Artifcial Blood Vessels Created To Cure Diseases
Unknown - NoCamels, January 16th, 2012For the first time in the world researchers at the Technion Institute of Technology and Rambam Medical Center in Haifa in Israel created new blood vessels using embryonic stem cells that were programmed in advance.
The team, headed by Prof. Joseph Itskovitz-Eldor, head of women and maternity department at the Rambam Medical Center and Dr. Ayelet Dar-vaknin, produced new cells named Pericytes, that have a crucial role in building blood vessels and ensuring their functioning.
The experiment simulated the treatment for damaged muscles or tissues, as a result of disruption in the blood supply. The research was conducted in the laboratory for stem cells research at the Faculty of Medicine at the Technion Institute. Over the course of the study, the researchers cultured the Pericytes in the lab in large quantities....
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'Israel needs to engage EU, not call it irrelevant'
Herb Keinon - The Jerusalem Post, February 2nd, 2012Czech Foreign Minister Karl Schwarzenberg, considered one of Israel’s strongest supporters inside the EU, told The Jerusalem Post Wednesday that Israel needs to engage more intensively with Europe, and is not doing itself any favors by declaring that the European Union is in danger of becoming irrelevant in the Middle East.
Schwarzenberg, attending the 12th annual Herzliya Conference at the IDC, was referring to a statement put out by the Foreign Ministry last month following a communique very critical of Israel issued by Britain, France, Germany and Portugal.
The Czech Republic is considered, along with the Netherlands and Italy, among Israel’s strongest supporters inside the EU, and those countries – along with Romania, Bulgaria, and at times, Germany – form a bloc inside the EU that often tones down or stops critical statements and policies coming out of Brussels.
Jerusalem, Schwarzenberg said, could do more to win over other EU nations by engaging more actively both with the individual countries, and with the EU institutions in Brussels.
Israel has not, he added, won over friends by essentially telling the EU over the last few decades that its ally is the United States, and that “we want them to be active in the Middle East, we don’t want you to be active. Keep out.”...
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Consult Jerusalem's Palestinians Before Rushing to Divide the City
Evelyn Gordon - Commentary Magazine, February 2nd, 2012Here, in one sentence, is the gist of Frank Jacob’s 1,500-word op-ed in the New York Times this week: Divided cities are bad, and we should strive to reunite them – except for Jerusalem, which we should instead strive to redivide, even though it will likely mean building a wall through its heart. “In a place where there’s no middle ground,where you’re either from one side or the other, it’s hard to see how a case can be made that both parts of the city belong together, and should grow together,” he pontificated. “Even [former West Berlin Mayor and German Chancellor] Willy Brandt would agree.”
I have no doubt Brandt would agree if he were still alive; most Europeans do. But here’s who wouldn’t agree: a sizable minority, and quite possibly a majority, of those East Jerusalem Palestinians whom Jacobs and his fellow pundits so blithely advocate tearing away from Israel.
In a November 2010 poll which 1,039 East Jerusalem Palestinians conducted via face-to-face interviews, fully 35 percent said they would prefer remaining Israeli if a two-state solution emerged, compared to only 30 percent who preferred Palestinian citizenship. The remainder declined to answer or said they didn’t know....
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Israel Vice PM: Military strike can hit all of Iran's nuclear facilities
Barak Ravid - Haaretz, February 2nd, 2012All of Iran's nuclear faculties are vulnerable to a military strike, Vice Prime Minister and Strategic Affairs Minister Moshe Ya’alon said on Thursday, calling the potential of a nuclear Iran a "nightmare to the free world."
At the closing day of the Herzliya Conference, Ya’alon referred to the many tools at the international community's disposal that could serve to slow down or stop Iran's advancement toward nuclear weapons capability: international pressure, economic sanctions, support of Iranian opposition, and military actions.
Speaking of the possibility of a military strike of Iran's nuclear facilities, the vice PM said that "the West has the ability to strike, but as long as Iran isn't convinced that there's a determination to follow through with it, they'll continue with their manipulations."...
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Defense Secretary Concerned Israel May Attack Iran
Unknown - FOX News, February 2nd, 2012(FOX News) - US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta is expressing new concerns about Iran's underground nuclear program, this time telling Washington Post columnist David Ignatius he's worried Israel may decide to attack it as early as this spring.
Traveling with the defense secretary in Brussels to cover his meeting with NATO defense ministers, Ignatius writes, "Panetta believes there is a strong likelihood that Israel will strike Iran in April, May or June."
