Movie Review: Jack the Giant Slayer Is No Towering Achievement ...

Location

Wide Release

Dates

Open Mar 1

Bryan Singer (Usual Suspects, X-Men) directs a sometimes lively update of the Jack and the Beanstalk fable, reimagined as a slap-stick quest. Nicholas Hoult is Jack, a pauper orphan living with his uncle on a tenant farm outside a walled kingdom. We first meet Jack when he is a boy and his father reads him a story about a legendary king who helped save the kingdom from giants. The boyhood story is intercut with scenes of the young princess, Isabelle, being read the same story. The cross-class bond is struck.

You know these two will somehow get together. Flashing forward, Isabelle (Eleanor Tomlinson) has grown into a daring tomboy (c.f. Brave) and yet she is betrothed to Roderick (Stanley Tucci), a nasty man who is bent on using rediscovered magic beans and a magic crown to unleash ? and then control ? the giants and lead a new invasion of the kingdom. It?s hard to tell why. After all, he?s about to become king when he marries the princess. I suppose he?s just that bad. But the plan is somewhat foiled when the beans unexpectedly fall into Jack?s hands when he is in town one day. The princess also falls into the boy?s lap after she runs away from the castle, it storms, and Jack?s home is the sole shelter from a storm, naturally. The stage is set. Cue beanstalk, the princess swept up into the clouds, the giants, and the mythical quest.

The highlight here is Ewan McGregor who plays Elmont, an Errol Flynn-inspired swashbuckler who is tapped by the king to lead the exhibition up the beanstalk and rescue the lost princess. Elmont adds a knavish sense of humor to the film, but he also inadvertently highlights just what is wrong with the rest of Jack the Giant Slayer. The rest of the ensemble falls flat, and their characterizations ? from one the one-dimensional Roderick, to the wasted Crawe (Eddie Marsan) ? lack both depth and distinguishable tone. Jack and Isabelle?s relationship is equally routine. There are times when Jack the Giant Slayer?seems to be grasping for farcical, melodramatic oomph a la The Princess Bride, while at other times it plays like a sleeping, overly serious kids fable. That middling tone is what makes the movie feel rather pipsqueak.

Source: http://frontrow.dmagazine.com/2013/02/movie-review-jack-the-giant-slayer-is-no-towering-achievement-more-like-middling-on-the-beanstalk/

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Here, there and everywhere, Republican Senator Graham gets around

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Lindsey Graham isn't everywhere in Washington these days. It just seems that way.

In a politically divided town where compromise can be fleeting and partisanship is the norm, the Republican senator from South Carolina has become a leading voice on nearly every major issue before Congress this year - partly because he has not always followed his party's official stances.

Graham, a conservative who has never been afraid to buck his party and work with Democrats, is one of four Republicans in the "Gang of Eight" group of senators who are trying to craft a deal to revamp the nation's immigration system.

It is an effort that has caused some grumbling in Graham's conservative home state. And it has angered conservative Republicans who vehemently oppose finding ways to provide legal status for most of the estimated 11 million illegal immigrants in the United States.

Graham, 57, also deviated from the party line this week over looming across-the-board spending cuts, saying he would consider raising up to $600 billion in new tax revenue if Democrats accepted significant changes to the Medicare and Medicaid health programs as part of a broader, long-term budget deal.

By suggesting this week that he would be willing to consider more tax increases beyond those that Congress approved on the wealthiest Americans in January, Graham stood virtually alone in his party.

The depth of some Republicans' objections to more tax increases was evident when Republican Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin speculated that House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner "would lose his speakership" if he backed such a plan.

At the same time, Graham has delighted some conservatives by joining his close friend, Arizona Senator John McCain, in spearheading criticism of President Barack Obama's administration for its handling of the fatal attack on the U.S. diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya, last September 11.

Graham and McCain have cast the attack, which killed U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans, as a security failure. They used the episode to delay the Senate confirmation of Chuck Hagel, a former Republican senator from Nebraska, as Obama's defense secretary.

That effort came to an end on Tuesday, when the Senate voted 58-41 to confirm Hagel. Graham voted against Hagel's confirmation.

"I hope he can exceed expectations," Graham told reporters on Tuesday. "I don't dislike Chuck Hagel. I just don't think he's the best guy."

His positions on immigration, government spending and Hagel have amounted to a dizzying series of political twists for Graham as the two-term senator prepares for a re-election campaign next year - and a possible challenge from the conservative Tea Party movement.

"From a political standpoint, Graham has been going left and right at the same time," said William Galston, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution who was a policy adviser to former President Bill Clinton.

"He is sticking his neck out. South Carolina politics can be pretty unforgiving," Galston said. "But knowing him a little bit, I think he's doing what he believes in both cases. He is serious about policy and governance."

'GOOD CHANCE' FOR IMMIGRATION BILL

Graham and McCain met with Obama at the White House on Tuesday to press their views on immigration and the $85 billion in mandatory spending cuts that are scheduled to take effect at the end of the week.

Obama had called Graham, McCain and another Republican in the Senate group discussing immigration, Florida Senator Marco Rubio, last week.

Graham has been criticized on the immigration issue in a South Carolina radio ad by Numbers USA, a group that supports lower levels of immigration.

The ad, which will begin airing statewide on Wednesday, calls Graham's immigration plan "amnesty and welfare" for illegal immigrants.

"Who elected Lindsey Graham to demand millions more immigrant workers when so many South Carolinians are jobless?" the ad says.

But immigration has become a more pressing political priority for Republicans after Obama crushed Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney among the nation's fast-growing Hispanic population in the November election.

Graham, who worked on a failed immigration overhaul in 2007, said after the White House meeting with Obama he believed there was "a good chance" of passing a comprehensive immigration bill this year.

