In the interview, Lewis, the Director and Chief Economist of the
Division of Risk, Strategy and Financial Innovation with the Securities
and Exchange Commission (SEC), speaking on his own behalf, outlines the
value of XBRL data that allows the SEC, investors, analysts, the media
and other stakeholders to compare and analyze public company financial
data instantly. In addition, Lewis offers insight about the predictive
accounting quality model being developed by the SEC.

“It is a fully automated system that effectively takes a firm’s filing
the day it comes in, processes it, and then keeps it in the [SEC’s]
database so that somebody who is interested in looking at a report on
that company would be able to do so within 24 hours of the filing being
posted on EDGAR,” says Lewis, who was named to his current position in
May 2011.

“The Craig Lewis interview offers incredible insight into how XBRL is
evolving and answers the question of many SEC filers: ‘Is anyone ever
going to use this XBRL data?’” notes Mike Schlanger, Vice President of
XBRL Business Development and Strategy for Merrill Corporation. “Mr.
Lewis’ comments demonstrate that the SEC is using XBRL data to enhance
its review process and is committed to building new tools in the future.
The bottom line: XBRL is not going away; quality and accuracy do matter;
and as Craig Lewis stresses in his Dimensions interview, larger
public companies now carry the same liability for their XBRL data as
they do with their EDGAR filings.”

“One of the main obstacles to the SEC’s vision,” Schlanger adds, “is the
continued occurrence of errors in a registrant’s XBRL filings. The SEC
has published multiple Staff Observations informing filers of the
errors with which they are most concerned. However, many filers remain
unaware of how these errors can make their way into their filing.
Outside experts, such as Merrill’s XBRL CPA team, are dedicated to
helping public companies close this knowledge gap to ensure they have
the requisite knowledge to verify the accuracy of their XBRL files.”

About Dimensions

Dimensions
(merrillcorp.com/transaction-services) is published by St. Paul-based
Merrill Corporation for legal, financial and corporate compliance
professionals, offering insights and in-depth information related to
financial compliance filing and corporate transactions. The newsletter
is available free of charge to professionals at Dimensions/April
2013.

About Merrill Corporation

Founded in 1968 and headquartered in St. Paul, Minn., Merrill
Corporation (www.merrillcorp.com)
is a leading provider of solutions for complex business communication
and information management. We serve the legal, financial services,
health sciences, insurance and real estate industries with document and
data management, litigation support, language translation services,
branded communication programs, fulfillment, imaging and printing. Our
unmatched proprietary technologies and more than 5,000 people in
locations around the world empower the communications of the world’s
leading companies.

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American, Israeli win Bible quiz

April 16, 2013

(JTA) — New Jersey native Yishai Eisenberg and Israel’s Elior Babian won Israel’s annual Bible quiz.

Yishai Eisenberg of Passaic, N.J., a student at YBH-Hillel of Passaic, and Elior Babian of Beit Shemesh, Israel, emerged as winners from the 16 finalists who participated Tuesday in the quiz, which is held in Jerusalem each Israeli Independence Day.

For the first time, the competition featured simultaneous sign language translation, a result of a complaint by Israeli Education Minister Shai Piron, who had refused to participate in Holocaust commemorations last week because there was no simultaneous signing.

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In 1991, Rossetto and Metcalfe were ready to execute their plan. For design support, they enlisted their friends John Plunkett and Barbara Kuhr—a married couple living in New York
City—and said, “Let’s go.”

Jane Metcalfe (president): We could see it so vividly. In Amsterdam, Philips was the Sony of its day. They were experimenting with all these data types. It was a time of great imagination about digital media. We’d been in it since the late ’80s, watching it, reporting on it, and it was accelerating.

Louis Rossetto (editor/publisher): So I called John and said we should get together and talk. Why don’t we meet up at the Macworld Expo in San Francisco?

John Plunkett (creative director): Up to that point, I was skeptical that we were ever going to make a magazine. When we went to Macworld, it went from theoretical to tangible.

LR: I remember meeting with John Plunkett, Randy Stickrod [founder of Computer Graphics World], and Jim Felici [Europe editor of desktop publishing journal Publish!  ] on a little mezzanine where the escalators go down into Moscone Center. We sat there talking about this magazine, how it needed to be made and we were the guys to make it. John would do the design. Randy had the financial contacts. Jim would be managing editor. I’d be publisher. Jane, who didn’t come with us to San Francisco, would be president.

JP: We left with a commitment. We would move to San Francisco to make this magazine.

But it still didn’t have a name.

JP: Millennium turned out to be the title of a magazine of film criticism. Louis ran into a disagreement with his Dutch publisher about who owned Electric Word.

LR: John wanted to call it Digit. Digit–dig it–get it?

JM: I just immediately threw up. Then I felt this huge responsibility to come up with a name. We came up with Wired, and everything fell into place. It set the tone. It captured the punch—the edge—and the double meanings were rich.

Rossetto and Metcalfe wrapped up their affairs in anticipation of moving to the US. First stop: New York, to pick up Plunkett and Kuhr.

LR: When we got there, we found they had made other plans. They had bought a Jeep Cherokee, packed all their stuff, and instead of going to California they were on their way to Park City, Utah, where they had bought a house. It was a big surprise.

JP: I said I’d like to formalize our partnership. Louis and Jane were uncomfortable putting anything on paper.

LR: It was so nebulous what we were doing. Who knew what you could promise anyone before you had a deal?

