The Russian search giant Yandex has bought out Israel’s KitLocate start-up, a maker of low-power mobile geolocation technology, for “several million Euros,” TechCrunch reported Tuesday.

KitLocate features low battery consumption by using proprietary algorithms that allow location-based apps to request the device’s geographic coordinates less frequently without losing too much precision.

Yandex will use KitlLocate’s technology for car navigation and maps and also is interested in the Israel start-ups cloud solution.

KitLocate consists of eight people, whose Tel Aviv offices will become Yandex R & D headquarters, with the probability of more engineers being added by the new owners.

Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon, who earlier this year called U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry “messianic” and “obsessive,” upped the ante on Monday by calling the entire Obama administration a weakling and undependable in the “stop nuclear Iran” campaign.

“We had thought it would be the United States that would lead the campaign against Iran,” said Ya’alon at a lecture at Tel Aviv University.

He cited the Ukraine crisis as an example of “weakness” in the White House which he said cannot be depended on to stop Iran’s nuclear program. “We had thought it would be the United States that would lead the campaign against Iran,” said Ya’alon.

“People know Iran cheats”, he added, but the United States and its other Western allies “engage” Iran, leaving Israel with no choice other than “ to behave as though we have nobody to look out for us but ourselves.”

That is as close as he can come to threatening a military attack on Iran without actually giving the order in public.

His comments came on the eve of more talks with Iran in Vienna under the shadow of the crisis with Russia over its plan to annex the Crimean peninsula of the Ukraine.

As for the talks with Iran, Ya’alon implied a zero rating for American and Western negotiators. “Unfortunately, when it comes to negotiating at a Persian bazaar, the Iranians are better,” according to Ya’alon.

For good measure, the Obama administration’s feebleness regarding the civil war in Syria, where he said lack of American support for Sunni Muslims at war with Syrian President Bassar al-Assad and his Iranian-Hezbollah allies is a “disappointment” to rebels and their supporters, such as Saudi Arabia.

Ya’alon did not say anything that others in the government do not know, but he simply is being less diplomatic and calling a spade a spade and a weakling a weakling.

It is a bit pitiful that Kerry and Obama talk as if the world has not changed in 60 years since the United States was the undisputed world leader. When it said jump, other countries would ask, “Head first or foot first.”

When Obama says jump, the other side indeed jumps – on Obama. It is not surprising that Iran mocks the United States every day. It is not even a small miracle that Muslim countries make fun of him.

But now it is both the Palestinian Authority, which this week supported a YouTube song video mocking Kerry, as seen here, and Israel’s defense minister using Obamas a punching bag.

Israel and the Palestinian Authority are Obama’s two hopes to show the world how much influence he has, and the world is seeing exactly how impotent he is.

The last word goes to Mitt Romney, was laughed at in the 2012 presidential campaign when he attacked Obama’s foreign policy.
He wrote in The Wall Street Journal Tuesday, “President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton traveled the world in pursuit of their promise to reset relations and to build friendships across the globe. It is hard to name even a single country that has more respect and admiration for America today than when President Obama took office, and now Russia is in Ukraine.”

The Obama administration imposed sanctions on seven Russians and four Ukrainians in retaliation on Monday in response to the apparently imminent annexation by Russia of the Crimean peninsula of the Ukraine.

Among those sanctioned were advisers to Russian President Vladimir Putin and parliament members in and former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych.

The European Union has frozen assers of 13 Russian leaders and eight others in Crimea and has alaso placed a travel ban on them.

The Obama administration has rejected an appeal from the interim government in Ukraine that the United States send arms, ammunition and intelligence support, senior officials said Thursday.

With Vladimir Putin breathing down his neck, the last thing President Barack Obama needs is doing anything to aggravate the Russian bear, who already is fuming at the United States for “interfering” in what he calls Russian affairs.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry warned Russia on Thursday that it faces a “very serious series” of steps from both the us and Europe if it claims sovereignty over Ukraine’s strategic Crimean peninsula

Ira Forman, the Obama administration’s special envoy on anti-Semitism, disputed claims by Russian President Vladimir Putin that Ukrainian revolutionaries were spreading hatred of Jews.

In an interview published Thursday in the Jewish Daily Forward, Forman said Putin’s assertions were not credible.

“We have no indication that what President Putin has been saying about anti-Semitism has been a true reflection of what’s happening on the ground,” he said.

Putin said at a news conference outside Moscow 10 days ago, “What is our biggest concern? We see the rampage of reactionary forces, nationalist and anti-Semitic forces going on in certain parts of Ukraine, including Kiev.”

Putin was referring to the ouster of Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, who fled Kiev in late February following months of violent protests that began as demonstrations over his perceived pro-Russian foreign policy. Activists from the ultranationalist and xenophobic Svoboda party and the Right Sector movement had a prominent role in the revolution.

Two Jewish men were assaulted by street gangs and a synagogue was torched during the unrest, but Ukrainian Jewish leaders said the political affiliation of the perpetrators was unclear and that the instability did not result in any proliferation of anti-Semitic acts.

In the past, Svoboda members and its leader, Oleh Tyahnyabok, have made anti-Semitic statements. The party also maintained that the correct Ukrainian word for Jew was “Zhyd,” a term deemed derogatory by Ukrainian Jewish leaders. Tyahnyabok urged Ukrainians during a 2004 speech to fight the “Muscovite-Jewish mafia.”

Svoboda also has glorified Stephan Bandera, a Ukrainian resistance fighter who during World War II partnered briefly with Nazi Germany against Russia before turning against the Germans. His troops were responsible for the murder of thousands of Jews, according to the Simon Wiesenthal Center.

