New York, NY, United States (AHN) – Actress Susan Sarandon has donated $75,000 to the New York public school system to support the improvement of children’s table tennis. Sarandon, who co-owns ping-pong franchises SPIN, presented the NYC Department of Education on Wednesday with the sizable check. The funds will be used to pay for proper equipment and coaching.

The “Dead Man Walking” star and New York native, has long believed in and touted the benefits of ping-pong. Sarandon is convinced the sport relieves stress, is a great form exercise, and helps children learn to focus.

Ping-pong started as a social hobby in England in the late 1800s by army officers who used rounded wine corks for balls and old cigar boxes as handles. It lingered as a popular party game for the rich until it officially became a competitive sport in 1927.

Ping-pong became an official Olympic event in 1988 at the Summer Games in Seoul.

Table tennis is recognized as the most popular racket sport in the world, and is ranked second in terms of participation. Over 10 million players compete in sanctioned ping-pong tournaments every year.

The world’s top tennis players can smash the ball at speed of more than 100 miles per hour.

Jackie Bellinger and Lisa Lomas set a world record in 1993 by hitting 173 balls back and forth in 60 seconds.

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Washington, D.C., United States (AHN) – President Barack Obama on Thursday released ten states, from controversial burdens of the federal education law known as No Child Left Behind (NCLB), to go ahead with their reform programs as the country struggles to raise educational standards to compete on a global scale.

Addressing a select audience of state education officials, teachers, civil rights and business leaders, President Obama said, “After waiting far too long for Congress to act …We are giving 10 states, the first 10 states the green light to continue making the reforms that are best for them.”

With Congress dragging its feet over the rewrite of the NCLB law, which is five years overdue, the law is alleged to be driving the wrong behaviors, from teaching to the test to federally determined, one-size-fits-all interventions, according to the White House.

“We want high standards, and we’ll give you flexibility in return. We combine greater freedom with greater accountability,” said President Obama, adding, “Because what might work in Minnesota may not work in Kentucky — but every student should have the same opportunity to reach their potential.”

Appearing on the stage in the East Room of the White House along with the president, Education Secretary Arne Duncan said in a statement, “Rather than dictating educational decisions from Washington, we want state and local educators to decide how to best meet the individual needs of students.”

All states had the chance to seek the waivers, Obama said, adding, “39 states have told us that they were interested. Some have already applied.”

Citing ten states approved for flexibility Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, Oklahoma, and Tennessee, the White House noted in a communique, “In exchange for this flexibility, these states have agreed to raise standards, improve accountability, and undertake essential reforms to improve teacher effectiveness.”

The announcement was welcomed by the National Education Association (NEA) calling the proposals as “temporary regulatory relief from some of No Child Left Behind’s mandates.”

“We’re encouraged by President Obama’s and Secretary Duncan’s efforts to provide NCLB waivers for relief,” said NEA President Dennis Van Roekel … But this is only a stopgap measure.”

Reiterating the NEA’s determination to “continue work with Congress on a comprehensive bill,” Van Roekel emphasized that future bills “must ensure that all students have access to quality education, well-rounded instruction, a safe and supportive learning environment, and access to qualified, caring and committed teachers.”

“Let’s make this happen,” concluded President Obama, noting, “The best ideas aren’t going to just come from here in Washington. They’re going to come from cities and towns from all across America. They’re going to come from teachers and principals and parents. They’re going to come from you who have a sense of what works and what doesn’t.”

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Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates Rob L. Wagner / The Media – Abu Dhabi’s resurrection of its three-museum project to promote the emirate as a go-to tourist destination will give a boost to its beleaguered local economy. But the presence of local outlets of the Guggenheim and Louvre museums also highlights the prickly issue of what role Western cultural institutions should play in a Muslim country.

In a surprise move, Abu Dhabi’s Executive Council brought back to life plans to complete the Zayed National Museum, Guggenheim Abu Dhabi and Louvre Abu Dhabi – three massive repositories of art and culture slated for Saadiyat Island and aimed at making the tiny Gulf state a world-class cultural center.