"The president is very sincere, wanting a bill and wants to know what he can do to help," Graham said.

Graham is the only member of the Senate "Gang of Eight" who is up for re-election next year, but Galston said he is not running to the right to prevent a primary challenge like many of his Republican colleagues have.

"I have to believe that he figures he has enough support to withstand the inevitable criticisms from the right. He has been in South Carolina politics long enough to know what to expect," Galston said.

Still, like his friend McCain, Graham sometimes cannot help taking a few potshots at his fellow Republicans.

On CNN on Monday, he observed that Republicans would be happy to attack Obama's response to the looming spending cuts, even though they do not have their own plan.

"Both parties need to grow up," Graham said.

At the Capitol on Tuesday, Graham told reporters there had been no response to his comments about potential revenue savings in a budget deal.

Republican leaders in both the House and the Senate so far have ruled out raising new revenue by plugging tax loopholes in a budget deal, and most Democrats have been unenthusiastic about including changes to federally funded social benefit programs, known in Washington parlance as "entitlements."

"I hope somebody over there is listening. It really is the chance to do something big," Graham said. "If you bend the curve on entitlements, I'm willing to do revenue."

(Editing by David Lindsey and Christopher Wilson)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/everywhere-republican-senator-graham-gets-around-013546079--business.html

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Tuesday, February 26th, 2013 at 4:20 pm ?

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Source: http://www.dressingup.co/blog/?p=2759

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Colleges, theaters to create new Civil War plays

WASHINGTON (AP) ? Four major universities are joining theater companies in Boston, Baltimore, Washington and Atlanta in a project to commission new plays, music and dance compositions about the Civil War and its lasting legacy 150 years later.

The National Civil War Project is being announced Thursday in Washington and will involve programming over the next two years to mark the 150th anniversary of the war between the North and the South. Beyond commissioning new works, organizers plan for university faculty to integrate the arts into their academic programs on campus.

Under the program, Harvard University will partner with the American Repertory Theater in Cambridge, Mass.; the University of Maryland's Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center will join CENTERSTAGE in Baltimore; George Washington University is working with Arena Stage in Washington, and Atlanta's Alliance Theatre will join Emory University.

Each collaboration will evoke unique perspectives on the Civil War in each region.

At Harvard, a new piece called "The Boston Abolitionists" about the abolitionist movement and the trial of a fugitive slave will be performed in May. Separately, Matthew Aucoin, an assistant conductor at the Metropolitan Opera, is using Walt Whitman's poetry about being a medic to develop a new opera.

In Atlanta, Alliance Theatre and Emory will develop a new theatrical production of U.S. Poet Laureate Natasha Trethewey's Pulitzer Prize-winning book "Native Guard," with a workshop planned for 2014. It recounts the story of a black Civil War regiment assigned to guard white Confederate soldiers on Ship Island off Mississippi's Gulf Coast.

Arena Stage Artistic Director Molly Smith, who helped guide the project, said this is a chance to reevaluate the Civil War and consider the issues that still resonate in American life.

"This is an anniversary of what is arguably one of the most important times in American history," she said. "And the same questions behind state rights and civil rights continue to infuse who we are as a country."

In September, the University of Maryland will host a national conference on civil rights and health disparities among minority populations to mark the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington.

Choreographer Liz Lerman, a 2002 MacArthur Foundation "genius" fellow, helped in developing the partnerships between theaters and universities during a semester spent at Harvard. She said artists can help professors animate their scholarship as more traditional lectures move online, and the Civil War is a good subject to connect art and academics.

"It's something about the fact that we're still trying to understand it," Lerman said. "There are enough civil wars still going on in the world, I myself am trying to understand what it must be like."

Lerman is developing a new dance theater piece in Washington called "Healing Wars" to explore the role of women and innovations in healing for amputees from the Civil War through the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Characters will migrate between past and present. The piece will feature actor Bill Pullman and eight dancers.

Harvard President Drew Gilpin Faust, a Civil War historian, has been leading the university to integrate the arts with academic pursuits, through theater, exhibits or other art forms.

"Engaging students through art and art-making is one of the ways in which universities prepare young women and men for life in a world that is far better connected and far more complex than at any other point in human history," she wrote in an email about the Civil War project.

At this anniversary of the war, she said it's important to remember how the values of freedom and equality were defined in President Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg address as the war's purpose.

George Washington University President Steven Knapp said the Civil War transformed American history, culture and industry ? even the concept of American democracy by redefining equality. Tackling such a subject between academia and theater could provide a new model for learning, he said.

"It's an experiment," Knapp said, "to see how far we can go in bringing together the strengths of the university and the strengths of the theater company."

___

Follow Brett Zongker at https://twitter.com/DCArtBeat

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/colleges-theaters-create-civil-war-plays-050454580.html

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Court Blocks Florida Drug-Testing Law (WSJ)

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The man whose impeachment vote saved Andrew Johnson

After being impeached, President Andrew Johnson survived his 1868 Senate trial by just one vote. And to this day, how that vote was cast remains shrouded in controversy.

Edmund Ross

Edmund Ross

Johnson succeeded the presidency in 1865 after Abraham Lincoln?s assassination. A former Democrat who ran as a candidate alongside Lincoln, President Johnson?s relationship with the GOP leadership quickly crumbled.

A faction called the Radical Republicans, led by Thaddeus Stevens and Charles Sumner, dominated the GOP.

On February 24, 1868, President Johnson was impeached by the House of Representatives. The House charged Johnson with violating the Tenure of Office Act.

The alleged violation stemmed from Johnson?s decision to remove Secretary of War Edwin Stanton, a prominent Radical Republican left over from the Lincoln Cabinet. To block Johnson from removing Cabinet members without its approval, the House passed the Tenure of Office Act in 1867.

