that sometimes involve intense cruelty and are generally regarded as being unnecessary are no longer part of the scene in Israel and that is certainly GN.
- And now the second in four installments covering Israeli doctors who have won international accolades in the past few weeks. Newsweek magazine, no less, has crowned Dr Eyal Gur (see Quote for the Week, above) of Ichilov Hospital in Tel Aviv as one of the world’s best microsurgeons. While Dr Gur’s department specializes in the removal of tumors of the bone, he is proudest of the operations that put the smiles back on people’s faces, literally. Patients suffering from partial paralysis of the face have movement restored in two stages; the first involves transplanting a nerve from the leg to the face and after about six months when the nerve is functional, a tiny thigh muscle is removed and attached to the nerve. After a further six months the patients face has returned to complete normality and he or she can greet Dr.Gur with a broad smile in recognition of his consummate professional skills.
- Israel’s top aerospace operation (see above) IAI is the only company outside of Europe to become a partner-and a major partner at that- in Project CLEAN SKY JTI (Joint Technical Initiative), whose aim is to reduce the pollution produced by anything man-made that flies. Israel Aeronautical Industries is a leading participator in 85 projects with aeronautics giants like Airbus and Dassault from the EU. Quite a feather in Israel’s cap!
- The Israel Festival’s (see above) theme this year is ‘The Global Village’ and two of its participants will be from Muslim countries; The Ilkom Theater from Uzbekistan and choreographer/dancer Hela Fattoumi from Tunisia. Could it be that the artists and not the politicians will lead the way to ultimate peace? Now that would be GN.
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