JP: I said, if we can’t agree, Barbara and I can’t move to San Francisco.

Rossetto prevailed on his reluctant partners to stay long enough to make a mock-up of  Wired that he and Metcalfe could use to drum up investor interest.

Neil Selkirk (contributing photographer): They wound up producing the first prototype in my studio in New York City, ransacking drawers full of samples I’d done for magazines over the previous 20 years. They did sort of take over. Nothing was going to stop Louis.

LR: We worked day and night for three days. I’d write up some stuff, we’d look through books for images, take them to the copy shop at all times of the day and night. We collaged it together on 12 pages. We called it “Manifesto for a New Magazine.”

This proto-prototype’s cover featured a dour-looking John Perry Barlow, who had recently cofounded the Electronic Frontier Foundation, in a photo cadged from  The New York Times Magazine. The table of contents included made-up articles like “Still Dead Right: Neo-McLuhanites Face the 21st Century” and a report on the Inslaw scandal. It offered sections titled Electric Word, Idèes Fortes, and Street Cred, as well as a fax of the month.

JP: Almost every story idea Louis put into the table of contents was eventually published in Wired during our first year or two. The brand-new overnight success of 1993 had been percolating since the late 1980s.

NS: We went out for some insane Chinese meal. Then John and Barbara got into their car and drove away.

LR: Bye-bye, good luck. They took off.

Yishai Eisenberg, of Passaic, New Jersey, a student of YBH of Passaic-Hillel; and Elior Babian, from Beit Shemesh, emerged as winners of the 16 finalists who participated Tuesday in the quiz, which is held at the Jerusalem Theater every Independence Day.

It was the first time in the 50 years of the competition — which was started by David Ben-Gurion — that the judges awarded the prize to two people.

This year, also for the first time, there was simultaneous sign-language translation, a result of a complaint by Education Minister Shai Piron, who refused to participate in Holocaust commemorations last week because there was no simultaneous signing.

MK Dov Lipman with Bible Quiz winner Elior Babian (photo: Courtesy)

American-born Yesh Atid MK Rabbi Dov Lipman, who lives in Beit Shemesh, said the city was “filled with tremendous pride over Elior’s victory. This is a city filled with gems — both in terms of its schools and its citizens — and the time has come for all of Israel, and Jews around the world, to know it.”

“In my role in the Knesset seeking to strengthen the bond between Israel and Jewish communities in North America,” Lipman added, “I see this joint victory as packed with meaning. The bond between Israel and North American Jewry must go way beyond simple financial support. We have joint values, built around the Bible, which we must seek to strengthen. I hope that Yishai and Elior sharing the victory platform for the Bible contest will serve as the springboard for numerous projects to strengthen the bond between these communities.”

File my instantaneous, mad love for “Cold War” under “Didn’t See It Coming,” because I was hedging bets this episode would be a letdown, especially after the flirtation with greatness that was “The Rings of Akhaten” (an episode that’s grown on me enormously over the past week). Surely the series couldn’t produce two straight weeks of awesomeness? Also, it’s written by Mark Gatiss, whose Who scripts I’ve had issues with more often than not. But not here, not this time, not at all. He got it just right. I want to declare “Cold War” an instant classic, right here and now, and deem it one of the triumphs of the Steven Moffat era, despite the era not having ended yet. It’s everything that’s ever been great about Doctor Who, and basically none of what’s been deficient about it. If the show could be this straightforward, intelligent and unsettling more often, it’d be all the better for it.

Article source: http://www.vulture.com/2013/04/doctor-who-recap-season-7-episode-9.html

French minister in Mali, presses for July poll

French foreign minister urges Mali to stick to July poll date

By BABA AHMED and RUKMINI CALLIMACHI

Associated Press

BAMAKO, Mali — French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius urged Mali on Friday to stick to a July date for its upcoming presidential election, stressing that the poll is a crucial step in restoring constitutional order following last year’s coup.

The date is considered unrealistic by many country watchers because the northern half of Mali remains insecure, with remnants of an al-Qaida cell still active despite a three-month-old, French-led military intervention aimed at uprooting the extremists. But during a stop in Mali’s capital, Fabius stressed that the elections are necessary and that the country should not delay them.

“The desire to hold the election by the given date is unanimous, and that date is in the month of July,” Fabius told reporters at a press conference on Friday.

Foreign Affairs Minister Tieman Coulibaly said France had promised to provide Mali with the human resources it needs to carry out the election, including two, full-time election experts. The price-tag for the election is estimated to be around 149 billion West African francs ($295 million), according to a confidential planning document which The Associated Press was allowed to see.

Late Thursday, Moussa Sinko Coulibaly, Mali’s minister in charge of organizing the election, said the country already had the budget needed to organize the poll. Besides the problem of holding the poll in the insecure north, critics point out that hundreds of thousands of Malians are currently displaced, living in refugee camps in four neighboring nations, making it unclear how to carry out voter registration.

Coulibaly said on Friday that they plan to work with the U.N. refugee agency in order to create a system to allow people to vote inside the refugee camps, if they are unwilling or unable to return to Mali.

An official involved in the planning of the election who could not be named because he wasn’t authorized to speak publicly on the matter said that it is logistically impossible to hold the election by July.

“There are lots of things missing that we need in order to hold a presidential election. To start with, the company that needs to be contracted to create the voter ID cards has not even been chosen yet. Secondly, the minister of territorial administration who is in charge of overseeing the election has presented a budget that is different from the one presented by the minister of finance to organize the poll — just to say, it’s a real mess right now,” the official said. “The Malians are trying to show (to the French) that they want the elections to be held, but there is not a single, palpable thing that they are doing to make this happen.”