It is the first time such a specific timeframe has been mentioned. FOXNews.com has previously reported concerns from former members of President Barack Obama's national security team that a unilateral strike from Israel could occur sometime in 2012 and that Central Command has been planning for the possibility the US could be drawn in....
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Israel ranked second most educated country in the world, study shows
Unknown - Haaretz, February 2nd, 2012Israel is the second most educated country in the world, says a report released by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).
According to the OECD’s Education at a Glance 2011 report, 78% of the money invested in education in Israel is taken directly from public funds, while 45% of Israel’s population has a university or college diploma.
Pictured left - A university campus. (Photo by: Tali Meir)
Israel also had the largest increase in overall population, approximately 19.02% from 2000 to 2009....
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BDS and academia
Asaf Romirowsky and John R. Cohn - The Jerusalem Post, January 30th, 2012Pictured left - PRO-PALESTINIAN protesters hold a banner By REUTERS
A self-proclaimed National Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Conference is set to take place at the University of Pennsylvania, an Ivy league institution in the heart of Philadelphia, during the weekend of February 4. Last held in 2009, according to the organizers, the BDS movement intends to focus on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict by demonizing Israel while propagating the Palestinian victimhood status in order to gain global sympathy.
They believe that if universities, companies and even countries boycott, divest from and sanction Israel it will pressure the government to change its so-called “hard nosed” policies toward the Palestinians and in addition give up land Israel supposedly “stole” from the Palestinians in 1948 and 1967.
A closer look at the BDS movement and its methodology shows not legitimate criticism but actually a racist and anti-Semitic program. In a world where refugees have been created and resettled by the tens of millions, including over 900,000 Jews that fled Arab states, BDS targets only Israel. Its stated goals vary but all include the “right” for descendants of Palestinian “refugees” to “return” to a country they have never seen, thus bringing about the end of Jewish Israel....
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CAIR attack: Cultural Jihad in Action
Wayne Kopping - Stop Radical Islam.org, January 13th, 2012In May 2010, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg posited that the individual who packed a Nissan Pathfinder full of explosives and parked it in Times Square, was likely a homegrown American “with a political agenda who doesn't like the health care bill or something.”
Fortunately, the car bomb did not detonate.
The terrorist turned out to be Faisal Shahzad, a Pakistan-born U.S. citizen. And, not surprisingly, Shahzad wasn't upset about the health care bill. After pleading guilty in court he said, “I consider myself a Mujahid, a Muslim-soldier.” He was upset, as he put it, over “American occupation of Muslim Lands.”
Shortly after the attack, Bloomberg prematurely asserted that there was no evidence suggesting the bomber was part of any recognized terror network. Shahzad later told the court he trained with the Pakistani Taliban to learn bomb-making and other related skills....
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HURT: 'Islamist Firster' president not what he claimed
Charles Hurt - The Washington Times, January 31st, 2012...Mr. Obama promised to devote himself to healing the grave injustices and halting the atrocities that have afflicted the world since the rise of radical, violent jihadism. With his Muslim roots, Mr. Obama was positioned better than any leader on the global stage to speak with authority to radical Islamists and finally bring about permanent peace.
Instead, Mr. Obama chose to unilaterally alienate perhaps our most strategically important ally in the world and do all he can to cozy up to the very people who are dedicated to destroying not only Israel, but America as well.
Leading Democrats have been in the news lately sliming Americans who stick up for Israel as being “Israel Firsters.” Well, Mr. Obama has become an “Islamist Firster.”...
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IDF Intel Chief: 200,000 Missiles Aimed at Israel
David Lev - Arutz-7, February 2nd, 2012
Pictured left - IDF Intel Chief Aviv Kochavi (Flash90)
IDF Intelligence head Aviv Kochavi gave a chilling presentation Thursday morning at the Herzliya Conference on Israeli policy, telling listeners that Israel's enemies had 200,000 rockets and missiles pointed at the country, and could reach all parts of Israel – even the ostensibly safe “center” of Tel Aviv and its suburbs.
Most of the missiles have a range of about 40 kilometers – the range of Qassam and most Katyusha rockets – but thousands of missiles have ranges of hundreds of kilometers, making every location in Israel within their reach. Not only that – but the missiles are more lethal now than ever before. “The warheads on these missiles contain hundreds of kilograms of explosives, not dozens, as in the past. And their firing precision and ability to hit specific targets is also greater,” Kochavi said. The rockets are largely located in Lebanon and Syria, with a smaller amount in Gaza – and in Iran, as well, which has thousands of missiles that could reach Israel. “Every tenth house in Lebanon is now a weapons depot,” Kochavi said....
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