Hey, There's Lots of Good News!!

With so much antagonism being directed towards the State of Israel, it is good to note that no-one is feeling downcast. Life goes on so it can be reported that:

- The numbers involved in the recent gas finds are astonishing. Tamar and Dalit are thought to be worth $50 billion, and Leviathan's potential is thought to total $100 billion. The companies' costs in finding and extracting the gas are small change compared with their potential gains, like $10 billion at the outside, -and you can do the sums for yourselves. Or perhaps that

- BIG Shopping Centers is buying a portfolio of 15 strip malls in the United States, at a price of between $400 million to $450 million. Or we might mention that

- Teva Pharmaceuticals reports that sales of their proprietary drug Copaxone reached $2.8bn last year. We could remind you that

- Israel Aerospace Industries Ltd. (IAI) subsidiary Elta has won two contracts, worth $33 million altogether, to supply airborne maritime surveillance radar systems used by naval reconnaissance aircraft. Or we could tell you that

- This week The Azrieli Group’s public offering raised NIS 2.01 billion. Or even that

- The growth forecast for Israel has been raised to 4% for 2010 from 3.7% and to 3.8% for 2011 from 3.2% according to Morgan Stanley’s analyst Tavfik Aksoy. The new growth forecasts are higher than the 2010 forecast of 3.6% by the Ministry of Finance and the 3.7% by the Bank of Israel. Or, how about that

- The 100,000-square meter Mall of Russia, Russia’s largest, worth $1bn and owned by Africa Israel, is due to open in the fourth quarter of 2010. It will have 450 stores, and that’s not all

- Africa-Israel also reported that the Ozerkovskaya Embankment residential, office and hotel project in Moscow is on schedule. The Aquamarine Hotel was dedicated in November 2009, and apartment sales have reached 70% of the project's total number of 124 apartments. Not done yet

- Demand in the institutional tender of the bond offering by Elbit Systems Ltd. this week reached NIS 2.4 billion. The company is offering up to NIS 1.1 billion ($285 million) in Series A bonds, which will mature in 2011-2020

But the good news that we would really like you to know is that despite what you might have seen and read in the media nobody here is sitting around with their head in their hands. Quite the reverse. And there is lots more.

With thanks to Good News published from time ot time at http://www.angloraanana.com/goodnews.html