PEOPLES DAILY, WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 16, 2015
Israeli businesses grapple with new EU labelling rules
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amallah, occupied West Bank - Canaan Khoury had recently finished work for the day at the first Palestinian boutique winery in Taybeh, overlooking the Dead Sea. It was a good harvest this year, he said, although the company had 14 dunhams (14,000sq metres) of its land confiscated by the Israeli military in the summer. Khoury exports his wines to Denmark and hopes to expand to other European states in the future. He welcomed the European Union’s decision last month to change its guidelines on labelling imports produced in illegal Israeli settlements. “I don’t understand how the European Union can even allow these [Israeli settlement] products in at all,” Khoury told Al Jazeera. “The European Union, along with the international community, defines Israeli settlements in the West Bank as illegal. Take the wines, for example. They are being made from Palestinian grapes, which come from Palestinian trees grown on Palestinian land, yet they are sold as Israeli wines.” Palestinian civil society groups have been pressuring the EU to explicitly label goods from illegal settlements for decades, in an attempt to increase transparency about the origin of those goods and to raise awareness about the ongoing military occupation of the West Bank. Perched on a chair in his office overlooking the Psagot winery, Yaakov Berg displayed a box containing olive oil, raisins, fig jam and other preserves from Israeli businesses, along with a history booklet. “We took the best products, and we made a very nice Israeli gift box. We are going to sell gift boxes, which are going to tell the history of Israel,” Berg told Al Jazeera, noting that the selected companies were located in occupied territories, including the Golan Heights and the West Bank. “We are not going to change our name. We are not going to change our location. We are not going to say it’s not from here.” [The wines] are being made from Palestinian grapes, which come from Palestinian trees grown on Palestinian land, yet they are sold as Israeli wines. Berg’s main business, the Psagot winery, is illegal under international law. Its location, amid the rocky hills north of Jerusalem, is in an illegal Israeli industrial zone in the heart of the occupied Palestinian territories. The winery will be affected by the EU’s labelling decision.
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Asia & Middle East
Thailand’s King Bhumibol Adulyadej makes rare appearance
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hailand’s King Bhumibol Adulyadej has made a rare public appearance, amid concerns for his ailing health. In television footage released on Monday by the palace he is seen swearing in judges at a Bangkok hospital where he has been staying. He has received treatment for a number of ailments including a lung infection. The health of the 88-year-old monarch is of public concern as he is widely revered and seen as an arbiter in the country’s divided political arena. The king, who is the world’s longest serving monarch, was last seen in September in a video released by the palace. He missed his birthday celebrations for the second consecutive year on 5 December. The event was marked by a cycling event last week in Bangkok led by his son, Crown Prince Maha Vajiralongkorn. Palace officials did not give any further details of the king’s health on Monday. King Bhumibol has been in and out
T The king was seen briefly on television swearing in judges at a Bangkok hospital
of hospitals for the past few years and has had operations to remove his gallbladder and to treat hydrocephalus - an excessive build-up of fluid on the brain. He was re-admitted to Siriraj Hospital in Bangkok in June, shortly after he was discharged. The king’s popularity stems
partly from his long reign, but he is also seen as a pillar of stability in Thailand which has been wracked by political strife in recent years and is currently governed by a military-led government. Strict lese majeste laws ban any criticism of him or the royal family.
Palestinian journalists ‘targeted from all sides’
There has been a big increase in violations documented by various press freedom organisations since the start of October [Muhanad Darabee/Al Jazeera]
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ethlehem, occupied West Bank - Shadi Hatem was standing among a group of fellow Palestinian journalists, covering clashes in al-Bireh near Ramallah last month, when he was shot at close range with a rubber-coated steel bullet. Medics treated Hatem’s leg, which quickly swelled and bruised, at the scene. But instead of allowing them to take him to hospital, Hatem decided to stay and continue working on principle. “The Israelis are always targeting Palestinian journalists,” Hatem told Al Jazeera, hours after the incident. “They try to make us scared to do our job, but they won’t stop me from
Delhi’s Arvind Kejriwal calls PM Narendra Modi ‘psychopath’
documenting their violence. Even if they kill one journalist each day, they won’t stop me from photographing.” Palestinian journalists have long been targets of both Israeli forces and the Palestinian Authority (PA). On Reporters Without Borders’ World Press Freedom Index, Israel ranks a lowly 101st and Palestine 140th out of 179 countries. There has been a big increase in violations documented by various press freedom organisations since the start of October as Palestinians protested against Israel’s ongoing occupation in Palestinian communities inside Israel and across the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip.
A spokesperson for the Palestinian Centre for Development and Media Freedoms (MADA) told Al Jazeera that in the first 10 months of 2015, the group documented 361 Israeli violations against Palestinians, 100 of which occurred in October alone. In all of 2014, the centre recorded 351 Israeli violations against Palestinian journalists. Hatem said that as far as Israel was concerned, the fact that he is Palestinian overrides any press protections entitled to him. “Images are dangerous for the Israelis. They know that, and stopping those images from being transferred to the world is important for them,” he said.
he chief minister of India’s capital, Delhi, has alleged that his office has been raided by the country’s federal investigation agency. Arvind Kejriwal blamed Prime Minister Narendra Modi for the “raid”, calling him a “coward and a psychopath”. “When Modi couldn’t handle me politically, he resorts to this cowardice,” he added. Officials from the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) have denied the allegations. “It is not a raid on Arvind Kejriwal’s office, it was a raid on Rajender Kumar, principal secretary to the CM [chief minister],” CBI spokesperson Devpreet Singh told BBC Hindi. India’s Finance Minister Arun Jaitley told the upper house of parliament that the “raid has nothing to do with Mr Kejriwal”. Parliamentary Affairs Minister Venkaiah Naidu added that it had become a “fashion” for Mr Kejriwal to blame the prime minister. Mr Kejriwal’s local government has been locked in a tussle for power with the federal government since he was elected to power in February. Unlike in much of India, Delhi’s Aam Aadmi Party (AAP)-run local government does not have absolute administrative powers over the state. Control of the state’s police force, land, and law and order rests with the BJP-controlled federal government. The AAP has consistently campaigned for greater autonomy for the state, and its tenure has been peppered with confrontations. Party members have tweeted, calling it the “darkest day in democracy”.
“When Modi couldn’t handle me politically, he resorts to this cowardice,” Mr Kejriwal tweeted