PM Sharon to Announce Dismantling of Unauthorized Outposts
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon will announce Wednesday the implementation of the principles included in the Sasson Report which calls for the dismantling of unauthorized outposts, HA'ARETZ reported. Sharon has notified the U.S. administration of his intention to adopt the report, which was submitted to him today by attorney Talia Sasson, a former head of the criminal division of the State Prosecutor's Office.
The report concludes that unauthorized outposts, among them enclaves built on privately owned Palestinian land, are to be dismantled. It urges that curbs be placed on the operations of the Settlement Department of the World Zionist Organization, which was involved in the construction of the outposts. It also calls for increased supervision of the department's activities in the West Bank and Gaza.
Jericho Will Be the First City Transferred to Palestinians
Jericho will be the first of five West Bank cities to be handed over to Palestinian security control, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon decided today, HA'ARETZ reported. Sharon accepted the position of Minister of Defense Shaul Mofaz presented him today during a meeting with the heads of the security forces. Earlier reports had indicated that Tul Karm would be the first city to be handed over, after talks on Jericho ran into difficulties.
Mofaz will meet with Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas this evening at the Erez crossing on the Gaza-Israel border. Sharon has instructed Mofaz to emphasize Israel's demand that the PA demolish the Palestinian terrorist infrastructure. Mofaz is also slated to tell Abbas that Israel will not release the PA of its responsibility for the February 25 terror attack at a Tel Aviv nightclub that killed five Israelis. The Mofaz-Abbas meeting is an attempt to break the deadlock in the security talks between the sides, which were suspended after the Tel Aviv bombing.
Meanwhile, addressing the Palestinian parliament in Ramallah, Abbas voiced his toughest criticism of Israel since agreeing to a cease-fire with Sharon a month ago.
500,000 Pro-Syrian Protestors Answer Hezbollah's Call to Demonstrate in Beirut
About half a million pro-Syrian protesters crowded a central Beirut square today, chanting anti-American slogans and wildly waving Lebanon's flag in answer to a nationwide call by Hezbollah to demonstrate against US-led intervention and counter weeks of massive anti-Syrian rallies, THE JERUSALEM POST reported. Two huge vertical banners at the front of the square read, in English: "Thank you Syria" and "No to foreign interference," a reference to American, French and United Nations pressure to get Syrian troops out of the country.
Syria announced Monday it would pull its troops to Lebanon's eastern Bekaa Valley by March 31, and then later to the Syrian border. The agreement between Syrian President Bashar Assad and Lebanese President Emile Lahoud did not give a timeline for full withdrawal, nor did it say whether Syrian intelligence would also leave, a key demand of the Lebanese opposition.
According to HA'ARETZ, Minister of Foreign Affairs Silvan Shalom told United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan on Monday that Israel had observed that Syria had recently been bolstering its intelligence forces in Lebanon. During the meeting in New York, Shalom asked Annan to pressure Syria to implement the UN decision to withdraw its forces from Lebanon.
Israeli Film - "Walk on Water" - a Big Hit in the United States
An Israeli film - "Walk on Water " - screened in 10 movie theaters in the United States since last Friday entered the weekend list of top grossing films at no. 29, YNET reported. The movie earned $63,000, or an impressive $6,300 per theater. Starring Lior Ashkenazi, "Walk on Water" depicts the relationship between a Mossad agent and the two grandchildren of a notorious Nazi, whom the agent is trying to track down.
"Walk on Water," which premiered at the Berlin Film Festival in 2004, was already a big hit in Israel.
Its director Eytan Fox just returned from a promotional tour in the United States. "We did intense public relations (for the film); these were 10 crazy days in which we traveled to New York, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, and Washington," Fox said. "The reviews in the important newspapers, including the New York Times, were mostly positive. There were many profile pieces in the papers," he added. The film will be distributed in additional U.S. cities on March 18.
High Hopes for Israeli Biological Computer on Chip
A pioneering biological computer - composed entirely of DNA molecules and enzymes built on a gold-coated chip - has been developed by scientists at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, THE JERUSALEM POST reported. The model represents a significant improvement over its previous version reported three years ago in a joint paper in the journal Nature by the Technion's Prof. Ehud Keinan and a group from the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot that included Yaakov Benenson, Prof. Ehud Shapiro and Prof. Zvi Livneh.
While the original computer could accept up to 765 different programs, the new computer accommodates up to a billion; this increase represents a dramatic advance in terms of the potential mathematical operations and complexity of problems that may be solved using a biological computer. The results, which open a wide variety of applications in data encryption and cancer diagnosis, are published this week in the Journal of the American Chemical Society.
Other News in Brief
* Israel successfully test-fired its Long Range Artillery (LORA) missile on March 3, THE JERUSALEM POST reported. Defense and industry sources said the LORA scored an exact hit on a sea-based target, 200 kilometers from the launch site on the coast. This is the third success of the LORA in a total of four attempts. The LORA is a deep-strike, satellite-guided, inertially navigated precision missile for use against stationary or semi-fixed targets.
Economic & Hi-Tech Briefs
* Cadent, which develops dental imaging technology, has completed a $25 million financing round, led by the Israeli venture capital fund Star Ventures, THE MARKER.COM reported. Existing shareholders also participated, including JP Morgan Partners, Apax, Schroder Investments and Pitango Venture Capital. Cadent is headquartered in Fairview, New Jersey, and maintains an R&D center in Tel Aviv. Its 3D OrthoCAD hardware-software imaging technology is designed to help improve orthodontics.
* Twenty Israeli startups from the field of life sciences biotechnology and medical equipment will participate in a road show in the United States in April, GLOBES reported. The aim of the visit is to meet with leading North American companies and explore possibilities for future cooperation, as well as to meet with investment firms and promote the next round of financing. The four-day event will include presentations, workshops and meetings with leading biotech companies in four East Coast cities: New York, Boston, Princeton and Baltimore. Each Israeli company will have the opportunity to present its technology in all four cities. One-on-one and networking meetings will also be arranged between the Israeli startups and the U.S. companies.
[Today's Israel Line was prepared by Victor Chemtob at the Consulate General of Israel in New York.]