By: Ogan Gurel, MD
View Dr. Gurel's BIO

The distinction between invention and innovation was discussed in a previous series of three articles:

Part I: Concepts of Innovation, Invention Should Now Be Regarded Differently
Part II: Invention Needs to Be Left Free; Innovation Must Be Managed
Part III: Innovation vs. Invention: Accelerating Development

Having spent the last few days in Rome, I’ve had the chance to reflect upon the rise and fall of empires, the invention/innovation concepts described in the above articles and the relation between these and the fate of nations.

One of Italy’s most eminent and prominent figures warns that Iran’s budding nuclear weapons program poses an “immediate threat” to the United States, Israel and the West, but that Washington needs to cautiously deal with the problem.

If not, Giancarlo Valori tells Newsmax, the United States could give “rise to power, which will be equally violent and dangerous, of the current opponents of Iran.”

Valori (pictured with Shimon Peres), a noted businessman, professor and economist, notes that if Israel is the key antagonist and policies toward Iran are “shaped by Tel Aviv,” actions against Tehran could imperil relations between the United States and Europe.

An eye opening video depicting our planet Earth if the entire population was reduced to one hundred people.

The idea of reducing the world’s population to a community of only 100 people is very useful and important. It makes us easily understand the differences in the world.

There are many types of reports that use the Earth’s population reduced to 100 people, especially in the Internet. Ideas like this should be more often shared, especially nowadays when the world seems to be in need of dialogue and understanding among different cultures, in a way that it has never been before.

Hu Jintao started his political ascent at the top leadership of the Communist Party of China by managing the repression of the demonstrations which took place in Lhasa, Tibet in 1989 . He was selected as Head of the Party in Tibet due to his reputation as “reformer”. After his relations with Jiang Nanxiang, his first supporter in the CCP hierarchy, he was appointed as instructor at the Party School of the Tsinghua University. After the “Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution” which started in 1967, Hu Jintao was sent to the Gansu province for one year and was subsequently assigned to No. 813 Sub-Bureau, Fourth Engineering Bureau, Ministry for Water Conservancy, in charge of water resources and electric energy production.

Source: ScienceDebate2008.com

Democrats, Republicans agree on need, disagree on issues; health care tops list

See Charts of this Data Online

A new poll (charts, pdf, 3.1mb) shows that 85% of U.S. adults agree that the presidential candidates should participate in a debate on how science can be used to tackle America’s major challenges. The poll found no difference between Democrats and Republicans on this question. A majority (84%) also agree that scientific innovations are improving our standard of living.

Source: Newsmax.com

Imagine if President Bush, after 9/11, simply declared war on oil and put the whole nation behind ending our crippling dependence on it.

Imagine if we had spent the money we allocated to the war in Iraq toward eliminating the oil addiction. The tab for the Iraq war hovers around the $1 trillion mark and grows at a clip of at least $12 billion a month. The Congressional Budget Office projects that the cost through 2017, including hidden costs such as veterans’ benefits, could total $2.4 trillion.

Prof. Giancarlo Valori has written an enlightening book on the peoples, cultures and civilizations around the Mediterranean – from ancient times to the present – that provide the reader with a sweeping account of the riveting chapters of its history.

By: Giancarlo Elia Valori

The following is adapted from a speech given at Yeshiva University in New York.

Basically we can say that today in Europe we witness the resurgence of a new anti-Semitism which, after all, shows strong signs of continuity with the traditional Judeophobia.

Statistics show that in 2006 - the last year for which updated and reliable information exist - in Europe about 2,200 violent acts of anti-Semitism were perpetrated against Jews or assets and buildings belonging to the Jewish Community or its members.

It is worth noting - and this has its own political relevance – that most European countries have no specific statistics on anti-Semitism violent actions. When statistics and data are available, they report a lower number of cases than the actions really perpetrated.

There are great expectations in New York for the arrival of Giancarlo Elia Valori, President of Sviluppo del Mediterraneo SpA and Sviluppo Lazio SpA who, on Tuesday evening, will officially take the Chair for Peace at the Rabbi Arthur Schneier Center of International Affairs of the Yeshiva University, the prestigious private university of the American Jewish Community.

Sviluppo Lazio, Lazio's regional development agency, was founded in 1999 and is charged with the task of implementing the region's economic and territorial agendas. In a region so rich with potential, Sviluppo Lazio's primary mission is to assist in the development of regional infrastructures, manufacturing businesses, and to increase employment. The agency accomplishes this mission in many ways: by promoting enterprise motivated ideology; by sustaining territorial development programs; by participating in infrastructural investment projects and by fostering partnerships between public and private entities.