Good News Israel 11th June 2010

GN ISRAEL 11 06 10
http://www.angloraanana.com
 
Quote for the Week

”If Algeria introduced a resolution declaring that the earth was flat and that Israel had flattened it, it would pass by a vote of 164 to 13 with 26 abstentions.”

 (The late Abba Eban sometime Israel Ambassador to the United Nations [and things haven’t changed much since his time])
HOT OFF THE PRESS --'I think I could have done some things differently, but I thought he played a pretty perfect match,'

Andy ‘Goliath’ Roddick after going down 6-4, 7-6 to Dudi ‘David’ Sela.
 
·         We could tell you the following because each item is worthy of note so, as we said, we could tell you that:
 

 The numbers involved in the recent gas finds are astonishing. Tamar and Dalit are thought to be worth $50 billion, and Leviathan's potential is thought to total $100 billion. The companies' costs in finding and extracting the gas are small change compared with their potential gains, like $10 billion at the outside, -and you can do the sums for yourselves. Or perhaps that

 

ü  BIG Shopping Centers is buying a portfolio of 15 strip malls in the United States, at a price of between $400 million to $450 million. Or we might mention that

 

ü  Teva Reports that sales of their proprietary drug Copaxone reached $2.8bn last year. We could remind you that

 

ü  Israel Aerospace Industries Ltd. (IAI) subsidiary Elta has won two contracts, worth $33 million altogether, to supply  airborne maritime surveillance radar systems used by naval reconnaissance aircraft. Or we could tell you that

 

ü  This week The Azrieli Group’s public offering raised NIS 2.01 billion. Or even that

 

ü  The growth forecast for Israel has been raised to 4% for 2010 from 3.7% and to 3.8% for 2011 from 3.2% according to Morgan Stanley’s analyst Tavfik Aksoy.  The new growth forecasts are higher than the 2010 forecast of 3.6% by the Ministry of Finance and the 3.7% by the Bank of Israel. Or, how about that

 

ü  The 100,000-square meter Mall of Russia, Russia’s largest, worth $1bn and owned by Africa Israel, is due to open in the fourth quarter of 2010. It will have 450 stores, and that’s not all

 

ü  Africa-Israel also reported that the Ozerkovskaya Embankment residential, office and hotel project in Moscow is on schedule. The Aquamarine Hotel was dedicated in November 2009, and apartment sales have reached 70% of the project's total number of 124 apartments. Not done yet

 

ü  Demand in the institutional tender of the bond offering by Elbit Systems Ltd. this week reached NIS 2.4 billion. The company is offering up to NIS 1.1 billion ($285 million) in Series A bonds, which will mature in 2011-2020

 

·         But the GN that we would really like you to know is that despite what you might have seen and read in the media nobody here is sitting around with their head in their hands. Quite the reverse. 

 

·         The Jerusalem Festival is in full swing with outstanding performers in all the arts from Israel and the rest of the world with some weird but mostly wonderful acts on show including a performance of Macbeth in Georgian, Georgian? We hear the purists respond in horror. The Bard in Georgian! Well according to critics and audience alike one word covers it – stunning, so there we are.

 

·         Then there is Verdi’s opera Nabucco, outdoors. Five full performances –with a sixth just announced and already sold out - and a gala concert featuring famed US soprano Jessye Norman were a sellout weeks in advance, proving that Masada's isolation and distance from main population centers was not an obstacle. 4000 visitors will be coming from all corners of the globe just to attend the opera and a total of nearly 40 000 will see the show. Spectacular lighting and pyrotechnics, a choir of more than 120 singers and a similar number of actors, horses and two camels [a soprano and a tenor?] - on a huge stage make for a memorable performance under the baton of conductor Daniel Oren, an expert in outdoor opera. Georgian bass Paata Burchuladze, who is no stranger to outdoor opera festivals, said that very soon operas at Masada will be famous around the world. Verona, eat your heart out.

 

·         Joan Armatrading, a performer not to be missed, enchanted her audiences with her vast repertoire of blues, rock and jazz. And some wonderful guitar playing as a cherry on the top.

 

·         Four hours of their time working on community projects before they qualified to buy a ticket is what R & B singer Rihanna demanded from her fans and 14,000 of them responded and, yes she set the example by doing four hours + herself. 

 

·         The famed Russian Mali Theatre from St Petersburg is here as guests of Israel’s Gesher Theater. The eight performances all of them in Russian are sold out.

 

·         All of this week the Old City of Jerusalem is illuminated each night with the most magnificent sculpture and art work all created with light – the ancient, the city itself and the ultra modern, the lighting effects making for a breath-taking display. Israel and Israelis are having a ball. And they are being joined by

 

·         309,000 tourists last month alone, a record for the month of May, and a 33% increase over May 2009, according to data published by the Central Bureau of Statistics [how we love them]. The reports also stated that 1.4 million tourists have visited Israel since the beginning of the year, an increase of 42% and that’s a really significant number, over the same period last year.

 

·         The year 2009 saw a drop of 1% in the number of those flying to and from Eilat, according to figures released Wednesday by the Transport Ministry. But in the first four months of this year the flights took off in more ways than one and there has been an increase of 25% over the same period last year.

 

·         From the present day, three thousand years back, and archeologists − who had been involved in a dig meant to prepare for the laying of a natural gas pipeline − found more than 1,000 artifacts some 3,500 years old. The artifacts, probably ritual objects from a heathen temple were uncovered near Yokne’am. Some of the items found had been imported from Mycenae in Greece, including a pot in which precious oils were kept − proof of trade with Greece even as long ago as that.

 

·         Arguably Israel’s greatest sportswoman ever, Shahar Pe’er rose to a record 14th in the WTA rankings on Monday, her highest ever ranking and higher than any of her predecessors. A just reward for the 23-year-old’s superb performances during the clay-court season in recent weeks. We can’t think of anyone who deserves it more.

 

·         Israelis are still in Haiti, doing what they do best – lending a helping hand where it’s most needed. Property developer  Atia Group Ltd. has started with the construction of Haiti's New Hope City project. The initial stage of New Hope City will include 1,000 homes, 500,000 square feet of storage space, a municipality, police station, fire station, schools, and commercial space.

 

·         Snake bites are not really GN and that’s why when young Mohammed from just outside Jenin was bitten by a deadly viper he really didn’t find it fun and especially when his father Hafed found that the local hospital didn’t have the necessary antidote. So he was rushed to HaEmek Medical Center in Israel where reality contrasted sharply with Hafed’s negative expectations. They were immediately greeted in Arabic and taken to the emergency room, where the multi-ethnic staff administered life-saving anti-serum and brought the boy back from the brink of death. He remained   in the pediatric intensive care unit for the next two days, and is now resting comfortably before his discharge in the next couple of days. Hafed maintains that he will spread the word that Israel is different from what he’d been led to believe. So to misquote Samson: Out of the biter came forth sweetness.