The much-anticipated maritime museum and performing arts center remains in limbo, but the Zayed national museum is tentatively set to open in 2015, with the Louvre following a year later and the Guggenheim in 2017. Guggenheim Abu Dhabi will join the foundation’s branch museums in New York, Venice, Berlin, Bilbao and Las Vegas.

The three museums’ future looked in doubt after the 2008-2009 global recession scuttled $30 billion worth of building projects in the emirate. Housing prices in Abu Dhabi fell by 45 percent, while in Dubai – the emirate next door whose breakneck development has served as both an inspiration and a warning for Abu Dhabi – the property market plummeted 65 percent.

Their size alone is enough for the three museums to have a major impact on the country that is hosting them. At 260,000 square feet (24,000 square meters), Abu Dhabi’s Jean Nouvel-designed Louvre will be 40 percent of the size of the Paris original, whose collection took centuries to build. The 300,000-square-foot Guggenheim, designed by architect Frank Gehry, will be the largest of the institution’s international network of museums.

All this to serve a country covering 26,000 square miles of mostly desert with an indigenous population of 928,360 people.

Mo’ath Hussein, an economic consultant in Abu Dhabi, told The Media Line that he is confident that the museum projects will give an important boost to the region’s economy. The museum complex will cost $27 billion to build and will anchor a complex of golf courses, luxury hotels, and a park and theater, that will continue to bring in tourist dollars years after the construction jobs cease contributing to employment.

“The museums will provide an opportunity to all in the region to have easy access to that type of art,” Hussein said. “Not many art lovers can afford trips to Europe.”

Critics, however, say the initial economic benefit will be minimal. Foreign architects, construction companies and South Asian labor will perform the lion’s share of the work and take home the economic rewards, they argue. More importantly, there appears to be little evidence to suggest that the museums will help develop a strong cultural identity among Emiratis or bring about an efflorescence of local art.

Vali Nasr, professor of international politics at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University in Massachusetts, told The Media Line that the United Arab Emirates (UAE), the seven-member federation to which Abu Dhabi belongs, is buying international prestige with the museums projects. But, he said, it is failing to invest in the culture of the region and serve the needs of the local population.

“The problem is that cultural centers are not developed,” said Nasr, who is also a senior fellow of foreign policy at the Brookings Institution. “The local culture is very wealthy but not mature enough to engage in an arts culture. Dubai, for example, has its film festival but it does not have a local film industry. American institutions are being grafted into a society that does not have the infrastructure to promote local culture.”

Nasr likened the UAE’s eagerness to build big name museums to the alleged efforts last year by King Saud and King Abdulaziz Universities in Saudi Arabia to offer cash to well-known Western academics if they cited the Saudi institutions as a second affiliation in their research papers.

The Saudis sought to acquire scientific prestige just as the Emiratis are trying to buy cultural prestige — quickly and easily without investing the time in developing human talent.

The projects would create a “massive gulf” between Emiratis and the institutions, according to Nasr. Bridging that gulf depends on whether museum officials and Abu Dhabi leaders can agree on outreach programs to stimulate the region’s largely ignored arts community.

Hussein, the economics consultant, said he expects the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi to follow the strategy of the Guggenheim in Bilbao, Spain, which has a center for Arab and Islamic art. “The Guggenheim comes from Spain where every step you make in Spain has a trace of Islamic and Arabic art,” he said.

The Guggenheim Foundation brought in Reem Fadda, a Ramallah-based art historian and former director of the Palestinian Association of Contemporary Art, as the associate curator of Middle Eastern Art. She is charged with organizing contemporary Arab art exhibitions and participating in regional cultural events for the Abu Dhabi branch.

Fadda declined to comment and Eleanor R. Goldhar, deputy director and chief of Global Communications for the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, refused to disclose the foundation’s regional strategy.

“A museum of this size and scope takes a great deal of intellectual investigation and investment, and time, to create,” Goldhar told The Media Line. “Speaking about it before we are ready is just foolish.”

Unlike Guggenheim Bilbao, which exhibits Western and Arab/Islamic art without controversy, the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi may find itself beset by controversy in a region where Islamic clerics can’t agree on whether images of humans and animals are prohibited.