Johnson challenged the act by firing Stanton and appointing an interim replacement. The House quickly filed 11 impeachment charges, sending the case to the Senate for disposition.

Two-thirds of the Senate was needed to convict Johnson, and the Republicans made up more than two-thirds of its members. Chief Justice Salmon Chase presided over the trial, which started in March and ended in May. Thaddeus Stevens was one of the House prosecutors.

In the end, however, seven Republican senators voted against impeachment.

The dramatic scene would have fit right in with the movie Lincoln, with the outcome seemingly in doubt until the last undecided vote was cast.

?It is a singular fact that not one of the actors in that high scene was sure in his own mind how his one senator was going to vote, except, perhaps, himself,? said historian David Miller Dewitt.

Senator Edmund Ross of Kansas cast the deciding vote, and for all purposes, he was expected to vote against Johnson, up until the night before the final roll call.

The chamber was stunned when Ross said ?Not guilty.?

The controversy, to this day, is why did Ross change his mind?

There were two serious constitutional issues involved in the trial. One was that some people didn?t think the Tenure of Office Act was constitutional. The other was that the Constitution, at that point, didn?t specify who became vice president when the president died or couldn?t serve.

If Johnson had been impeached, the Senate president pro tempore, Benjamin Wade, would have assumed the duties of the office until the next election. Wade had his own enemies within the Republican Party, including Ross (who saw Wade taking away his patronage powers in Kansas).

One theory is that Ross didn?t follow his constitutional conscience?he followed the cash. Ross may have been the beneficiary of a $150,000 slush fund set up by Johnson?s supporters.

In a 1999 article for Slate, writer David Greenberg pointed out another fact: Ross?s vote may not have been needed.

?At least four other senators were prepared to oppose conviction had their votes been needed?a fact that has been forgotten, maybe, because it doesn?t square with the High Noon portrait of Ross as the man of principle facing down the mob,? Greenberg said.

In later years, Ross was portrayed as a hero in John F. Kennedy?s book Profiles in Courage. Others, like historian David O. Stewart, paint a less flattering portrait of Ross when it comes to allegations of bribery and patronage spoils.

Ross lost re-election after the Senate trial and later switched to the Democratic party. He blamed the Senate trial vote for hurting his political career.

Then in 1885, the first Democratic president to take office since the Civil War, Grover Cleveland, named Ross as the governor of the New Mexico territory.

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Source: http://news.yahoo.com/man-whose-impeachment-vote-saved-andrew-johnson-111608301--politics.html

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Powers to offer Iran sanctions relief at nuclear talks

ALMATY (Reuters) - World powers are expected to offer Iran limited sanctions relief on Tuesday if it agrees to halt its most sensitive nuclear work, in a new attempt to resolve a dispute that threatens to trigger another war in the Middle East.

In their first meeting in eight months - time that Iran has used to expand atomic activity that the West suspects is aimed at developing a bomb capability - the powers hope Iran will engage in serious talks on finding a diplomatic solution.

But with the Islamic Republic's political elite pre-occupied with worsening internal infighting ahead of a June presidential election, few believe the meeting Tuesday and Wednesday in the Kazakh city of Almaty will yield an immediate breakthrough.

At best, diplomats and analysts say, Iran will take the joint offer from the United States, Russia, France, Germany, Britain and China seriously and agree to hold further talks soon on how to implement practical steps to ease the tension.

"What we would like to see tomorrow is a recognition by our Iranian colleagues that our offer is a serious one ... but it is not the final act in the play," said one diplomat participating in the talks. "I wouldn't predict a decisive breakthrough."

Iran is showing no sign, however, of backing down over a nuclear program it says is for entirely peaceful energy purposes. The program has drawn tough Western sanctions that have greatly reduced its oil exports, an economic lifeline.

A U.N. nuclear watchdog report last week said Iran was for the first time installing advanced centrifuges that would allow it to significantly speed up its enrichment of uranium, which can have both civilian and military purposes.

Western officials say the powers' offer - an updated version of one rejected by Iran in the last meeting in June - would include an easing of sanctions of trade in gold and other precious metals if Tehran closes its Fordow enrichment plant.

The stakes are high. Israel, assumed to be the only nuclear-armed power in the Middle East, has hinted strongly at possible military action to prevent its foe from obtaining such arms. Iran has threatened to retaliate hard if attacked.

The formal talks are due to start in Almaty at 0730 GMT (2:30 a.m. EST).

UNDERGROUND ENRICHMENT

"The window for a diplomatic solution simply cannot by definition remain open forever. But it is open today. It is open now," U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry told a news conference in London this week.

"There is still time but there is only time if Iran makes the decision to come to the table and negotiate in good faith."

Western officials acknowledge an easing of U.S. and European sanctions on trade in gold represents a relatively modest step. But it could be used as part of barter transactions that might allow Iran to circumvent tight financial sanctions.

Iran so far appears to be showing little interest. Its Foreign Ministry spokesman last week dismissed the reported incentive as insufficient and a senior Iranian lawmaker has ruled out closing Fordow, located close to the holy city of Qom.

Fordow, buried deep underground to better protect it against enemy attacks, is at the heart of the international community's concerns over Iran's nuclear program as it is where it refines its higher-grade uranium.

Iran says it enriches uranium to a fissile concentration of 20 percent to make fuel for a medical research reactor in the capital Tehran. But it also represents most of the work required to reach weapons-grade material of 90 percent.

Tehran denies Western allegations that it is seeking to develop the capability to make nuclear bombs, saying it only wants to fuel a planned network of atomic energy plants. It wants sanctions eased and recognition of what it sees as its right to refine uranium for peaceful purposes.

