Air Force says government won't renege on deal with Lockheed Martin despite discovery of carcinogenic substance in fighter jet of same make last week
Hanan Greenberg
Four new F-16I (Storm) fighter jets arrived in Israel Thursday evening as part of a deal signed in 2000 with Lockheed Martin Corp to purchase 102 planes of the same model.
No Signs of Illness   
IAF chief to consult experts on carcinogenic substance found in F-16l / Hanan Greenberg  
Following discovery of carcinogenic substance on Storm jets, IAF commander seeks international medical opinions, promises to explore issue until resolved. Exposed pilots show no signs of illness thus far     
The two-seater F-16I, known in Israel as the "Storm", was designed specifically for the Israeli air force. The new jets will be equipped with Israeli-made systems.  
The US defense contractor began delivering the planes in 2004, and Israel Air Force officials said Israel would not renege on the deal despite the discovery of a cancer-causing substance in one of previously delivered jets.
IAF officials estimated that the majority of fighter pilots who have flown in F-16I's have been exposed to the carcinogenic substance which was discovered, but stressed however that those exposed ...   more »

Michal Lando,As Israel nears its 60th anniversary, the partnership between the Jewish state and America remains a "fundamental conviction" of the American public, according to former US secretary of state Henry Kissinger.
"The partnership is changing because the conditions are changing," Kissinger told The Jerusalem Post over the weekend. "In the early years it was a question of states interacting with each other, and now it is part of a whole global situation."
But these changes, Kissinger said, had not weakened America's conviction that support for Israel is in the American national interest.
"I think the relationship remains essential," said Kissinger. "I think there is a fundamental conviction that the security of Israel is in the American national interest. That has not changed."
Kissinger, along with every other living former secretary of state, has signed on as a vice-chair of the National Committee for Israel 60, which will coordinate events to celebrate Israel's anniversary.
Co-chairing the national commemoration are former American presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton.
The involvement of the former presidents and secretaries of state sent a strong and reassuring message of the continued stability and growing strength of the bonds between the two countries, said Malcolm ...   more »

By Anshel Pfeffer,
In the near future, provided Dan Rolls realizes his vision, any Jew in the world could easily visit a Web site where he would be able trace back his genealogical trecoe in a way that would show him his or her family connections with thousands of relatives he had never known about across the globe.
Rolls and his partners at Famillion believe that they need 300,000 Jews - figure that constitutes 2 percent of the Jewish people - to upload their genealogical tree. So far, Famillion's servers have received the genealogical tree of 70,000.
The idea came to him eight years ago when he went with his wife for genetic testing. "We needed to each write down our genealogical tree and list various pathological disorders among our parents and relatives," he recalls.  
"The geneticist who treated us put the pages we had filled out in a drawer. I had this vision of all the pages flying out of the drawer and connecting to each other until they formed a whole planet."
Rolls began implementing this vision five years later, when he teamed up with Yiftah and Ilan Cohen to form Famillion, a startup that uses bio-informative ...   more »

matthew wagner
Chief Ashkenazi Rabbi Yona Metzger welcomed on Tuesday an initiative from Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah for dialogue among monotheistic religions, including Judaism.
"I give my blessing to every initiative that can prevent bloodshed and terror, especially in our area of the world," Metzger said, in a telephone interview with The Jerusalem Post.
He added that militarism and terror in the 21st century were primarily religiously motivated. Therefore, interfaith dialogue was the best antidote, he said.
"When Osama bin Laden talks of punishing Europe or Israel, he speaks in the name of religion. That's why it is so important to hear moderate elements of Islam voice their opinions. Hopefully, they will have a positive influence on the Muslim masses.
"If an imam in Saudi Arabia sends out a message of restraint and peace, that could save the life of a Jew in Paris," Metzger said.
Interfaith dialogue was also a way of uprooting stigmas and stereotypes, he said.
In a speech late on Monday, Abdullah said Saudi Arabia's top clerics had given him the green light to pursue interfaith dialogue with Christians and Jews.
"The idea is to ask representatives of all monotheistic religions to sit together with their ...   more »