REUTERS/KCNA

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Tensions between the United States and the North Korean regime have been approaching dangerous new heights of late, but Kim Jong Un’s government still has a small, official presence in America.

In addition to North Korea’s Mission to the United Nations, the country has one registered agent in the United States, a businessman who lives in Upper Manhattan who has made casino and liquor deals with Pyongyang and was once convicted of lying to FBI agents in a mysterious case that involved spies and officials on both sides of the Korean Peninsula.

Il Woo Park is a 64-year-old South Korean national with legal permanent resident status in the United States. According to court documents, news reports, and filings with the government, Park has had extensive dealings with North Korea, South Korea — and the FBI. His unique relationships with the United States and the two Koreas remain murky and perhaps unprecedented.

Park ran a company called Korea Pyongyang Trading U.S.A., Inc., out of his small apartment in the neighborhood of Inwood, according to court documents. Park’s business was based on what he regularly described as extensive connections to the North Korean government. However, as Park was making deals to bypass strict economic sanctions and import North Korean booze into the United States he was also apparently working with a network of spies from North Korea’s sworn enemy, South Korea.

In 2007, Park ended up in federal court charged with multiple counts of lying to FBI agents who were investigating South Korean spies living covertly in the United States. His case involved secret phone lines that even the FBI was unable to identify, a meeting at Grant’s Tomb in Manhattan — and envelopes of cash. Park eventually pleaded guilty to all of the charges but was sentenced only to probation. The plea agreement remains sealed. After his conviction Park was still allowed to travel back and forth between New York and Pyongyang even while on probation.

North Korea’s response to Park’s alleged work with South Korean spies was perhaps even more unusual than the gentle handling he received from the United States. At his trial, Park admitted to using his business trips to North Korea to obtain information for South Korean intelligence agencies. In spite of this, the reclusive North Korean government continued to allow him into the country and even deepened their relationships with his business. In 2011, North Korea signed an agreement to have Park’s company develop a troubled mountain resort about 40 miles away from Pyongyang and promote it as a tourist destination.

James Person is a historian at the Wilson Center in Washington who runs the think tank’s North Korea International Documentation Project, an archive of official documents detailing the country’s diplomatic and military history. After hearing Park’s story, Person described as unprecedented Park’s apparent ability to maintain relationships with officials in North Korea after his ties to South Korean intelligence were exposed.

“I’ve seen some interesting things in the diplomatic record, especially of North Korea’s former communist allies, but nothing like that before,” said Person.

Park’s company, Korea Pyongyang Trading U.S.A., Inc., was founded in 2004 in Manhattan. That year, Park gave an interview to North Korea’s state-run news agency, KCNA, in which he announced his plans to sell North Korean made soju, a traditional liquor, in the United States.

Park’s “Pyongyang soju” hit American store shelves in mid-2007. Under the U.S. economic sanctions on North Korea, it is prohibited for “goods, services, and technology from North Korea” to “be imported into the United States, directly or indirectly” without a license from the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control. The Treasury Department would not confirm whether Park received permission to import his North Korean soju, citing a policy of not commenting on “specific license approvals or denials for privacy and trade secret reasons.” However, when he started his soju business Park told media outlets in China and North Korea he had a license to sell his liquor.

A few months after he began selling his soju, on July 18, 2007, Park was arrested by FBI agents. In a criminal complaint and supporting affidavit, FBI Special Agent William Smith described how Park had extensive relationships with suspected South Korean agents and lied to the FBI about these connections on three separate occasions in 2005 and 2007. Smith described one episode in March 2007 when Park was interviewed by FBI agents and shown photographs of four South Koreans whom he denied knowing. Immediately afterwards, Smith said, “Park drove directly from his meeting with me and other FBI personnel in Manhattan to a restaurant in New Jersey” where he met with one of the South Koreans he had just denied knowing. Court documents did not name the South Koreans tied to Park, but identified them as “intelligence officers of the South Korean government.”

Though he wasn’t forthcoming about his ties to South Korea, Smith said Park touted his relationships with North Korean officials when he spoke to the FBI. According to Smith, Park’s first meeting with the FBI occurred on August 22, 2005. Smith said Park chose to meet outside of Grant’s Tomb and brought up his connections to North Korea when asked about his relationships with the South Korean spies.

“Park stated that he did not understand why he was being asked questions about South Korean officials and not about North Korean officials,” said Smith. “Park further stated that a meeting between him and the United States was long overdue, because he could act as a ‘go-between’ between the U.S. and North Korea, that he frequently traveled to North Korea, including to places that no foreign visitors were allowed, and that he had access to high-ranking officials in North Korea.”

In another meeting on January 15, 2007, Smith described Park boasting to FBI agents that he was “important to the North Korean government.”

Park also discussed his North Korean connections in recorded conversations with the South Koreans. In 2005, Smith said Park told one of the South Korean intelligence officers that “North Korean officials” had asked him to “bring to them certain items, including insecticides, anesthetics, and veterinary products on an upcoming trip to North Korea.” On February 12, 2007, Smith said the FBI heard a conversation between Park and an unspecified “individual” and “was asked whether it was a good idea for certain North Korean officials to attend a certain church.”

“Park stated that he did not think it was a good idea, since Park knew that many South Korean consulate personnel and intelligence officers attended that church,” Smith said.