A U.S. official said the powers hoped that the Almaty meeting would lead to follow-up talks, either at a political or technical level, before Iran's New Year celebrations in late March.

"We are ready to step up the pace of our meetings and our discussions," the official said, adding the United States was also ready to hold bilateral talks if Iran was serious about it.

(Additional reporting by Yeganeh Torbati and Dmitry Solovyov; Editing by Tom Pfeiffer and Bill Trott)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/powers-offer-iran-sanctions-relief-nuclear-talks-055616179.html

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Invasive mussels threaten Shipwreck Alley

Steve Sellers / NOAA, Thunder Bay NMS

The Cornelia B. Windiate is a wooden schooner that went missing in December 1875 and was discovered in 1987 in Thunder Bay in excellent condition. With no survivors or witnesses, the wheat-carrying ship's sinking remains a mystery, although weather was likely a factor, according to NOAA. The ship rests almost 200 feet underwater.

By Megan Gannon
LiveScience

Known as Shipwreck Alley, Thunder Bay in northwest Lake Huron presents a forbidding scene for boaters and captains but a wonder for divers and marine archaeologists. Its chilly bottom is dotted with dozens of wrecks, from 19th-century schooners to passenger-carrying steamboats to steel-moving freighters that have fallen prey to the bay's unpredictable weather and dangerous shoals.

More than 50 of these historic hulks are protected by the Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary, which was created in 2000 and covers 448 square miles (1,160 square kilometers) off the northeast coast of Michigan's Lower Peninsula. Though most are in relatively good shape, thanks to the wreck-friendly freshwater environment of Lake Huron, a new report released by the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) finds the sunken ships might be threatened by a tiny menace: invasive mussels.

A few decades ago, zebra and quagga mussels were introduced to the Great Lakes, likely by ocean-going vessels from Europe dumping ballast water. Researchers believe the mollusks' quick domination of lake-bottoms in the region has contributed to the recent decline of some native species, such as the commercially valuable whitefish. (It's thought that the mussels, through competition, have depleted populations of the shrimplike Diporeia, which is an important part of the whitefish's diet.)

Left: Stan Stock; right: NOAA Thunder Bay NMS

Taken just five years apart, these two photos show how quickly quagga mussels have spread over the schooner Kyle Spangler, which sank in Thunder Bay in 1860. The image at left was taken in 2003 and the one at right is from 2008.

The mussels also stubbornly attach to hard surfaces such as boat hulls, engines, docks, buoys, pipelines and shipwrecks. Layers of mussels several inches thick could make it difficult for marine archaeologists to get accurate measurements and study a shipwreck, but brushing off the little creatures could tear off delicate sections of sunken wood, according to NOAA. Additionally, pieces of wrecks could break off on their own, under the weight of heavy mussel build-ups.

"The weight of mussels has been known to sink submerged buoys, and similar forces are surely at play on shipwreck sites," the report says.

It's not just the wooden pieces that are at risk. Previous research has found that mussel colonies on steel surfaces can introduce a complex community of bacteria that lowers pH levels (the lower the pH the more acidic a solution is) and speeds up the corrosion of iron fasteners and fittings on shipwrecks. [ See Photos of Shipwreck Alley's Sunken Treasures ]

"Since many of the wooden ships in the Thunder Bay sanctuary are primarily iron and steel fastened, the structural integrity of these resources could potentially be compromised," the report says.

To be sure, the report authors note that so far, the mussels do not yet appear to have seriously reduced the historical, archaeological or educational value of the wrecks, but the layers of invasive mussels obscure information about the sites and make scientific study more difficult. The mussels also may be causing long-lasting damage, but since shipwrecks by nature are in a state of deterioration, it's tough determine how much of that wear can be attributed to mussels.

NOAA is currently weighing an expansion of the sanctuary, which would make it stretch over 4,300 square miles (11,136 square km) and cover 92 known historic shipwrecks, with possibly 100 additional sites that have yet to be properly documented. The purpose of the sanctuary is to foster public awareness about the region's maritime heritage and help protect the sites from artifact looting and other negative human impacts through law enforcement and scientific research. Part of this research includes a mussel monitoring initiative in Thunder Bay, which was launched last year by researchers from NOAA's Great Lakes Environmental Lab.

Follow LiveScience on Twitter @livescience. We're also on Facebook? and Google+.

Copyright 2013 LiveScience, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Source: http://science.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/02/25/17089910-invasive-mussels-threaten-shipwreck-alley?lite

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Samsung takes on iPad Mini, expands lineup pen-based tablets with Galaxy Note 8.0

BARCELONA, Spain ? Samsung Electronics is beefing up its tablet range with a competitor?

Here at Maclean's, we appreciate the written word. And we appreciate you, the reader. We are always looking for ways to create a better user experience for you and wanted to try out a new functionality that provides you with a reading experience in which the words and fonts take centre stage. We believe you'll appreciate the clean, white layout as you read our feature articles. But we don't want to force it on you and it's completely optional. Click "View in Clean Reading Mode" on any article if you want to try it out. Once there, you can click "Go back to regular view" at the top or bottom of the article to return to the regular layout.

BARCELONA, Spain ? Samsung Electronics is beefing up its tablet range with a competitor to Apple?s iPad Mini that sports a pen for writing on the screen.

The Korean company announced on Sunday in Barcelona that the Galaxy Note 8.0 will have an 8-inch screen, putting it very close in size to the Apple?s tablet, which launched in November with a 7.9-inch screen. It?s not the first time Samsung has made a tablet that?s in the Mini?s size range: it?s very first iPad competitor had a 7-inch screen, and it still makes a tablet of that size, but without a pen.

