Palestinian homes demolished without warning

© Amnesty International">

Bulldozer destroys Palestinians' property in Hadidiya, West Bank, 11 March 2008

© Amnesty International

© Amnesty International">

Israeli soldiers and Palestinian residents amidst debris in Hadidiya, West Bank, 11 March 2008

© Amnesty International

© Amnesty International">

The family of Omar 'Arif Mohammed Bisharat amidst the wreckage of their homes in Hadidiya, West Bank, 11 March 2008

© Amnesty International

The Israeli army demolished more homes in Palestinian villages in the occupied West Bank on Tuesday morning. The homes and property of Palestinian families in the villages of Hadidiya, Jiftlik and Furush Beit Dajan, in the Jordan Valley area of the occupied West Bank, were demolished.

Amnesty International's researcher on Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories witnessed the demolitions. Donatella Rovera described the scene:

"In all the places, most of the people are children. These homes mostly have three generations – the grandparents, parents and children. In Hadidiya, there were four families, in Furush Beit Dajan, five families.

"All of the people have had homes demolished before, but this time they had no warning. The people were very, very upset. They were running to get their things out of their homes, but the bulldozer just went on demolishing."

Soldiers of the Israeli army arrived early in the morning in jeeps accompanied by a bulldozer and then demolished the buildings where the four families were living. The destroyed properties belonged to Mohammed Fahed Bani Odeh, Mohammed Ali Shaikh Bani Odeh, Ali Shaikh Musleh Bani Odeh and Omar 'Arif Mohammed Bisharat and their families – at least 34 people, including some 26 children.

After destroying these homes, the soldiers moved on to destroy homes and livelihoods in Jiftlik and Furush Beit Dajan, where homes have previously been demolished in recent months.

"In Jiftlik, they are destroying a farm – it is one of the rare farms here and there is otherwise not much livelihood for the people. They first bulldozed the vegetable area a couple of months ago; then they bulldozed the home last month," said Donatella Rovera.

"The family of Mahmud Mat'ab Da'ish, his wife and seven children were given a tent by the Red Cross and they started planting vegetables again. Today, the army has been bulldozing the green plants.

"In all three locations the soldiers haven't allowed us to get near, I don't even know if they have a military order to destroy everything - we asked them but they didn't show us anything."

The families in Hadidiya have lived in the same area for generations, herding sheep and goats and cultivating land on the Jordan hills. They have come under increasing pressure from the Israeli army to leave the area. The same four families had their homes destroyed in February this year and other homes were demolished several times by the Israeli army in 2007.

The demolitions are part of intensified efforts by the Israeli army to expel Palestinians from the area of the Jordan Valley. Much of the Jordan Valley, including the Hadidiya area, has been designated by the Israeli authorities as a "closed military area" and the army has been exerting increased pressure on local Palestinian villagers to force them to out of the area.

For years, the Israeli authorities have pursued a policy of discriminatory house demolition, on the one hand allowing scores of Israeli settlements to be built on occupied Palestinian land, in breach of international law, while simultaneously confiscating Palestinian lands, refusing building permits for Palestinians and destroying their homes. The land vacated has often been used to build illegal Israeli settlements. International law forbids occupying powers from settling their own citizens in the territories they occupy.

The demolitions come one day after the Israeli government came under international criticism for approving the construction of hundreds of new houses for Israelis in the Givat Ze'ev settlement north of Jerusalem. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon urged the government to "halt settlement expansion" in the West Bank. Javier Solana, the European Union (EU)'s foreign policy chief, said the EU opposed the move to expand the settlement.

Original here

China fund buys nearly 1 percent of BP: report

By Alan Wheatley and Zhou Xin

BEIJING (Reuters) - China has accumulated a stake of just under 1 percent in British oil major BP Plc (BP.L: Quote, Profile, Research), the Daily Telegraph reported, raising fresh questions about Beijing's strategy for investing its huge foreign currency reserves.

A spokesman for BP, Britain's largest company, told the newspaper that it was aware of the Chinese stake, which is worth about $2 billion, and that it welcomed all shareholders.

The Telegraph did not name the investor but said it was the same Chinese state fund that had built up a stake in French oil giant Total (TOTF.PA: Quote, Profile, Research).