Timothy Furnish, an Islamic geopolitical analyst and lecturer at MacDill Air Force Base’s Joint Special Operations University, told The Media Line there is “no tradition in Islam of museums in the Western sense.” He said conservative interpretations of Islam might affect the Guggenheim’s relationship with the local community.

Although the Quran itself does not prohibit artistic renderings, several hadiths – the deeds and sayings of the Prophet Muhammed – frown on visual human images, he said. Salafists, who practice what they regard as a pure form of Islam based on what the earliest Muslims did, have no doubts about the ban.

“While the ostensible prohibition of art involving animal, human or prophetic figures is often overstated because the squeaky Salafist wheels always get the most journalistic grease, this idea has become a main current of Sunni Islamic – not just Salafist or Islamist – thought,” Furnish said.

Yet, the UAE may provide the best venue to test local community reaction. “If there is anywhere in the Arab-Muslim world that art could possible flourish, it might be in a more enlightened place like the UAE or one of the Gulf States,” Furnish said. “But even there I have my doubts.”

The Guggenheim indicated early on in the project that it does not intend to rock the religious boat. In 2006, then-director of the Guggenheim Foundation, Thomas Krens, told The Guardian that there were no plans to exhibit nudes or religious themes. “Our objective is not to be confrontational, but to be engaged in a cultural exchange,” he told the British daily.

However, the emirate’s deputy chairman of tourism, Mubarak Al-Muhairi, told The New York Times in 2007 that there were no limits on religious themes or nudity. “In principle, there are no restrictions,” he said. “But both sides will agree on what is shown.”

The Zayed National Museum will help fill the void of expressed Islamic themes if the Guggenheim and Louvre limit Arab and religious exhibits. The museum plans to offer exhibits on the Quran, the life of the Prophet and Islamic calligraphy.

But for Western institutions to ignore Islamic art and exhibit it alongside contemporary Western artists might be a mistake.

“Islamic conservatives only begin to make noise if Western culture makes inroads into local culture,” Nasr observed. “That’s not happening now. One possible benefit of the museum is attracting Muslims from the Muslim world. This would potentially impact the region, but the Guggenheim must touch a broader cross-section.”

Furnish suggested the museums might have an “intellectual responsibility” to ease religious-based cultural barriers with archeological exhibits of the region’s ancient history, but Salafists may object. “In the past, Salafists have said that should they ever come to power in Egypt, they would not just close the museums that glorify the age of jahaliya [the age of ignorance that preceded the coming of Islam], they would destroy the Sphinx and the Pyramids.”

Nasr pointed to Iran, which has a thriving arts culture that survived the 1979 Islamic Revolution, as a potential arts role model.

“There was the Shah’s art festival and film festival, and the Queen had the Museum of Contemporary Art in Tehran,” he said. “There was resistance on moral grounds, but it served the local population and it was not for tourism. It made sense at the time because it reached out to the local population. Because of that, Iran has a healthy arts culture and world-class film industry.”

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Johannesburg, South Africa (IRIN) – In the inner-city Johannesburg neighborhood of Berea, where a large proportion of residents are refugees and asylum-seekers, it is not uncommon to see children playing football in the street or killing time at one of the local parks on a weekday. Judith Manjoro, an out-of-work teacher from Zimbabwe, teamed up with some other community workers two years ago to quiz the children about why they were not in school.

“They told us [the schools] asked them to produce ID documents and permits which they don’t have,” she said. “We also found the parents weren’t working and couldn’t afford to pay school fees, even for public schools.”

In early 2011, Manjoro and several other unemployed teachers from Zimbabwe and elsewhere, decided to start a project that would go some way towards meeting the need of local refugee and migrant children for affordable schooling with no bureaucratic strings attached. Word quickly spread and today iTemba Study Centre accommodates about-0 children in five cramped classrooms on the first floor of an office building in Berea. In the mornings the center is open to pre-primary pupils and in the afternoons, seven volunteer teachers teach grades 1-8 using donated textbooks.

“It’s a good school, but we don’t have enough supplies,” said Duduzile Zulu, 15, from Zimbabwe, who started coming to the center about a year ago after her mother’s income as a waitress failed to cover the cost of her attending a nearby private school. To progress to Grade 9 she will need to transfer to another school, “but I don’t have a birth certificate and my Mum can’t get time off work to go to [the Department of] Home Affairs,” she told IRIN, adding that she knew of other migrant children who did not attend school at all.

The UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) released a report on refugee education in November 2011 highlighting the limited access refugee children have to education, particularly at secondary levels and for those living in urban areas.

Barriers

While the quality of education available in refugee camps varies, the difficulties of accessing education in urban settings are generally greater. In addition to legal and policy barriers and the often prohibitive costs of sending a child to a local school, the UNHCR report noted that: “refugee children often have less support than in a camp-based school in adjusting to a new curriculum, learning a new language, accessing psychosocial support, and addressing discrimination, harassment, and bullying from teachers and peers. They may also encounter a lack of familiarity by local school authorities for the processes of admitting refugee children and recognizing prior learning.”

A year-long, yet-to-be published study by the Centre for Education Rights and Transformation at the University of Johannesburg into the rights of refugees, asylum-seekers and migrants to education in South Africa found that schools often demanded documents to enroll a child which are not legally required.

“Often the students don’t have, according to the schools, the right papers,” said Ivor Baatjes, one of the study researchers, adding that school principals and staff at public schools were often ignorant of South Africa’s actual policy which grants every child the right to access education. “Even for children of undocumented migrants, children have the right to be in school and nothing should be a barrier,” he told IRIN.

Demands that parents pay fees at government schools which have been designated as no-fee schools, create a further barrier, said Baatjes, especially for refugees who are often unaware of the law or of their rights. The study also found that those children who are admitted sometimes have to contend with xenophobic attitudes from both teachers and other pupils.

“They treat people equally here,” commented Antonia Tshili, a 16-year-old from Zimbabwe, who left a government school last year after the fees became too much for her mother, and started attending iTemba. “At the other school there is this thing that Zimbabweans should go back to their country; they bullied me.”

UNHCR changes tack

Historically, UNHCR provided scholarships for refugee children to study in government or private schools in urban areas, but with nearly half of refugees now living in urban areas and only 4 percent of UNHCR’s total budget in 2010 dedicated to education, this approach is no longer viable and the agency now prioritizes working with governments to advocate the integration of refugees into national school systems.

In South Africa, UNHCR channels funding through local NGOs which educate refugees about their rights and school principals about their obligation to admit refugee children. Additional funding goes to helping refugee children with school books, uniforms and transport while a new approach, being piloted in Durban, is experimenting with donating lump sum contributions to inner-city government schools on the understanding that they will not turn away any refugee child seeking admission.

“When you look at most of these schools, they host a number of under-privileged children, not only refugees, and the subsidy from government is not great,” said Mmone Moletsane, UNHCR community services officer in South Africa. “While no child should be refused education because there’s no money, schools have to survive.”

Despite such efforts by UNHCR and the NGO community, Baatjes said that centers like iTemba and a similar project based at Sacred Heart College in the nearby neighborhood of Observatory, provided “a much needed space and service” to local migrant and refugee communities.

The donor-funded Three2Six Project at Sacred Heart College, now in its fifth year, uses classrooms vacated by the school’s regular pupils during the afternoons, to teach refugee children up to Grade 6 level. The project also employs teachers who are refugees themselves and able to overcome language and cultural barriers.

“While the parents are busy organizing their lives and trying to get papers from Home Affairs, the children come here,” explained project coordinator Esther Oliver Munonoka. “The aim is not to keep the children here, but prepare them for proper school. By the time they leave, they can understand English and integrate into any school.”

In reality, however, many of the students stay for as long as they can. Nzanga Kapena, 11, from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), who has been coming to the Three2Six Project since 2008, said her mother could not afford “regular schools” and that she does not know what will happen next year when she finishes grade six and will have to leave. “My sisters and brother, when they left here, they just stayed at home,” she said.

Future uncertain

The future of iTemba and the Three2Six Project are also uncertain. Neither are recognized by the Department of Education or receive any public funding. The Three2Six Project receives enough donations from faith-based organizations in Europe that its 150 students can attend for free and are given uniforms, stationery and books, but is still not fully-funded for 2012 and will likely have to cut its Grade 6 class next year despite what Munonoka describes as an ever increasing need for its services.

iTemba charges those parents who can afford it R200 (US$26) a month to cover rental of the building and to pay teachers a small stipend, but according to Manjoro, “a number are failing to afford it.”