Samsung will start selling the new tablet in the April to June period, at an as yet undetermined price. It made the announcement ahead of Mobile World Congress, the wireless industry?s annual trade show, which starts Monday in Barcelona, Spain.

The Note 8.0 fills a gap in Samsung?s line-up of pen-equipped devices between the Galaxy Note II smartphone, with its 5.5-inch screen, and the Galaxy Note 10.1, a full-size tablet. Samsung has made the pen, or more properly the stylus, one of the tools it uses to chip away at Apple?s dominance in both tablets and high-end smartphones. Apple doesn?t make any devices that work with styluses, preferring to optimize its interfaces for fingers, mice and touchpads.

On Samsung?s Note line, the pens can be used to write, highlight and draw. The screens also sense when the mouse hovers over the screen, providing an equivalent to the hovering mouse cursor on the PC. However, few third-party applications have been modified to take full advantage of the pens.

Source: http://www2.macleans.ca/2013/02/23/samsung-takes-on-ipad-mini-expands-lineup-pen-based-tablets-with-galaxy-note-8-0/

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Source: http://www.nachi.org/forum/f11/can-get-little-love-here-please-79339/

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Canadian Automotive Trim ? 1949 | International Metropolis

Located on Walker Road, the building was located on the east side just south of Edna street.

View Larger Map

The plant, owned by National Automotive Fibres Inc. had a sister operation open in Ajax in 1953. It manufactured interior trim parts for Ford, Chrysler, General Motors, American Motors and Studebaker. In 1957 the Windsor plant was closed and all the work was moved to the new operation in Ajax. The plant eventually was purchased and owned by Chrysler, and was closed in 2003 during the Daimler Chrysler era.

Source: http://www.internationalmetropolis.com/2013/02/25/canadian-automotive-trim-1949/

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Cuba's Raul Castro announces retirement in 5 years

Cuba's leader Fidel Castro and his brother Cuba's President Raul Castro talk during the opening session of the National Assemby in Havana, Cuba, Sunday, Feb. 24, 2012. Cuba's parliament reconvened Sunday with new membership and was expected to name Raul Castro to a new five-year-term as president. Raul Castro fueled speculation on Friday when he talked of his possible retirement and suggested he has plans to resign at some point.(AP Photo/Ismael Francisco, Cubadebate)

Cuba's leader Fidel Castro and his brother Cuba's President Raul Castro talk during the opening session of the National Assemby in Havana, Cuba, Sunday, Feb. 24, 2012. Cuba's parliament reconvened Sunday with new membership and was expected to name Raul Castro to a new five-year-term as president. Raul Castro fueled speculation on Friday when he talked of his possible retirement and suggested he has plans to resign at some point.(AP Photo/Ismael Francisco, Cubadebate)

Cuba's President Raul Castro, right, and brother Fidel Castro attend the opening session of the National Assemby in Havana, Cuba, Sunday, Feb. 24, 2012. Cuba's parliament reconvened Sunday with new membership and was expected to name Raul Castro to a new five-year-term as president. Raul Castro fueled speculation on Friday when he talked of his possible retirement and suggested he has plans to resign at some point.(AP Photo/Ismael Francisco, Cubadebate)

Cuba's leader Fidel Castro and his brother Cuba's President Raul Castro attend the opening session of the National Assemby in Havana, Cuba, Sunday, Feb. 24, 2012. Cuba's parliament reconvened Sunday with new membership and was expected to name Raul Castro to a new five-year-term as president. Raul Castro fueled speculation on Friday when he talked of his possible retirement and suggested he has plans to resign at some point.(AP Photo/Ismael Francisco, Cubadebate)

Cuba's leader Fidel Castro attends the opening session of the National Assemby in Havana, Cuba, Sunday, Feb. 24, 2012. Cuba's parliament reconvened Sunday with new membership and was expected to name Raul Castro to a new five-year-term as president. He fueled speculation on Friday when he talked of his possible retirement and suggested he has plans to resign at some point.(AP Photo/Ismael Francisco, Cubadebate)

Cuba's President Raul Castro holds up the ballot of his brother Fidel, also present in the session, for president of the National Assembly during the opening session of the parliament in Havana, Cuba, Sunday, Feb. 24, 2012. Cuba's parliament reconvened Sunday with new membership and was expected to name Raul Castro to a new five-year-term as president. He fueled speculation on Friday when he talked of his possible retirement and suggested he has plans to resign at some point.(AP Photo/Ismael Francisco, Cubadebate)

HAVANA (AP) ? Raul Castro announced Sunday that he will step down as Cuba's president in 2018 following a final five-year term, for the first time putting a date on the end of the Castro era. He tapped rising star Miguel Diaz-Canel as his top lieutenant and first in the line of succession.

The 81-year-old Castro also said he hopes to establish two-term limits and age caps for political offices including the presidency ? an astonishing prospect for a nation led by Castro or his older brother Fidel since their 1959 revolution.

The 52-year-old Diaz-Canel is now a heartbeat from the presidency and has risen higher than any other Cuban official who didn't directly participate in the heady days of the revolution.

"This will be my last term," Castro said, his voice firm.

In his 35-minute speech, Castro hinted at other changes to the constitution, some so dramatic that they will have to be ratified by the Cuban people in a referendum. Still, he scotched any idea that the country would soon abandon socialism, saying he had not assumed the presidency in order to destroy Cuba's system.

"I was not chosen to be president to restore capitalism to Cuba," he said. "I was elected to defend, maintain and continue to perfect socialism, not destroy it."

Castro fueled interest in Sunday's legislative gathering after mentioning on Friday his possible retirement and suggesting lightheartedly that he had plans to resign at some point.

It's now clear that he was serious when he promised that Sunday's speech would have fireworks, and would touch on his future in leadership.