During a bail hearing on July 19, 2007, the day after Park’s arrest, federal prosecutor Edward O’Callaghan described statements he said Park made after being arrested in which he, essentially, confessed to working with South Korean intelligence officers.

“The defendant admitted to meeting with South Korean officials over the course of the last several years, and those officials are known to the FBI to be intelligence officers of the South Korean government,” O’Callaghan said of Park. “The defendant admitted to accepting from those officials taskings to obtain information from North Korean officials, and to deliver that information to the South Korean officials with whom the defendant dealt. This defendant admitted to traveling to North Korea at the behest of South Korean officials to, again, obtain additional information, and to provide that information to South Korean officials.”

O’Callaghan went on to say Park admitted to being paid by South Korean officials for this work and that it represented “almost the totality of his income.” Court documents also described envelopes containing thousands of dollars in cash that were found during the search of Park’s apartment. Despite his payments from the South Koreans and his soju business, at the start of his trial, Park filled out a financial affidavit identifying himself as unemployed and without any “cash on hand or money in savings or checking accounts.”

On Dec. 14, 2007, Park entered a guilty plea. Park’s plea deal was immediately sealed and removed from the court record. The three counts of making false statements carried a maximum sentence of 15 years in prison with maximum fines of about $250,000 and three years of “supervised release.” He was subsequently sentenced to 18 months’ probation and ordered to pay $300 in “criminal monetary penalties,” on April 18, 2008.

During the time Park was on probation, the government joined his attorneys in requesting for him to be allowed to make five trips to North Korea and China. Park was allowed to travel to North Korea while on probation in spite of the fact that at the initial bail hearing O’Callaghan requested he be denied bail “based on both risk of flight and danger to the community.” When characterizing Park as a flight risk, O’Callaghan specifically cited the fact Park made at least “fifty trips to both China and the Korean Peninsula over the last several years.”

Both the FBI and the U.S. Attorney’s office for the Southern District of New York declined to comment on the treatment Park received or the circumstances of his deal with the U.S. government. North Korea’s mission to the United Nations, in New York City, also declined to comment on Park or his case. “I’m sorry to say that we aren’t receiving the questions from the foreign press,” the man who answered the mission’s phone said before hanging up.

Not only was Park allowed to re-enter North Korea after publicly admitting to working with the South Korean government, he also continued his liquor business. According to Bloomberg, in August 2012, Park visited Pyongyang and extended his soju deal through 2016.

Park also expanded his business relationship with the North Korean regime beyond liquor. According to documents filed with the Department of Justice’s Foreign Agents Registration Unit, Park entered into an agreement in July 2011 with the North Korean government to have his company, Korea Pyongyang Trading U.S.A., Inc., help develop a mountain resort with a unique and violent history.

“The Directorate for Keumgangsan Special international Tourism District … and the Korea Pyongyang Trading U.S.A. Inc. … have agreed to develop the Keumgangsan area, a world-famous mountain, into a special world-class international tourism district,” said an English-language translation of the memorandum of understanding between Park and North Korea that was submitted to the DOJ’s FARA unit. (Under the Foreign Agents Registration Act, persons in the United States acting as agents of foreign principals are required to disclose their activities to the Justice Department in publicly available filings.)

Also known as Mount Kumgang, the resort was, for a time, one of the few holes in the iron curtain that normally surrounds North Korea. In 1989, North Korea teamed up with South Korea to develop resort facilities at the mountain, the first business project between the two nations since the 1940s. Eventually, Mount Kumgang welcomed international visitors who used U.S. dollars, providing a rare source of international currency for the isolated North Korean regime. In 2008, the harsher reality of tensions on the Korean Peninsula intruded on the resort when a South Korean housewife visiting Mount Kumgang was shot and killed by North Korean troops after she wandered onto a restricted beach. When North Korea refused to investigate the shooting, South Korea retaliated by banning its citizens from traveling to the resort. North Korea fired back by seizing property at the resort that was owned by South Korean businesses.

Park’s contract with the North Korean government stipulated he would develop plans for a “casino business” and other facilities at Mount Kumgang. He also was tasked with mounting “advertising campaigns” and distributing “informational materials” to promote the resort.

When Park signed the deal for Korea Pyongyang Trading U.S.A., Inc., he also indicated his company’s director of marketing and planning, Simon T. Bai, would be working with him on the project. In an interview with Bloomberg published in December, Bai described the company’s work as an effort to revitalize the resort in the wake of the shooting.

“We’re doing this with hopes that resuming tours to Keumgang could help open North Korea up, and thereby help unite the two Koreas again,” Bai said.

Bai did not respond to calls to his home address to ask about his work with Park. Though the Justice Department said Park is still listed as an active foreign agent, his company is listed as inactive in New York, having been dissolved by state authorities in July 2012 for failure to file returns or to pay taxes or fees.

TPM also attempted to contact Park to have him shed light on his work and his unique relationship with North Korea and the United States. An older woman opened the door halfway when we visited his apartment on a residential block in Inwood Tuesday morning. As a small dog barked in the background, she told us he was not home and would be traveling until later in the week. We asked whether he was in North Korea.

“I can’t tell you,” she said.

The woman asked us to leave a business card so Park could contact us upon his return. As of this writing, he has not responded.

This story was originally published by Talking Points Memo.