On Thursday, Russia accused the West of condoning anti-Semitism after French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius offered a defense of Svoboda.

“There are three [problematic] members of the Svoboda party, which is more right wing than the rest but the extreme right is not in the center of government,” Fabius said Tuesday in an interview for Inter Radio.

The Russian Foreign Ministry responded with a statement released on Thursday warning of ”a dangerous erosion of the policy of rejecting nationalism, xenophobia and anti-Semitism as displayed by Svoboda.

“We fail to understand the ease with which some of our Western partners change their attitudes in favor of fleeting geopolitical dividends,” the statement said.

One of the passengers aboard the Malaysian Airlines plane that vanished is a Jewish Russian national, Nikolai Brodskii, 43, of the Siberian city of Irkutsk, whose name appears on the missing plane’s passenger manifest.

He is a husband and father of sons aged 17 and 11.

The flight, with 239 passengers on board, disappeared Saturday while flying over the sea between Malaysia and Vietnam. No distress signal was issued, and it is believed the plane had changed course and turned back toward Kuala Lumpur, from where it had taken off.

It was later discovered that two passengers boarded the plane using stolen passports.

The Financial Times reported Monday that the tickets for those two passengers were bought by an Iranian middleman.

One hundred Jews from Kiev want to make Aliyah as a “gar’in” (a unified fledgling community), according to a report in Makor Rishon. They come from all over Kiev. All of them are young professionals, including doctors, lawyers, accountants and advertising executives.

Michael Rosenfeld, an emissary for “Hamidrasha Hatziyonut” (Zionist School) told Makor Rishon that he had been approached by a hundred Ukrainian Jews from Kiev who want to immigrate to Israel. There are 20 families on the list so far, as well as a number of singles. They want to make Aliyah together, and live together in Israel in the same community.

They already decided they want to move to a town in either Judea or Samaria.

Rosenfeld said that these are people who always spoke about Aliyah, but now the situation in Kiev is giving them that extra push.

Rosenfeld’s Midrasha is now opening an Ulpan course, to prepare the group with the language skills they’ll need when they arrive in Israel.

Rosenfeld is calling on the Israeli government, and Moetzet Yesha (The Council of Judea and Samaria) to assist them in the Aliyah process.

Simultaneously, others in the Kiev community are trying to raise money for security for the Jews of Ukraine, in response to the anarchy in the streets. According to a JTA report Thursday, the Jewish Federations of North America has launched a Ukraine Assistance Fund.

“As the situation escalates, needs in the Ukrainian Jewish community become even more acute,” said Michael Siegal, chair of the Jewish Federations’ board of trustees.

Rabbi Yaakov Dov Bleich, one of the two chief Rabbis of Ukraine, told John Kerry in a meeting this week that it costs $1000 a day to ensure the security of his Yeshiva, and that to provide protection for all the Jewish organizations would cost $4000 a day.

An estimated 70,000 Jews live in the Ukraine.

Now, imagine if they all moved to Judea and Samaria.

All it takes is a single “gar’in”.

KIEV, Ukraine – The current political crisis in Ukraine has propelled its Jewish community to request emergency training from Israeli emergency response organizations, United Hatzalah and ZAKA.

As the Ukrainian crisis developed during the past three months of anti-government protests, Ukrainian rabbis appealed for help in emergency response training. Rabbi Moshe Reuven Azman, the Ukrainian Chief Rabbi, and Rabbi Hillel Cohen of the Ukrainian Hatzalah made the request to ZAKA Chairman Yehuda Meshi Zahav and United Hatzalah President Eli Beer. The men mobilized their organizations to work together to train the local team in only a matter of days.

United Hatzalah and ZAKA, in cooperation with the Isralife Foundation have worked together to train Jewish volunteers of the local Kiev Hatzalah. The Ukrainian participants received training in the latest emergency, rescue and search techniques in order to respond and provide aid to mass casualty emergencies should the crisis in the country escalate. The Ukrainian participants have also been trained to provide first aid in mass casualty emergency situations, and include protocols for CPR, treating suffocation, injuries and diseases.

“We were pleased to come to the assistance of the Ukrainian community during their time of need and provide the emergency training their volunteers need to handle local emergencies in an efficient and timely manner,” said Beer. “Both ZAKA and United Hatzalah each offered unique services and perspectives on emergency response and we were happy we could work together to help our fellow Jews.” “We are grateful to both organizations for responding so quickly and generously to help our community in this time of need. The events surrounding us require our community to be prepared with the latest training and techniques so we can respond to emergencies and help our people quickly in these dangerous times,” said Rabbis Azman and Cohen in a joint statement. In the Ukraine, much of the Jewish population is located in the country’s capital, Kiev while other sizable communities reside in Lvov, Dnepropetrovsk and Odessa. Since the early 1990s, 340,000 Ukrainian Jews have immigrated to Israel.

In related news, a Ukrainian man was treated in Israel yesterday, Wednesday, March 5, after suffering severed damage to his left forearm from shrapnel in Kiev’s Independence Square during riots. Referred to as Alexander S., he was the first Ukrainian to arrive to Israel for treatment, following approval by Dr. Valeria Bivitzchik from Rehovot’s Kaplan Medical Center, who recently volunteered with the Ukrainian Red Cross and arranged for injured citizens to be flown to Israel for medical treatment. Alexander was brought to Kaplan Medical Center in Rehovot where he will undergo surgery to reconstruct the bones and repair the soft issue in his arm under the care of hospital’s surgical and orthopedic departments in the coming days.