Cuba is at a moment of "historic transcendence," Castro told lawmakers in speaking of his decision to name Diaz-Canel to the No. 2 job, replacing the 81-year-old Jose Ramon Machado Ventura, who fought with the Castros in the Sierra Maestra.

Castro praised Machado Ventura and another aging revolutionary for offering to leave their positions so that younger leaders could move up.

Their selflessness is "a concrete demonstration of their genuine revolutionary fiber ... That is the essence of the founding generation of this revolution."

Castro said that Diaz-Canel's promotion "represents a definitive step in the configuration of the future leadership of the nation through the gradual and orderly transfer of key roles to new generations."

"Our greatest satisfaction is the tranquility and serene confidence we feel as we deliver to the new generations the responsibility to continue building socialism," he added.

On the streets of Havana, where people often express a jaded skepticism of all things political, there was genuine excitement.

"This is the start of a new era," said Roberto Delgado, a 68-year-old retiree walking down a street in the leafy Miramar neighborhood. "It will undoubtedly be a complicated and difficult process, but something important happened today."

"I'm mesmerized," added Regla Blanco, 48. "You thought that with all these old men, it would never end. I am very satisfied with what Raul said. He is keeping his promise."

Since taking over from Fidel in 2006, Castro has instituted a slate of important economic and social changes, expanding private enterprise, legalizing a real estate market and relaxing hated travel restrictions.

Still, the country remains ruled by the Communist Party and any opposition to it lacks legal recognition.

Castro has mentioned term limits before, but he has never said specifically when he would step down, and the concept has yet to be codified into Cuban law.

If he keeps his word, Castro will leave office no later than 2018. Cuban-American exiles in the United States have waited decades for the end of the Castro era, although they will likely be dismayed if it ends on the brothers' terms.

Nevertheless, the promise of a change at the top could have deep significance for U.S.-Cuba ties. The wording of Washington's 51-year economic embargo on the island specifies that it cannot be lifted while a Castro is in charge.

When Raul Castro hinted at his retirement plans on Friday, it earned a sharp response from Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, a Cuban-American Republican from Florida, who called it a ploy.

"If dictator Raul Castro states that he will retire in five years, there will still be no real change for the Cuban people so long as the Castro brothers remain in any form of leadership position, even behind the scenes," she said. "The U.S. should not change its policy of isolation of the Cuban regime."

Fidel Castro is 86 and retired, and has appeared increasingly frail in recent months. He made a surprise appearance at Sunday's gathering, receiving a thunderous ovation from lawmakers.

Some analysts have speculated that the Castros would push a younger member of their family into a top job, but there was no hint of that Sunday.

While few things are ever clear in Cuba's hermetically sealed news environment, rumblings that Diaz-Canel, an electrical engineer by training and ex-minister of higher education, might be in line for a senior post have grown.

In recent weeks, he has frequently been featured on state television news broadcasts in an apparent attempt to raise his profile.

He also traveled to Venezuela in January for the symbolic inauguration of Hugo Chavez, a key Cuban ally who had been re-elected president but was too ill to be sworn in.

The 612 lawmakers sworn in Sunday also named Esteban Lazo as the National Assembly's first new chief in 20 years, replacing Ricardo Alarcon.

Lazo, who turns 69 on Tuesday, is a vice president and member of the Communist Party's ruling political bureau. Parliament meets only twice a year and generally passes legislation unanimously without visible debate.

The legislature also named as vice presidents of the ruling Council Machado Ventura; comptroller general Gladys Bejerano; second Vice President Ramiro Valdes; Havana Communist Party secretary Lazara Mercedes Lopez Acea; and Salvador Valdes Mesa, head of Cuba's labor union.

___

Anne Marie-Garcia and Paul Haven contributed to this report.

___

Peter Orsi on Twitter: www.twitter.com/Peter_Orsi

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2013-02-24-CB-Cuba-President/id-0445484a0cd84303884239e909ba3ce1

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Amazon tops Apple as most reputable'

According to a Harris poll, Amazon is the ?most reputable? company in America, edging out Apple, albeit barely. It?s also the fifth consecutive year it?s been ranked as a ?great? company.

Harris Interactive, which did the study, defined ?reputable? with six criteria: financial performance, vision and leadership, social responsibility, emotional appeal, products and services, and workplace environment.

Here?s the top 10 list:

1. Amazon.com (82.62)

2. Apple (82.54)

3. Walt Disney Co. (82.12)

4. Google (81.32)

5. Johnson & Johnson (80.95)

6. Coca-Cola Co. (80.39)

7. Whole Foods Market (78.65)

8. Sony (78.29)

9. Procter & Gamble (77.98)

10. Costco (77.95)

Among the worst: Delta Airlines, JPMorgan Chase, ExxonMobil, GM, Bank of America and Chrysler.

Source: http://www.journalgazette.net/article/20130224/BIZ/302249969/-1/BIZ09

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Race linked to childhood food allergies, not environmental allergies

Feb. 23, 2013 ? Research conducted at Henry Ford Hospital shows that race and possibly genetics play a role in children's sensitivity to developing allergies. Researchers found:

• African-American children were sensitized to at least one food allergen three times more often than Caucasian children.
• African-American children with one allergic parent were sensitized to an environmental allergen twice as often as African-American children without an allergic parent.

The study will be presented February 23 at the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology annual meeting,

"Our findings suggest that African Americans may have a gene making them more susceptible to food allergen sensitization or the sensitization is just more prevalent in African American children than white children at age 2," says Haejim Kim, M.D., a Henry Ford allergist and the study's lead author. "More research is needed to further look at the development of allergy."

Sensitization means a person's immune system produces a specific antibody to an allergen. It does not mean the person will experience allergy symptoms.