Families can register prospective kindergarten students and learn how to get ready for the first day of school at the Pasadena Unified School District’s (PUSD) Kindergarten Registration and Readiness Fair Saturday, April 20 from 9 AM-12 PM. Parents and incoming students can meet PUSD kindergarten teachers, learn about summer “kinder prep” options and get up to date with required immunizations.

“We invite parents and new kindergarten students to learn about PUSD so that children enter school prepared to do their very best,” said Superintendent Jon R. Gundry. “The teachers and staff of PUSD look forward to partnering with parents in this first step of their child’s journey through K-12 education.”

At this event parents and students can:

·         Register for the 2013-2014 academic year

·         Get free immunizations needed for kindergarten (Medi-Cal eligible and uninsured only)

·         Discover kindergarten preparation summer programs including those offered by PEF

·         Learn about transitional kindergarten options for children with fall birthdays

·         Get tips on helping students and parents get ready for the first day of school

·         Obtain information about PUSD’s school breakfast and lunch programs

·         Meet and connect with other current and incoming PUSD parents

·         Receive free school supplies from PUSD’s Families in Transition

The event will take place in the Rose City High School Great Room at PUSD’s Central Office located at 351 S. Hudson Ave. in Pasadena. Free parking is available in the PUSD north lot on Del Mar Blvd. and south lot on Oak Knoll Ave. Admission is free. All families attending the Kindergarten Fair on April 20 will receive a readiness packet with fun activities for students to prepare for school. Spanish language translation will be available.

Nelson Zavala had been fined £2,014, for making the comments that gay people could be “cured”, were “immoral”, and suffering from “severe deviation of conduct”.

Nelson Zavala polled just 1.23% of the vote in February’s elections in the country. He has been banned for political activity for a year.

He is unable to stand as a candidate or be involved with a political party or movement.

In February, Zavala came last out of eight candidates and President Rafael Correa was re-elected for a third term with nearly 60% of the vote.

A court heard Mr Zavala, an evangelical preacher, made a series of public anti-gay statements which breached Ecuador’s electoral code.

Judge Patricia Baca Mancheno found Mr Zavala violated the electoral code, which “forbids candidates of publicly expressing any thoughts that discriminate or affect other people’s dignity or utilise symbols, expressions or allusions of a religious nature.”

At the hearing, the preacher said his opinions were aimed at the country’s constitution, which “destroys the true Ecuadorian family” by allowing same-sex marriage.

Article 67 of the Ecuadorian Constitution limits marriage to the union of a man and a woman.

However, according to an unofficial English language translation of Article 68, adopted in 2009, the article provides that same-sex couples in stable and monogamous unions enjoy the same rights and obligations of married couples.

Discuss this →

While a great deal of international and media focus has been placed on Israel’s military conflicts, the country quietly has become an energetic, ambitious incubator of entrepreneurialism and invention. What follows is a timeline chronicling some of the most important and interesting innovations produced by Israelis during their country’s 65-year existence. 

RUMMIKUB (1940s): Ephraim Hertzano invents the smash hit board game Rummikub, which goes on to become the best-selling game in the United States in 1977.

UZI MACHINE GUN (1948): Major Uzi Gal develops the Uzi submachine gun. Gaf builds in numerous mechanical innovations resulting in a shorter, more wieldy automatic. It is estimated that more than 10 million have been built; the Uzi has seen action in numerous wars and in countries throughout the world.

SUPER CUKE (1950s): Esra Galun’s research into hybrid seeds leads to his creation of the world’s first commercial hybrid cucumber. Their descendants and the techniques Galun pioneered account for the majority of cucumbers cultivated today. Galun went on to develop early-blooming melons and disease-resistant potatoes. His work continues to inform and influence crop genetics.

CANCER SCREENER (1954): Weizmann Institute pioneer Ephraim Frei begins groundbreaking research on the effect of magnetism on human tissue. His work will lead directly to the development of the T-Scan system for the detection of breast cancer, which the U.S. Food and Drug Administration described as a “significant … breakthrough.”

EARLY COMPUTER (1955): The Weizmann Institute’s WEIZAC computer performs its first calculation. With an initial memory of 1,024 words stored on a magnetic drum, it is one of the first large-scale stored program computers in the world. In 2006, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers recognizes WEIZAC as a milestone achievement in the fields of computers and electrical engineering.

SOLAR ENERGY BENCHMARK (1955): Harry Zvi Tabor develops a new solar energy system that today powers 95 percent of Israeli solar water heaters and is the standard for solar water heating around the world.

AMNIOCENTESIS (1956): Weizmann professor Leo Sachs becomes the first to examine cells drawn from amniotic fluid to diagnose potential genetic abnormalities or prenatal infections in developing fetuses. His work becomes known as amniocentesis, a routine procedure now conducted on pregnant women worldwide.

LAB-BRED BLOOD CELLS (1963): Sachs becomes the first researcher to grow normal human blood cells in a laboratory dish. This breakthrough leads to the development of a therapy that increases the production of crucial white blood cells in cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy. 

 DRIP IRRIGATION (1965): Founding of Netafim, developer and distributor of modern drip irrigation.

COLOR HOLOGRAM (1966): Asher Friesem produces the world’s first color hologram. He goes on to explore 3-D imaging through work that leads to the development of “heads up” displays for pilots, doctors and other virtual reality systems.

DESALINATION (1967): Sydney Loeb takes a position at Ben-Gurion University, where he will develop the reverse osmosis desalination process, now the worldwide standard.

