Comments (0)U.S. Trade Rep Drops Israel from Watch List
February 27, 2010Washington
JTA Wire Service
Israel and the United States Trade Representative struck a deal that will remove Israel from the USTR watch list.
Israel was on the Special 301 Priority Watch List, which monitors international intellectual property, because of a disagreement over protections of pharmaceuticals.
Israel had allowed the manufacture of generic drugs five years after a patented drug was approved for use. Other violations cited by USTR included the failure to adequately address Internet piracy and leaking undisclosed pharmaceutical data obtained from U.S. manufacturers.
Under the new agreement announced last week by the Israeli Embassy in Washington, foreign companies can market their product exclusively for a longer period of time in Israel and will receive commercial incentive to introduce new drugs into the Israeli health care system in a timely fashion. When the drug’s patent expires in either the United States or Europe, Israeli generic companies can begin manufacturing.
U.S. Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), who has pushed to have Israel removed from the list, welcomed the agreement.
“I have long believed that Israel, a close ally at the cutting edge of IP innovation with strong IP laws and rigorous IP enforcement, should not have been included in the Special 301 report,” he said.
Energy Secretary Urged to visit Israel
A U.S. congressman urged Energy Secretary Steven Chu to modify his trip to the Middle East to include Israel.
Rep. Steve Israel (D-N.Y.), in a letter to Chu, wrote of his disappointment that the secretary’s trip this week to the Middle East does not include Israel. Chu is visiting Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates to promote investments in energy technologies—which is exactly why Israel should be included, the New York representative wrote.
“Israel has more high-tech start-ups per capita than any other nation and leads the world in civilian research and development spending per capita,” the letter said. “We know that the United States is addicted to foreign oil—by focusing on the petrodollar states it creates the appearance of an addict rewarding his pusher.”
Reform Rabbis Gathering ‘On the Edge’
More than 500 Reform rabbis are expected to attend the 121st annual convention of the Central Conference of American Rabbis in San Francisco.
The convention, scheduled for March 7-10, attracts Reform rabbis who work at Hillels and nonprofits, or in academia and congregations.
The most unique element of the long-standing conference will be the second day of the convention, which coordinators have dubbed “Innovations in Jewish Life: On the Edge of the Continent.”
Instead of spending the day in conference rooms, the rabbis will spend the morning in the community meeting with Jewish thinkers, artists, leaders and community organizers before reconvening in the afternoon to talk about what they have learned.
“We’re trying to create a dialogue, not a diatribe, so people can really talk out the issues,” said Rabbi Peretz Wolf-Prusan, one of several Bay Area rabbis helping to plan the convention.
Rabbis at the conference will be able to choose from among 10 options ranging in focus from mikvah movement to Jewish literature to bioethics to conflict resolution.
“What’s great fun about this is [the speakers] are people who do not feel they are a part of ‘normative, mainstream’ Jewish life, and here will be 500 rabbis coming to meet them,” Wolf-Prusan said. “We’re trying to create an intersection of dedicated rabbis and dedicated artists, poets, writers who may not normally meet each other.”
Wolf-Prusan is hoping that the field trips inspire and motivate the participants.
“It’s rare to hang out with people for whom the question ‘What if?’ comes first, before ‘How do we pay for it?’ or ‘Who will be upset by this?’ ” Wolf-Prusan said. “We want to create small and large opportunities for meaningful imagining and innovation because that’s the secret of the Jewish people. That’s what we do. We don’t have to wait for a disaster to be imaginative. We don’t have to wait for the next mortal challenge to reinvent ourselves.”
For information or a convention schedule, visit http://www.ccarnet.org.
This story reprinted courtesy of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.