“My aunt doesn’t pay anything for me to come here,” said Sarah Dube*, a 16-year-old from Zimbabwe, whose mother sent her and her sister to South Africa “to get a better education”.

“I’d like to go to a proper school, but I don’t trust myself that I can make it,” she added. “I think I’m behind.”

*Not her real name

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– Provided by Integrated Regional Information Networks.

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Boston, MA, United States (AHN) – New England is going to the Super Bowl in Indianapolis this Sunday where they will face the New York Giants in what is expected to be one of the most watched games in TV history, and one of the best displays of some football in some time.

In a congratulatory gesture, Patriots’s quarterback Tom Brady gave each player on the team a pair of Ugg boots.

This is the second time the generous Brady, who endorses the footwear, gave the boots to his fellow teammates.

Meanwhile, the cult-like, sheepskin, fur-lined and comfy boots have been given the boot at Pottsdown Middle School outside Philadelphia.

Principal Gail M. Cooper said the boots (and their less expensive imitators) have become the hiding place of choice for cellphones and other gadgets that are not supposed to be brought to class.

Some fashionistas consider Uggs just plain ugly; others can’t get enough of them, even wearing the warm footwear year-round.

While Brady and the Patriots will be sporting them as they head to the Super Bowl, some middle school kids will have to leave them at home.

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Washington, D.C., United States (AHN) – The U.S. government on Wednesday released new nutrition standards for school meals that mandate dramatic changes.

Among the changes, sodium will be slashed, calories will be cut and students will be offered a wider variety and larger portions of fruits and vegetables. These changes raise the nutrition standards for school meals for the first time in more than 15 years.

The quality of school menus have been the subject of some heated debates for years. Sparking the debates is the growing number of overweight or obese children in the United States. The latest tally put the number at one-third.

The changes are designed to improve the health of nearly 32 million children who eat lunch every day at school, and the nearly 11 million who eat breakfast. Overall, kids consume about 30 percent to 50 percent of their calories while at school.

Among the new standards:

Establish maximum calorie and sodium limits for meals, The sodium limits are phased in over 10 years.

Require schools to serve a fruit and vegetable every day at lunch and in larger portions than offered before.

Require schools to offer a minimum number of leafy green vegetables, red-orange vegetables, starchy vegetables and legumes each week.

Require that after the two year implementation, all grains offered to students must be rich in whole grains. Breads, buns, cereals and pasta must list whole grains as the first ingredient.

Require milk to either be low-fat or fat-free.

Require that foods that are served contain no trans fat.

The new standards for lunch take effect starting with the next school year. Changes for breakfast will be phased in.

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Cagayan del Oro, Philippines (IRIN) – A decision to re-open schools in flood-hit northern Mindanao is being cited as key to re-establishing normality even though there are still huge challenges.

“It is better to be in school rather than doing nothing in the evacuation centers. Going to school establishes a sense of normality amid this crisis,” Department of Education (DepEd) regional director Luz Almeda told IRIN, referring to the 3 January opening.

“In times of disaster when many things have been rendered dysfunctional, showing that the education system is functioning again sends a positive message,” Yul Olaya, an education officer with the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF), agreed.

Tropical storm Washi pummeled northern Mindanao island, including the cities of Cagayan de Oro and Iligan, on 16-18 December, with flash floods as high as 4.3m washing away schools and damaging or destroying close to 52,000 homes.

According to government estimates, damage to infrastructure, agriculture and school buildings now exceeds US$30 million.

More than 1,250 people died in the storm, while 176 are still missing, the country’s National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (NDRRMC) reported on 10 January.

Some 24,500 people are still in 55 evacuation centers, many of them schools, down from almost 70,000 at Christmas time.

More than 200,000, however, are still staying with relatives or in makeshift shelters.

Figures released by the DepEd indicate that 49 schools in Cagayan de Oro and Iligan were damaged or used as evacuation centers, with two schools in Iligan City completely washed away by raging floodwaters.

