Archive | 2010 | October

Herzliya, October 19, 2010 – A unique marine environment training program is set to bring together graduate students from across the Mediterranean basin – including Israel, the Palestinian Territories, Tunisia, Egypt, Greece, Turkey and Italy – to navigate them though the current environmental concerns in the Mediterranean Sea and provide them with the tools to help solve them.

The two-week program, called ‘Environmental Impacts Know No Boundaries’, will take place on board EcoOcean’s R/V Mediterranean Explorer and Environmental Ocean Team’s S/Y Adriatica in the Ligurian Sea and at a research center in La Spezia, Italy.

The Mediterranean Sea has been invaluable in shaping the economic, technological and cultural development of the nationalities and countries surrounding the Mediterranean basin, and has had far-reaching influence on the rest of the world. As a natural eco-system, the Mediterranean Sea harbors and sustains a diversity of life from microbial food-webs to aquatic plants and sea-grasses, fish and human populations. Yet the expanding human populations and the increasing rates of human-induced changes have impacted the Mediterranean causing a variety of problems such as coastal pollution, declines in species diversity and abundance, and destruction of eco-systems by invasive species and toxic blooms.

“By their nature, these challenges to the Mediterranean system are regional and are not limited to local or national boundaries or borders,”
says EcoOcean founder, Swedish-Israeli, Andreas Weil. “In order to effectively address these issues, research and management solutions must overcome many of the traditional political conflicts and constraints.”

As he stresses, “Environmental impacts know no boundaries. So, only joint approaches and regional cooperation will help tackle the current and future threats to the health of this fragile eco-system.”

According to EcoOcean director, Daniel Schaffer, the first part of the program will be devoted to theoretical and background studies, while the second half of the course will be at sea – where a practical research project will be explored and the students will acquire “hands-on”
training.

The program is being coordinated jointly by Israeli NGO EcoOcean and Italian organization Environmental Ocean Team in Italy, in cooperation with the city of La Spezia, CNR-ISMAR (National Research Council), ENEA (Italian National Agency for new technologies, Energy and Sustainable Economic Development), INGV (National Institute for Geophysic and Vulcanology) and NOCS (National Oceanography Centre, Southampton, UK).

The pilot program will be open to 16 graduate-level (Ph.D.) students from Mediterranean and associated countries, and is planned to coincide with the Marine Festival of La Spezia in June 2011.

Opportunities will be available for the press to join the on-board activities at sea. Arrangements should be made with EcoOcean in advance.

EcoOcean is an Israeli non-profit organization, acting to maintain a healthy marine environment in the eastern Mediterranean and the Red Sea.

For further details, contact:
Daniel Schaffer
EcoOcean Director

Tel: +972 (0)544 727 030
www.ecoocean.org

http://www.ecoocean.com/en/general/News.aspx?pid=78

Kempinski hotel in Munich

Luxury chain to open first hotel in 2013 near US Embassy building in Tel Aviv

Businessman Henry Taic – owner of the David Intercontinental Hotel in Tel Aviv, Le Meridien Dead Sea, and Grand Court Jerusalem – has signed an agreement to bring the Kempinski luxury hotel chain in Israel.

The agreement was signed through Taic’s company, Nahal Group.

The chain’s first hotel in Israel will be built on half of a plot located next to the US Embassy in Tel Aviv, which currently serves as a parking lot. The hotel is slated to have 23 floors and 220 room and suites. Some NIS 200 million will be invested in the hotel, which is scheduled to open in 2013.

The hotel will be part of a project which will also include the Glass Cube luxury apartments that will connect to the hotel through a glass structure.

The housing project will include a 25-floor building with 60 to 70 apartments measuring 100 to 1,000 square meters (1,076 to 10,764 square feet) in size. The apartment owners will be able to enjoy the hotel services.

The Kempinski hotel chain was established in 1897 and is considered one of the world’s luxury chains. It operates some 60 hotels and is in the process of building another 43.

Source: Ynetnews.com

Lior Suchard joins prestigious list of top performers to take center stage at glamorous Palms Hotel

What does Israeli entertainer Lior Suchard have in common with Elvis Presley, Frank Sinatra, Cher, and Celine Dion? He too is taking Las Vegas by storm.

According to Yedioth Ahronoth, Suchard has won a coveted regular performer contract at the Palms Casino Resort – one of sin city’s most glamorous locations.

The first phase of the contract will see Suchard, who is an Uri Geller-style entertainer, perform for 10 weeks.

“This is very exciting. It’s a great honor and another important milestone in my career,” Suchard said. “I was originally slated to perform in the hotel three years ago, but then the financial crisis hit, and the contract fizzled. I didn’t give up though, and I signed with a talent agency and after I was featured on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno, offers started pouring in.”

The Israeli paranormalist promises Las Vegas audiences “90 minutes of interactive, intense, crazy fun. It’s not just a mind-reading show, it’s also standup comedy. My experience has taught me the combination works well.”

Suchard has no intention of stopping in Vegas and he is eyeing the talk shows’ circuit: “We’re in talks with The Oprah Winfrey Show, Dr. Phill, The Rachael Ray Show and Ellen DeGeneres, so I’ll be on one of those soon too.

Source: Ynetnews.com

The hosts were seen entering Israel from Jordan earlier this week in a a Mazda Miata driven by Clarkson that had a hookah affixed to it.

British car show Top Gear is filming an episode in Israel this week, and hosts Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May are sure to learn a little about driving in a country where commuting is a blood-sport and road signs confound at breakneck speed.

The hosts were seen entering Israel from Jordan earlier this week in a pair of sand and dirt-battered roadsters, including a Mazda Miata driven by Clarkson that had a hookah affixed to its drivers’ side door.

The well-worn roadsters look more than capable of handling an encounter with a Tel Aviv cab driver or stone-throwing Silwan youth, and whether or not the Top Gear hosts plan to affix Breslav stickers or the likeness of Gilad Schalit to the roadsters remains to be seen.

Though details of the visit are not clear, Channel 2 reported that the Top Gear crew was seen filming in Nazareth, before tearing through the hills chased by paparazzi to Highway 6, where they high-tailed it south toward Jerusalem.

The visit to Israel during a late October heat wave is to film an episode for the show’s coming season. The show has hundreds of millions of viewers worldwide, many of whom will get their first view of Israel as the tourism ministry never intended it: through a bug-spattered windshield flying down an open Israeli highway.

Source: Jpost.com

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