ADVANCED CELLULAR RESEARCH (1970): Ada Yonath establishes the only protein crystallography laboratory in Israel. She begins a course of research on the structure and function of the ribosome, the sub-cellular component that produces protein, which in turn controls all chemistry within organisms. Her work lays a foundation for the emergence of so-called “rational drug design,” which produces treatments for several types of leukemia, glaucoma and HIV, as well as antipsychotic and antidepressant drugs. Along with two colleagues, Yonath is awarded the 2009 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. 

BLOOD DETOXIFICATION (1972): Meir Wilchek demonstrates that “affinity chromatography” — a method he developed for separating biological or biochemical materials — can be used to detoxify human blood. The work leads to the development of present-day technologies, employed around the world, that are used to remove poison from a patient’s blood.

DRONE AIRCRAFT (1973): Israeli fighter jets sustain serious damage during the Yom Kippur War. In response, Israel initiates the development of the first modern Unmanned Aerial Vehicles – also known as UAVs or drones. The new Israeli drones are lighter, smaller and cheaper than any of their predecessors, with capacities such as real-time 360-degree video imaging, radar decoy capability and increased operating ceilings. Drones enable Israel to eliminate Syria’s air defenses at the start of the 1982 war with Lebanon without losing a single pilot. Drones descending today from Israeli designs conduct military, civilian, research and surveillance operations around the world.

COMPUTER PROCESSORS (1974): Computer heavyweight Intel sets up an RD shop in Israel, leading to the development of the globally ubiquitous 8088 processor and Centrino chip.

COMPUTER SECURITY (1977): Adi Shamir, working with two American colleagues, describes a method of encryption. Now known as RSA, it is the single most important encryption method used worldwide to secure transactions between customers and banks, credit card companies and Internet merchants.

DIGITAL AGE INFORMATION SHARING (1977): Abraham Lempel and Jacob Ziv develop the LZ data compression algorithms. Aside from their trailblazing academic applications, the algorithms become the primary basis of early computer information sharing. Today, LZ algorithms and their derivatives make possible our ability to send many types of photos and images between computers quickly and easily.

FARM-SCALE FOOD STORAGE (1980s): Shlomo Navarro invents a simple yet paradigm-shifting food storage system intended to help farmers in developing food-poor and resource-poor areas to keep their crops from spoiling after harvest. The system evolves into GrainPro Cocoons, water- and air-tight containers used around the world to prevent the damaging effects of spoilage and parasites without the use of pesticides.

LEUKEMIA TREATMENT (1981): Elli Canaani joins the Weizmann Institute. His research into the molecular processes leading to chronic myelogenous leukemia, or CML, will result in the development of Gleevec, a drug now provided to CML patients around the world. The molecular processes discovered by Canaani were subsequently discovered to be at work in other leukemias, as well as certain tumors and lymphomas. 

UNDERSTANDING CELLULAR ACTIVITY (1981): Avram Hershko and Aaron Ciechanover — along with American counterpart Irwin Rose — begin work that will lead to the discovery of ubiquitin, a molecular “label” that governs the destruction of protein in cells. The discovery produces a dramatic improvement in the understanding of cellular function and the processes that bring about ailments such as cervical cancer and cystic fibrosis. In recognition of their work, the team receives the 2004 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.

A NEW FORM OF MATTER (1982): Israeli scientist Daniel Shechtman discovers Quasicrystals, a “new” form of matter that had been considered not only nonexistent but impossible. Shechtman becomes the object of disdain and ridicule, but his discovery eventually is vindicated and earns him the 2011 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Applications of Quasicrystals range from the mundane (nonstick cookware) to the arcane (superconductive and superinsulative industrial materials).

COMPUTER “LANGUAGE” (1986): Computer scientist David Harel develops Statecharts, a revolutionary computer language used to describe and design complex systems. Statecharts are used worldwide in areas from aviation to chemistry. Harel’s work is also being applied to the analysis of the genetic structures of living creatures with hopes of applying subsequent discoveries to the analysis and treatment of disease, infection and other biological processes.

IMMUNOLOGY ADVANCEMENT (1991): Weizmann Institute professor Yair Reisner announces the creation of mice with fully functioning human immune systems. Described from an immunological perspective as “humans with fur,” the mice provide for the first time a real-world arena in which to study human ailments and represent a major step forward in the search for a cure for AIDS, hepatitis A and B, and other infectious diseases.

BABY MONITOR (1991): Haim Shtalryd develops the BabySense crib monitor, which becomes standard child safety equipment in millions of homes worldwide.

OFFICE PRINTER (1993): Rehovot-based Indigo Inc. introduces the E-Print 1000. The device enables small operators to produce printing-press quality documents directly from a computer file, revolutionizing the operations of work environments of all stripes.

COMPUTER SECURITY (1993): Gil Shwed, 25, and two partners establish the computer security firm Check Point. Within two years, Check Point signs provider agreements with HP and Sun Microsystems. The company experiences phenomenal growth, and in 1996 it becomes the leading provider of firewall and security services — including anti-virus, anti-spam and anti-data-loss security components – to businesses of all sizes around the globe.

MULTIPLE SCLEROSIS TREATMENT (1996):  Teva Pharmaceuticals introduces Copaxone, the only non-interferon multiple sclerosis treatment. The world’s top-selling MS treatment, Copaxone helps reduce relapses and may moderate the disease’s degenerative progression.

INSTANT MESSAGING (1996): Mirabilis launches ICQ, the first Internet-wide instant messaging system. America Online adopts the technology and popularizes the world of online chat.