At home in school

More than one million people were affected by Washi, which triggered flash floods and landslides and forced tens of thousands to seek shelter in evacuation centers. .

Three weeks on, the basic needs remain shelter, food, water and sanitation/hygiene as well as health and psycho-social services, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

Among those displaced, 2,742 families took shelter in 10 schools, according to Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) welfare officer Primitio Rufin.

“We could not make them leave while we are still building alternative relocation sites for evacuees,” said Rufin.

To cope, classrooms are being shared between evacuees and students. “The classrooms are used in the daytime by the students while the evacuees stay in the gym or covered courts. After classes, the evacuees go back to the classroom to sleep,” Rufin explained.

In schools with large open fields, temporary tent cities have been set up.

“As of today, it is still a very small number of displaced who have been effectively relocated,” admitted Araceli Solamilla, regional director of the DSWD . “But we’re working as fast as we can so that we can have the evacuees moved from the schools by the end of the month.”

“We are continuously identifying areas suitable for relocation. But assessment and of course, building of permanent shelters, will take time,” Solamilla added.

The DSWD hopes to have 70-80 percent of the displaced successfully relocated by end-March.

Incentives

Various aid and development agencies had to scramble to clear classrooms and make repairs in time for the 3 January opening, while incentives such as free backpacks with school supplies were given to children on opening day to entice them back to school.

On its fourth day of opening, the DepEd reported a student turnout rate of 42 percent in elementary and 16 percent in high schools in Cagayan de Oro.

But they hope this will steadily increase as other issues preventing the children from returning to school are addressed.

“Some of the children don’t want to come to school because they have no uniforms. So many were left with nothing,” Myrna Motomall, a DepEd school superintendent for Cagayan de Oro City, explained.

According to OCHA, initially, the agencies’ aim was to help some 34,000 affected school-children in Cagayan de Oro and Iligan with early childhood care and development and basic education, strengthening child rights and protective mechanisms in learning institutions and enhancing capacities of teachers to conduct psycho-social support.

It has now been established that the number of children needing education assistance surpasses 210,000, 60 percent of whom are in Cagayan de Oro and Iligan cities.

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Brownsville, TX, United States (AHN) – A 15-year-old male student died after police shot him for pointing a gun at them inside a Brownsville campus on Wednesday morning.

The fatality from Cummings Middle School, who is yet to be identified, succumbed to three gunshot wounds in the chest around 9:15 a.m. at the Valley Baptist Medical Center, according to Brownsville police spokesman Jose J. Trevino.

Police went to the school after Brownsville Independent School District officials reported about 8 a.m. that an eighth grade student has brought a gun. The school ordered a lockdown and police confronted the teenager in a hallway near the principal’s office.

Police ordered the student to lay down his weapon but he refused. The police then shot the boy for pointing the gun at them.

Students were transferred to the Porter High School gym, where parents picked them up, as members of a SWAT team searched rooms at the Cummings Middle School for other weapons.

Some 750 students attend the Cummings Middle School.

Meanwhile, school officials said Cummings students will attend classes at Daniel Breeden Elementary School on Thursday. Cummings Middle School will reopen on Friday.

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New York, NY, United States David Rosenberg / The Med – New York City’s Roosevelt Island is half a world away from the Technion’s home on Mount Carmel. But that is exactly the point, says Oded Shmueli, vice president for research, explaining why the Israeli university is embarking on an ambitious multi-billion-dollar joint venture with Cornell to build a new technology institute of higher education in New York.

New York City will benefit from the new university, drawing high tech businesses and creating new jobs and new companies. But the Technion, also known as the Israel Institute of Technology, will benefit too by raising its profile in the scientific world and attracting new human and financial resources.

“If you look at science and technology today, it’s no longer a local affair. Our scientists cooperate with scientists worldwide,” Shmueli told The Media Line.

Shmueli was speaking a day after the city announced the two universities had won a heated competition to build the campus on a small island off Manhattan. Their joint proposal calls for spending $2 billion to build a campus of 2,500 students and 280 faculty with the aim of not just conducting research and teaching but acting as an incubator of high tech start-ups. The plan includes a $150 million revolving to fund to get them off the ground.

