Israel Active

Israel’s Vietnamese embassy is launching a new women-focused startup competition called Startup Tel Aviv. It will have the sponsorship of the Vietnamese Ministry of Science and Technology.  One of the partners must be female and aged between 25 and 35.

Denmark’s Education and Research Ministry and its Foreign Ministry are to establish a new innovation center in Tel Aviv.  “We are strengthening Danish research by co-operating with the best environments abroad,” said Ulla Tørnæs, the education and research minister.

Israeli humanitarian organization IsraAID is helping many of the 90,000 evacuees from the wildfire in Alberta, Canada.  IsraAID volunteers are providing social and psychological support.  Once the fires have been extinguished another IsraAID team will go in to help clean up the debris.

So far in 2016, at least 5,700 Coptic Orthodox Christians have travelled from Egypt to Israel - one thousand more than for the whole of 2015.  The Copts previously banned pilgrimages to Israel, but in Nov 15, the new Coptic Pope Tawadros II came to Jerusalem.

Ambassador Yoram Ettinger writes about Israel’s links with NATO, Turkey, India, China, plus tech giants such as Oracle, Cisco and Intel.

NATO has upgraded its ties with Israel.  Israel will now be able to open offices at the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s headquarters in Brussels and complete a credentialing process for its representatives. The step “will help boost Israeli security”, said PM Netanyahu.

The number of Brazilians who have “liked” Israel’s Ministry of Tourism Facebook profiles in Portuguese has exceeded 2 million.  It is part of the ministry’s strategy to attract pilgrims from Brazil to visit the Holy Land.  Brazil has the largest Catholic population in the world.

The Agricultural Research Organisation of Israel and the University of Sydney signed an agriculture agreement focusing on teaching, training and research activities in the areas of dairy, poultry and aquaculture.  It follows a R&D agreement between New South Wales and Israel.

Israel and China have signed seven academic cooperation agreements with Chinese universities.  These include the establishment of joint Israeli-Chinese study institutes, as well as investments in student exchange programs.

US Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz and Yuval Steinitz, Israel’s minister of National Infrastructure, Energy and Water Resources, have signed an agreement to foster R&D, drive down the costs of clean energy technologies and encourage collaboration between top energy scientists.