COMPUTER DICTIONARY (1997): Introduction of the Babylon computer dictionary and translation program. Within three years the system will boast more than 4 million users. Babylon eventually becomes integrated into most user-level Microsoft programs, allowing for seamless cross-language translation of millions of words at the click of a mouse.

“PORTABLE” SLEEP LAB (1997): Itamar Medical Ltd. is founded, and soon brings to market its WatchPAT sleep lab, representing a paradigm shift in the treatment of sleep disorders. 

PILLCAM (1998): Given Imaging develops the PillCam, now the global standard for imaging of the small bowel. 

FIRST AID (1998): Bernard Bar-Natan makes the first sale of his Emergency Bandage. A giant leap forward in field dressings, it has become standard equipment in both civilian and military first aid kits worldwide.

NANOWIRE (1998): Researchers Uri Sivan, Erez Braun and Yoav Eichen report that they have used DNA to induce silver particles to assemble themselves into a “nanowire,” a metallic strand 1,000 times thinner than a human hair. In addition to staking out new ground on the frontier of electrical component miniaturization, the wire actually conducts electricity, marking the first time a self-assembling component has been made to function and laying a path to exponential advances in the field of nanotechnology.

VISION-BASED CAR SAFETY SYSTEMS (1999): Amnan Shashua and Ziv Aviram found MobilEye, a company that provides advanced optical systems to car manufacturers to increase safety and reduce traffic accidents.

FLASH DRIVE (2000): M-Systems introduces the flash drive in the United States. Smaller, faster and more reliable than floppy disks or CD-ROMs, they will go on to replace those technologies worldwide.

ADVANCED UNDERWATER BREATHING TECH (2001): Alon Bodner founds Like-A-Fish, a manufacturer of revolutionary underwater breathing apparatuses that extract oxygen from water.

GROUNDBREAKING SPINAL SURGERY SYSTEM (2001): Mazor Robotics is founded and goes on to introduce its SpineAssist robotic surgical assistant, the most advanced spine surgery robot in use today.

URBAN AIR COMBAT/RESCUE (2002): Rafi Yoeli develops the initial concept for the AirMule urban carrier, combat and rescue vehicle.
 
TERRORIST DETECTOR (2002): In the wake of renewed terrorist activity against Israel and the United States, Ehud Givon assembles a team of researchers to develop an advanced and foolproof “terrorist detector,” resulting in the WeCU security system.

MICRO-COMPUTER (2003): Weitzmann scientist Ehud Shapiro develops the world’s smallest DNA computing “machine,” a composition of enzymes and DNA molecules capable of performing mathematical calculations. 

BREAST TUMOR IMAGING (2003): The FDA approves 3TP, an advanced MRI procedure, for use in the examination of breast tumors. The brainchild of Hadassa Degani, 3TP distinguishes between benign and malignant breast growths without requiring invasive surgery.

ANTI-BACTERIAL FABRICS (2003): Aharon Gedanken becomes involved in the treatment of fabrics to prevent bacterial growth, which eventually will lead him to develop the technology for treating hospital fabrics with an anti-bacterial “coating” that will dramatically reduce hospital infection rates. 

CENTRINO COMPUTER CHIP (2004): Intel Israel releases the first generation of Centrino microprocessor. Centrino is Intel’s mobile computing cornerstone; it drives millions of laptop computers around the world. Successive generations of Centrino have improved laptops’ function, speed, battery life and wireless communication capabilities. 

TUMOR IMAGING (2005): Insightec receives FDA approval for the ExAblate® 2000 system, the first to combine MRI imaging with high intensity focused ultrasound to visualize tumors in the body, treat them thermally and monitor a patient’s post-treatment recovery in real time, and non-invasively. Thousands of patients around the world have been treated.

LAB-GROWN HUMAN TISSUE (2005): Dr. Shulamit Levenberg publishes the results of her work in the development of human tissue. Working with mouse stem cells, Levenberg and her partner Robert Langer produce the first lab-generated human tissue that is not rejected by its host. Levenberg goes on to use human stem cells to create live, beating human heart tissue and the circulatory components needed to implant it in a human body.

WATER FROM THE AIR (2006): Researcher Etan Bar founds EWA Technologies Ltd. In 2008 he produces a clean, green system that “harvests” water from the humidity in the air. The technology represents a boon not only to residents of water-starved desert areas, but also to farmers and municipalities around the world. Each device has the potential to provide two average American families with their entire year’s supply of water without contributing to global warming or pollution.

PARKINSON’S TREATMENT (2006): The FDA approves AZILECT, a breakthrough treatment for Parkinson’s disease developed by John Finberg and Moussa Youdim. AZILECT dramatically slows the progression of Parkinson’s in newly diagnosed patients, increasing the longevity of body and brain function and improving the quality of life for millions worldwide.

BEE PRESERVATION (2007): Rehovot-based Beeologics is formed. The company is dedicated to the preservation of honeybees, which are under threat from Colony Collapse Disorder and vital to the world’s food supply.

AIRPORT SAFETY (2007): Boston’s Logan International Airport begins testing of a new runway debris detector developed by XSight Systems. XSight uses video and radar monitors to identify and track runway debris, which has been identified as the cause of several airline accidents, including the 2000 crash of a Concorde jet that killed 113 people. XSight has the potential to save upwards of $14 billion per year and an untold number of lives.

