Israeli startups win Global Innovation Awards in China
(Israel Hayom/Exclusive to JNS.org) Two Israeli startups have won first and second place at the Global Innovation Awards 2016 in Beijing.
Israeli startup NiNiSpeech, which developed an ingenious digital platform for speech disorder treatment, won first place, and Israeli startup AerialGuard, which has developed an autonomous navigation system for unmanned aircraft, came in second.
Each of the startups will receive $200,000 in cash. This is the second consecutive year that an Israeli startup has won first place in the competition. Last year, DiaCardio, developer of innovative software for decoding echocardiograms, won first prize.
The two Israeli winners competed against 21 other startups from China, the U.S. and Europe, which were selected in an eight-month selection process out of 3,000 contenders from across the globe that vied for a place in the finals.
The winners were chosen by 11 judges from around the world and real-time voting from an audience of over 1,000 people.
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Ibiza city council votes to support BDS
(JNS.org) A city council in the Spanish island of Ibiza has reportedly endorsed the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel.
The Santa Eulalia City Council, the most populated municipality on the island, has voted to support BDS in its plenary session, according to the lobby group ACOM, which works to combat BDS in Spain.
The council’s endorsement means that the city will “support the BDS campaign, the boycott against Israeli and pro-Israel institutions, companies and organizations, including Spanish nationals associated or sympathetic to the Jewish state,” ACOM said. This also means that the area of Santa Eulalia of the Island – popular with many tourists, including Israelis – will be designated a “space free of Israeli Apartheid.”
According to ACOP, the proposal to boycott Israel was initiated by the far-left municipal group Guanyem. “ACOM urges the city council of Santa Eulalia in Ibiza and its Mayor Vicente Mari Torres to reverse immediately the discriminatory boycott agreement that goes directly against the many Israeli and pro-Israel residents and visitors to Ibiza,” ACOM said in a statement.
“We also demand that the ruling Partido Popular of Prime Minister Rajoy instructs its different local authorities to actively oppose these declarations. The Spanish government should also act proactively through its state attorney against such unconstitutional agreements so that it is not just up to private organizations such as ACOM to fight against blatant anti-Semitism exercised by public authorities in Spain,” ACOM also said.
However, the City Council’s spokesperson Samuel Parra told the Jerusalem Post that the City Council did not actually vote to support a boycott against Israel, but to support an expression of solidarity with UN resolutions against Israel. Nevertheless, ACOM said it plans to “redress this blatant act of discrimination” by the council using legal means.
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Israel announces steps to increase Chinese tourism
(JNS.org) Israel’s Ministry of Tourism on Wednesday announced two major steps they expect will significantly increase Chinese tourism to Israel.
“The approval of the ten year multiple entry visa and the cancellation of fees for Chinese tourist groups are important steps that join other marketing steps to break into the Chinese market,” said Tourism Minister Yariv Levin in a press release.
Levin noted that Interior Minister Aryeh Deri helped lead the process for the new initiative and Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon was integral in ensuring approval for the changes.
“China is a most important country . . . It is very important that as many tourists as possible visit Israel from China. These are procedures that will greatly assist both Israeli and Chinese tourism and will significantly contribute to bi-lateral relations and the economy of both countries,” Deri said.
Originally the entry visa for Chinese tourists was only three months. Now, as a result of a mutual agreement between China and Israel, the Chinese are allowed to visit Israel multiple times in a 10-year period. This includes Israelis visiting China, with both countries allowing up to 90 days per visit.
In addition, Israeli tourists will no longer have to wait more than 3 days to obtain a visa and Chinese tourist groups may add names of tourists to their group up to one day prior to departure for Israel.
The NIS 35 visa fee per person traveling in a group to Israel was also cancelled.
Israel’s Tourism Ministry has prioritized their marketing strategy on China, for instance, because Chinese tourists spend the most money during their stay in Israel, spending $1,947 per tourist, per visit compared to the average of $1,600. Also, the number of tourists from China has increase dramatically since 2000 with a 43 percent increase from 2014 to 2015 alone.
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Frescoes from the Roman period found in Galilee
(JNS.org) Hundreds of fresco fragments from the Roman period were discovered this summer in the Zippori National Park in Israel’s Galilee region by a team from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
The Roman art fragments found at the excavation site, which was led by Prof. Zeev Weiss, the Eleazar L. Sukenik Professor of Archaeology at the Hebrew University’s Institute of Archaeology, included figurative images, floral patterns and geometric motifs which decorated a huge building in the early second century CE.
Excavators have already uncovered walls of public and private buildings from the Roman Zippori site that were decorated with frescoes in geometric and floral patterns. However, “this season’s finds are the first, only and earliest evidence of figurative images in wall paintings at the site. The finds date to the beginning of the second century CE. Parallels to these finds are virtually unknown at other Israeli sites of the same period,” a press release the Hebrew University of Jerusalem said.
“The discovery in Zippori is unique and provides new information regarding murals in Roman Palestine. Zippori is well known for its unique mosaics . . . While the earliest mosaics discovered at the site date to around 200 CE, the ancient frescoes precede them by about a hundred years and are thus of great importance.”
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