“Thanks to this outstanding partnership and groundbreaking proposal from Cornell and the Technion, New York City’s goal of becoming the global leader in technological innovation is now within sight,” New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg said yesterday. “By adding a new state-of-the-art institution to our landscape, we will educate tomorrow’s entrepreneurs and create the jobs of the future.”

Although it is the world financial capital, New York has been a laggard in luring technology companies. It only recently overtook Boston for attracting venture capital for start-ups and Bloomberg has bemoaned the shortage of engineers in the city. The new institution when fully up and running will increase the number of locally trained graduates in engineering by 70 percent.

The Technion has had a successful history of morphing its academic research into commercial technology and in the process attracting technology start-ups and multinational R&D operations into its orbit. Its Alfred Mann Institute, set up four years ago, is dedicated to creating practical applications for medical-technology research.

The Cornell-Technion partnership was formed only a few months ago after the two institutions filed separate expressions of interest in the campus New York wanted to develop. The two institutions had no formal ties beforehand.

“It will be a good match, based on history, based on complementary assets,” said Shmueli, who is a computer scientist by training. “We understood we couldn’t do it ourselves.”

The partnership was up against stiff competition, although one major contender – Stanford University – dropped out at the last minute. That left the two vying with Columbia University and groups led by Carnegie Mellon University and New York University. The Cornell-Technion bid was given an 11th-hour boost by a gift of $350 million to Cornell for the venture.

The two universities are both well respected academically. Cornell, based in the upstate New York town of Ithaca ranked 13th among 500 in last year’s Academic Ranking of World Universities, which rates institutions of higher education based on the number of alumni and staff winning Nobel and other prizes as well as research citations in top academic journals.

The Technion tied with other institutions at 102, making it the No. 2-ranked Israeli university after The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. It ranked 15th in the world in computer science, 42nd in engineering/technology, and 51st in natural sciences and mathematics. All seven Israeli universities made it onto the top-500 list, the 13th-largest national group even though Israel is a country of just 7 million people.

But Shmueli said The Technion had to do more to raise its international profile in the increasingly global world of science. A premier institution needs to attract talent from outside the country and give its own students and faculty exposure to developments abroad. Manhattan has the drawing power that by itself The Technion’s Haifa home cannot match.

“Now the Technion will be household name,” Shmueli explained. “When a brilliant PhD student thinks about where to do his post-doc, The Technion will be among the places he thinks of going.”

The New York partnership is not the Technion’s first foray into global science. In the past two years it has set up three research laboratories in Singapore with the National University of Singapore and Nanyang Technological University. It has established an international program that offers degree in civil and environmental engineering and plans to expand to other degree programs. “Toward the end of the decade we want 1,000 foreign students on campus,” he said.

The new university may also give a boost to Israeli academics, which is only now beginning to recover from years of budget cuts that prevented it from hiring faculty and expanding departments.

“There are Israelis abroad that right now that cannot find a position in Israel who may start their career in this institute and decide to move back to Israel later. It can serve as a bridge,” he said.

Shmueli said he did not see the new campus in New York drawing away resources from Israel. The new university will generate much of its own income from tuition, research grants, commercialization of technology and a $100 million contribution promised from the city. The new institution, which will host visiting Technion faculty and students, will also open new research-funding opportunities. by making them eligible for a wider range of U.S. government funds, he said.

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Long Island, NY, United States (AHN) – Three Long Island high school students were suspended this week for “Tebowing,” the stance made popular by Denver Broncos’ quarterback Tim Tebow where he falls to one knee and rests his fist on his forehead.

Tebow is known to do the move during games as a form of prayer, since he is a devote Christian. The students did it in the hallway of their Riverhead High School as a prank, but as many as 40 other students followed their lead.

The school’s superintendent, Nancy Carney, said that the mass “Tebowing” created an unsafe environment in the crowded school hallways, according to ESPN. She said the suspensions had nothing to do with trying to stop someone from praying, and she supported the principal’s decision.

Two of the suspensions were later rescinded. The one student who remained suspended was warned ahead of time not to encourage his schoolmates.

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