TRAUMA VICTIM STABILIZER (2007): Dr. Omri Lubovsky and his sister, mechanical engineer Michal Peleg-Lubovsky, introduce the LuboCollar, a device designed to stabilize trauma victims while maintaining an open airway. The device replaces the standard procedure of intubating trauma patients before transport, saving an average of five critical minutes between the field and the hospital.

HISTORICAL SOLAR ENERGY PROJECTS (2008): Brightsource Energy Inc. begins formalizing agreements with California power companies to develop the world’s two largest solar energy projects.

SEPSIS MONITOR (2008): Tel Aviv’s Cheetah Medical introduces the NICOM, a bedside hospital monitor that can detect and determine the treatment for sepsis, which occurs in approximately one in 1,000 U.S. hospital patients annually. Sepsis previously had been treatable only after an invasive exploratory treatment, which itself could result in sepsis. The device goes into immediate use by hundreds of hospitals around the world.

ADVANCED FISH FARM (2008): GFA Advanced Systems Ltd. launches Grow Fish Anywhere, a sustainable, enclosed and self-contained fish farming system that is not dependent on a water source and creates no polluting discharge. 

A TWIST ON SOLAR ENERGY (2008):  Yossi Fisher co-founds Solaris Synergy, a company that creates solar energy panel arrays that float on water.

TOUGH POTATO (2008): Hebrew University Professor David Levy caps 30 years of research with the development of a powerful strain of potato that can be grown in high heat and irrigated with salt water. He shares his findings — and discussions of where they might lead — with scientists from Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan and Morocco.

LUGGAGE LOCATOR (2009): Yossi Naftali founds Naftali Inc. and begins distributing the Easy-To-Pick Luggage Locator, a remote luggage tag that alerts travelers when their luggage has arrived at baggage claim.

ARTIFICIAL HAND (2009): Professor Yosi Shacham-Diamand and a team of Tel Aviv University researchers succeed in wiring a European-designed artificial hand to the arm of a human amputee. In addition to conducting complicated activities including handwriting, the human subject reports being able to feel his fingers. Achieving sensation represents the culmination of Shacham-Diamand’s work and a breakthrough in the evolution of artificial limbs.

WATER PURIFICATION (2010): Greeneng Solutions launches the first of its ozone-based water purification systems. Designed for commercial, industrial and domestic applications, Greeneng’s product line uses ozone-infused water to eliminate germs on kitchen equipment, household surfaces, swimming pools and more. Purifying with ozone is faster and more effective than the global-standard tap water additive chlorine, and ozone produces none of the harmful side effects of chlorine such as asthma and contaminated runoff.

VISION LOSS TREATMENT (2010): VisionCare Opthalmic Technologies debuts the CentraSight device, a telescopic implant that addresses age-related macular degeneration. CentraSight is the first and only treatment for AMD, a retinal condition that is the most common cause of blindness among “first-world” seniors.

MINIATURE VIDEO CAMERA (2011): Medigus Ltd. develops the world’s smallest video camera, measuring 0.99mm. The device provides for new diagnoses and treatments of several gastrointestinal disorders. 

HELPING PARAPLEGICS WALK (2011): The FDA approves clinical use of ReWalk, a bionic exoskeleton developed by Argo Technologies that allows paraplegics to stand, walk and climb stairs.

BREAST TUMOR TREATMENT (2011): IceCure Medical launches the IceSense 3, a device that destroys benign breast tumors by infusing them with ice. The procedure is quick, painless, affordable and is conducted on an outpatient basis. Soon after, clinical trials begin to study the efficacy of the treatment on malignant breast tumors.

MISSILE DEFENSE (2011): Iron Dome, a short-range missile defense system developed by Rafael Advanced Defense Systems, shoots down a Grad rocket fired at Israel from Gaza. It marks the first time that a short-range missile has been intercepted, opening up new possibilities for military, civil and border defense in the world’s conflict zones.

ENDANGERED SPECIES STEM CELLS (2012): Israeli scientist Inbar Friedrich Ben-Nun leads a team of researchers in producing the first stem cells from endangered rhinos and primates in captivity. The procedure holds the potential to improve the health of dwindling members of numerous endangered species, as well as staving off extinction.

DIABETES TREATMENT (2012): DiaPep277, a vaccine based on the work of Irun Cohen, is shown to significantly improve the condition of Type 1 (juvenile) diabetes in newly diagnosed patients. 

HELPING THE BLIND TO “SEE” SOUNDS (2012): Dr. Amir Amedi and his team at Hebrew University demonstrate that sounds created by a Sensory Substitution Device (SSD) activate the visual cortex in the brains of congenitally blind people. MRIs of blind people using the device show that it causes the same brain responses of sighted people. This discovery allows the team to adapt the SSD to allow blind individuals to “see” their surroundings by learning to interpret audio signals visually. 

FUTURISTIC FOOD PACKAGING (2012): Israeli computer engineer Daphna Nissenbaum creates a revolutionary, 100 percent biodegradable food packaging material. Her company, Tiva, produces materials for drink pouches, snack bars, yogurt and other foods – all of which provide a minimum of six months of shelf life, will completely decompose in a landfill, and can be composted industrially and domestically. 

THE “GOD PARTICLE” (2012): Switzerland’s Large Hadron Collider produces the Holy Grail of physics – the Higgs Boson, or “God Particle,” a subatomic particle that accounts for the existence of matter and diversity in the universe. A team from Israel’s Technion was charged with building and monitoring the collider’s elementary particle detectors, without which the discovery of the Higgs Boson would have been impossible.