That fund is the State Administration of Foreign Exchange (SAFE), an arm of the central bank that manages China's $1.68 trillion in currency reserves, the Financial Times reported last week. It said SAFE's stake of 1.6 percent was worth about $2.8 billion.

The disclosure of China's investment in BP coincides with a visit to Beijing by Chancellor of the Exchequer Alistair Darling, who has said sovereign funds are welcome in Britain as long as their investments are commercially, not politically, driven.

Darling is due to meet Premier Wen Jiabao on Tuesday as well as Lou Jiwei, head of China Investment Corp (CIC), a $200 billion sovereign wealth fund that Beijing set up last September to increase the returns on its reserves by taking greater risks.

SAFE talked about diversifying its investments long before the creation of CIC, and He Fan, a researcher with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said it was a good thing for China to have two sovereign wealth funds.

But he said if SAFE continued to expand its investment portfolio, it might eventually threaten the legitimacy of CIC, especially if the latter was unable to generate juicy profits.

Original here

French Lawmakers Target

PARIS -- French lawmakers have passed a bill that makes incitement of "excessive thinness" a crime.

Does this mean prison pinstripes could be the next big trend in a French fashion industry known for celebrating waif-thin models?

Unlikely.

Lawmakers who passed the bill in France's lower house of Parliament Tuesday are touting the toughness of the proposed law. If passed in the Senate as well, it would allow judges to punish offenders with a fine of as much as €45,000, or more than $70,000, and three years of imprisonment.

In a speech before the vote, French Health Minister Roselyne Bachelot called on lawmakers to uphold "the prestige of French fashion" by passing the measure.

The fashion industry is hardly quivering in its stilettos, however.

The bill mainly targets Internet sites that explicitly encourage anorexia, offering tips on food deprivation. The bill also doesn't explain how it will determine who is responsible for pushing anorexia.

Since the high-profile death of a Brazilian model two years ago, the fashion industry has been under pressure to tackle anorexia. The National Chamber of Italian Fashion in Milan now requires models to obtain notes from physicians attesting they are healthy. Spain has also taken measures to crack down on ultrathin models on the catwalk.

Yet much of the fashion industry's discourse on the issue can be characterized as finger-pointing. Modeling agencies, fashion brands and magazines have refused to take the lead in cleaning up the catwalks. Many of the same waif-thin models continue to stalk the runways.

Top designers also question whether a link between fashion and eating disorders exists.

"Fashion has never been thought of as inciting anorexia," said Didier Grumbach, president of France's Fashion Federation, which organizes Paris fashion week.

Mr. Grumbach said he supports a law that targets Web sites that promote anorexia. However, he added, "If the law is to regulate fashion, to make everyone fit the same standard of beauty, then we're against it."

Critics of the bill cast it as the latest attempt by the French state to micromanage the affairs of its citizens at the expense of time-honored French customs.

French smokers' hackles have been raised over a smoking ban that took effect in cafés and restaurants this year, barring indoor smoke in a land that coined the word "nicotine."

Being thin, though not excessively so, is also part of being French.

"A law is for when people don't respect self-discipline," said Hervé Brossard, president of France's Association des Agences Conseils en Communication, an communications-industry group, and vice chairman of advertising agency DDB Worldwide, a unit of Omnicom Group Inc.

In recent months, Messrs. Brossard and Grumbach took part in drafting a charter requiring members to ban emaciated-looking models from advertisements. The charter was signed by Ms. Bachelot.

By passing the law Tuesday, however, lawmakers signaled that tougher measures were in order in France, where between 30,000 and 40,000 people suffer from anorexia.

The law does allow for some instances of food deprivation.

Advocates of political hunger strikes, religious fasts and health-related dieting don't risk falling into the cross-hairs of the proposed law, said Valérie Boyer, a member of President Nicolas Sarkozy's center-right Union for a Popular Movement party, who introduced the bill in Parliament.

Instead, the proposed law aims to crack down on "social pressure, notably exerted by the media," she said, adding that the bill targets anyone who "promotes abusive food behavior that can turn pathological."

Write to Christina Passariello at christina.passariello@wsj.com and Stacy Meichtry at stacy.meichtry@wsj.com

Original here