According to an AAAI study from 2009-2010, an estimated 8 percent of children have a food allergy, and 30 percent of children have multiple food allergies. Peanut is the most prevalent allergen, followed by milk and shellfish. 1The Henry Ford study consisted of a longitudinal birth cohort of 543 children who were interviewed with their parents and examined at a clinical visit at age 2. Data included parental self-report of allergies and self-reported race (African American or white/non-Hispanic). The children were skin-tested for three food allergens -- egg whites, peanuts and milk -- and seven environmental allergens.

Key findings:

• 20.1 percent of African-American children were sensitized to an food allergen compared to 6.4 percent in Caucasian children.
• 13.9 percent of African-American children were sensitized to an environmental allergen compared to 11 percent of Caucasian children.
• African-American children with an allergic parent were sensitized to an environmental allergen 2.45 times more often than African-American children without an allergic parent.

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Story Source:

The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Henry Ford Health System, via EurekAlert!, a service of AAAS.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.

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Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/~3/PEhRA35hK94/130223111515.htm

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Le gouvernement du Canada investit en vue d'aider les jeunes de Surrey ? d?crocher un emploi

22 f?vr. 2013 17h00 HE

SURREY, COLOMBIE-BRITANNIQUE--(Marketwire - 22 f?v. 2013) - Le gouvernement du Canada a annonc? du soutien aux jeunes de Surrey afin de les aider ? acqu?rir les comp?tences, les connaissances et l'exp?rience dont ils ont besoin pour acc?der au march? du travail et y r?ussir. L'annonce a ?t? faite aujourd'hui par la d?put?e de Fleetwood-Port Kells, Nina Grewal, au nom de la ministre des Ressources humaines et du D?veloppement des comp?tences, l'honorable Diane Finley.

? La cr?ation d'emplois, la croissance ?conomique et la prosp?rit? ? long terme sont les grandes priorit?s de notre gouvernement, a d?clar? M^me Grewal. La Strat?gie emploi jeunesse du gouvernement du Canada aide les jeunes ? acqu?rir les comp?tences et l'exp?rience dont ils ont besoin pour d?crocher un emploi d?s maintenant et se pr?parer ? constituer la main-d'?uvre de l'avenir. ?

L'organisme Progressive Intercultural Community Services recevra un financement de plus de 96 000 $ du programme Connexion comp?tences afin d'aider des jeunes ? surmonter les obstacles ? l'emploi. Connexion comp?tences fait partie de la Strat?gie emploi jeunesse du gouvernement du Canada.

Les participants au projet acquerront des comp?tences entrepreneuriales afin de lancer leur propre entreprise. Ils participeront ? diverses formations et s?ances d'information sur le travail autonome, portant sur des sujets comme le marketing, la planification financi?re et l'?laboration d'un plan d'affaires. De plus, les participants apprendront de mentors et de conf?renciers invit?s, notamment sur l'?laboration de strat?gies de vente et sur les relations avec les clients et la collectivit?.

? Nous sommes reconnaissants du soutien que nous accorde le gouvernement du Canada, a indiqu? Charan Gill, chef de la direction de Progressive Intercultural Community Services. Ce projet offre aux jeunes d'excellentes occasions d'acqu?rir des comp?tences qui leur serviront aujourd'hui et qui leur permettront de cr?er un avenir meilleur. ?

Gr?ce ? un budget annuel de plus de 300 millions de dollars, la Strat?gie emploi jeunesse aide les jeunes, en particulier ceux qui rencontrent des obstacles ? l'emploi, ? obtenir de l'information sur les carri?res, ? acqu?rir des comp?tences professionnelles, ? trouver un emploi et ? le conserver. Cette strat?gie comprend les programmes Connexion comp?tences et Objectif carri?re, ainsi que l'initiative Emplois d'?t? Canada, qui cr?e chaque ?t? des milliers de possibilit?s d'emploi pour les ?tudiants.

Les employeurs ont jusqu'au 28 f?vrier 2013 pour pr?senter une demande dans le cadre du programme Emplois d'?t? Canada de cette ann?e. Ils peuvent remplir leur demande en ligne, au servicecanada.gc.ca/eec2013, ou en se rendant ? un Centre Service Canada.

Dans le cadre du Plan d'action ?conomique de 2012, le gouvernement investit 50 millions de dollars de plus sur deux ans dans la Strat?gie emploi jeunesse. Ce financement facilitera la mise en oeuvre d'une nouvelle initiative visant ? aider les jeunes Canadiens et Canadiennes ? trouver un emploi dans un domaine ? forte demande et ? acqu?rir des comp?tences pratiques et de l'exp?rience de travail.

Les programmes d'emploi pour les jeunes font partie de la strat?gie globale du gouvernement du Canada qui vise ? constituer une main-d'?uvre instruite, comp?tente et souple. Le gouvernement a soulign? son engagement envers cette strat?gie dans le Plan d'action ?conomique du Canada. Le Plan consiste notamment ? multiplier et ? am?liorer les possibilit?s d'emploi pour les travailleurs canadiens gr?ce au d?veloppement des comp?tences. Pour en savoir davantage sur le Plan d'action ?conomique du Canada, consultez le plandaction.gc.ca.

Le gouvernement du Canada aide les jeunes ? planifier leur carri?re, ? acqu?rir de nouvelles comp?tences et ? trouver un emploi gr?ce ? des services en ligne am?lior?s offerts sur le site jeunesse.gc.ca.

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S'IL Y A DIVERGENCE ENTRE UNE VERSION IMPRIM?E ET LA VERSION ?LECTRONIQUE DE CE COMMUNIQU?, LA VERSION ?LECTRONIQUE PR?VAUT.

Ce communiqu? est affich? en ligne sur le site plandaction.gc.ca.

