Author: zenger.news

“Between 11th and 12th grade, after a tough fencing session, I saw a television report about all these elderly people and Holocaust survivors and their difficulties and loneliness. It really shocked me and I was really, really sad and depressed for a couple of days,” recounts Yakov Pizenberg. “I told myself that being sad won’t help these elderly people and that I want to do something to aid them.” Pizenberg got an idea: “A very good friend of mine worked at a bakery and I told him, ‘If you can, bring me some of the pastries that are left over…

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Femtech – technologies to manage women’s health more innovatively, accurately and efficiently – is the newest focus for the ARC (Accelerate Redesign Collaborate) Innovation Center at Sheba Medical Center in Israel. “We can not only share our ideas with the world but really change the clinical paradigm,” says the Women’s Health Innovation Center’s director, obstetrician/gynecologist Dr. Avi Tsur. Launched in July to promote patient and doctor safety during Covid, the initiative grew in scope. Big data, artificial intelligence (AI), precision medicine, telemedicine, virtualization and surgical innovations are being harnessed to find new approaches to high-risk pregnancies, postpartum follow-up, contraception, IVF, gynecologic…

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Colombo — The Sri Lankan Cabinet has granted preliminary approval for handing over management and operation of the strategic East Container Terminal at the Colombo Port to an Indian company. The agreement has not been approved by the Sri Lankan government. Documents reviewed by Zenger News confirm the Cabinet’s in-principal approval. While it was agreed by Cabinet that the management of the terminal will be handed over to India, the specifics of the deal have not yet been finalized. However, Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone, India’s largest private multi-port operator, along with its local partner, is considered the front-runner. “ECT…

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Mumbai, India — Netflix India’s original series “Delhi Crime” has won the award for Best Drama Series at the 48th International Emmy Awards — a first for an Indian show. The series, written and directed by Indian-Canadian Richie Mehta, is a fictionalized account of the aftermath of a 2012 Delhi notorious gang rape case. The award ceremony, held in New York, was streamed live. Mehta’s show beat “Criminal UK”, Germany’s “Charité” and Argentina’s “The Bronze Garden.” “Congratulations to the entire team of “Delhi Crime” for bringing home India’s first International Emmy win,” Monika Shergill, vice-president of content at Netflix India,…

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An online course about Islam taught at Tel Aviv University was recently ranked as one of the 50 best online courses in the world and has drawn a varied global audience, including numerous students from Middle Eastern and Islamic countries – some of which don’t have diplomatic relations with Israel. The course is called “Arab-Islamic History: From Tribes to Empires” and focuses on the history of the Muslim people. It reviews political developments in the Islamic world from its inception in the sixth century until the arrival of the Ottomans in the Middle East at the beginning of the 16th…

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Many investments in Israeli tech companies are in the works as a result of the Abraham Accords normalizing relations between the United Arab Emirates and Israel. Some investments are also going in the opposite direction. The first one, announced November 18, is a $3.8m seed round investment in UAE-based micro-mobility startup Fenix, led by Tel Aviv-based Maniv Mobility. This marks not only the first investment by an Israeli venture capital fund in a UAE-based tech startup since the normalization of relations but also the largest pre-launch funding round in the history of the UAE tech ecosystem.   Maniv Mobility founder and…

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Jerusalem is graced with magnificent public gardens, most notably the 30-acre Jerusalem Botanical Gardens and the Wohl Rose Garden. Israel’s capital city also has what we’d call “hidden” gardens – beautifully manicured spaces that are not well known and can take a little sleuthing to locate. It’s well worth getting off the beaten track to experience these gems. For now, you can enjoy looking at them from afar if you can’t get to Jerusalem. Special thanks to veteran tour guides Ester Saad and Mordechai Weiss for steering us to these secret gardens, and to our student intern Danya Belkin for…

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Karachi — Fishermen in Pakistan are up in arms over claims that the government has allowed Chinese trawlers for large-scale deep-sea fishing in the Exclusive Economic Zones in Pakistan’s territorial waters. “Expansion of fishing into the deep sea is a serious threat to the livelihood of small fishermen and marine ecology,” said Muhammad Ali Shah, chairman of the Pakistan FisherFolk Forum, a nongovernmental organization working for the welfare of fishermen. Shah said that a few weeks ago a dozen modern Chinese deep-sea fishing trawlers arrived off the coast of the capital of Karachi. He believes marine life will be destroyed…

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Qualified students in India will soon be able to earn a degree from Ben-Gurion University (BGU) of the Negev in dryland agriculture and biotechnology, hydrology and water quality, desert studies, or ecology and conservation. The new initiative is centered on BGU’s establishment of a joint agricultural research institute in Chennai, India, in partnership with Aban Offshore, an international Indian company in the offshore drilling and wind energy markets. “Through this partnership with Aban, we are looking forward to being able to offer the vast knowledge and experience we develop here to students in India … so that they will be…

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“Are you crazy?” is what probably went through most people’s minds after telling them I’d be going to Israel on a gap year — in the middle of a pandemic. I’m sure it seemed outlandish. Even one of my family members who is a physician in Israel advised me against coming, as he knew the cases of Covid-19 in Israel were rising. My parents, too, had their reservations. Going to a foreign country alone for an entire year as a young adult is hard enough in a normal year. I would also be going with the expectations of not seeing…

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