Document d'information

La Strat?gie emploi jeunesse donne suite ? la promesse du gouvernement du Canada d'aider les jeunes ? r?ussir leur transition vers le march? du travail.

Connexion comp?tences aide les jeunes qui rencontrent des obstacles ? l'emploi, notamment les chefs de famille monoparentale, les personnes handicap?es et les r?sidants des milieux ruraux et des r?gions ?loign?es, ? acqu?rir les comp?tences et l'exp?rience dont ils ont besoin pour trouver un emploi, ou la confiance n?cessaire pour retourner aux ?tudes.

Objectif carri?re fournit du financement ? des employeurs pour qu'ils embauchent des jeunes dipl?m?s du postsecondaire afin de leur offrir une exp?rience de travail li?e ? leur choix de carri?re et de les aider ? acqu?rir les comp?tences n?cessaires pour int?grer le march? du travail.

Emplois d'?t? Canada verse des fonds ? des organismes sans but lucratif, ? des employeurs du secteur public et ? de petites entreprises comptant 50 employ?s ou moins afin de cr?er des emplois d'?t? pour des jeunes ?g?s de 15 ? 30 ans qui ?tudient ? temps plein et qui pr?voient poursuivre leurs ?tudes au cours de l'ann?e scolaire suivante.

Pour obtenir plus de renseignements sur la Strat?gie emploi jeunesse du gouvernement du Canada et sur d'autres initiatives d'emploi des jeunes, veuillez consulter le site Web jeunesse.gc.ca.

Source: http://www.marketwire.com/mw/release.do?id=1760418&sourceType=3

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[NFL News] Oregon DE/LB Dion Jordan To Have Shoulder Surgery

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	Oregon DE/LB Dion Jordan To Have Shoulder Surgery
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Oregon defensive end/linebacker Dion Jordan announced he will have surgery to repair a torn labrum and will be down 3-4 months. That takes him out of any rookie camp, organized team activities and possible minicamp. Jordan could miss everything before training camp.

Jordan is one of the most intriguing pass rushers in the draft. He has tremendous athletic ability to go along with a 6-foot-7, 243-pound frame. He's been compared to Julian Peterson and Aldon Smith.

Source: NFL.com

Source: http://gridironfans.com/forums/showthread.php?t=216997

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Vatican blasts 'false' pre-conclave reporting

VATICAN CITY (AP) ? The Vatican lashed out Saturday at the media for what it said has been a run of defamatory and false reports before the conclave to elect Pope Benedict XVI's successor, saying they were an attempt to influence the election.

Italian newspapers have been rife with unsourced reports in recent days about the contents of a secret dossier prepared for the pope by three cardinals who investigated the origins of the 2012 scandal over leaked Vatican documents.

The reports have suggested the revelations in the dossier, given to Benedict in December, were a factor in his decision to resign. The pope himself has said merely that he doesn't have the "strength of mind and body" to carry on.

On Saturday, the Vatican secretariat of state said the Catholic Church has for centuries insisted on the independence of its cardinals to elect their pope. Now, it said, the "pressures of public opinion" is in play in a bid to influence their vote.

"It is deplorable that as we draw closer to the time of the beginning of the conclave ... that there be a widespread distribution of often unverified, unverifiable or completely false news stories that cause serious damage to persons and institutions."

It was issued as Benedict met for the last time with the Vatican bureaucracy before stepping down Feb. 28. The occasion was the final session of the Vatican's Lenten spiritual retreat, a weeklong series of meditations composed by Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi, himself a papal contender.

In one of his final meditations Friday, Ravasi denounced the "divisions, dissent, careerism, jealousies" that afflict the Vatican bureaucracy ? divisions that were exposed by the leaks of documents taken from the pope's study. The documents revealed the petty wrangling, corruption and cronyism and even allegations of a gay plot at the highest levels of the Catholic Church.

The three cardinals who investigated the theft of the documents had wide-ranging powers to interview even cardinals to get to the bottom of the dynamics within the Curia ? the Vatican bureaucracy ? that resulted in the gravest Vatican security breach in modern times.

Benedict has referred obliquely to the Vatican's dysfunction in recent days, deploring how the church is often "defiled" by attacks and divisions and urging its members to overcome "pride and egoism."

On Saturday, in his final comments to the Curia, he lamented the "evil, suffering and corruption" that has defaced God's creation. But he also thanked the Vatican bureaucrats for eight years of work, love and faith and promised them he would continue to be spiritually close to them in retirement.

___

Follow Nicole Winfield at www.twitter.com/nwinfield

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/vatican-blasts-false-pre-conclave-reporting-130526801.html

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State Farm To Leave Illinois, Move To Texas

State Farm, the nationally-known insurance chain headquartered in Bloomington, Illinois, has apparently had its fill of ?The Land of Lincoln?s? confiscatory taxes.? The 800 million dollar company is reported to have purchased ?substantial workspace? in the Dallas, Texas area. The giant insurance firm?s workers are being kept in the dark reportedly to avoid ?alarming them?; but is it their workers or the State of Illinois they would like to keep in the dark about this move? If this doesn?t signal State Farm?s coming dash out of Illinois?s clutches, what could it mean?

A knowledgeable Dallas real estate?insider has called this impending move ?a major business relocation? of record-breaking proportions. The numbers involved are approximately 2.5 million square feet of workspace and thousands of workers. No company in Dallas? history has made a move this large.

Texas isn?t the only state State Farm is running to. There has also been a report that it has leased office space in Atlanta. The combined amount of both new locations roughly equals the 3.5 million square feet it has in Bloomington.

These moves should come as no surprise to anyone.? In spite of (or maybe because of) raising its corporate and personal income tax rate by 67% in 2010, Illinois has seen its credit rating fall and its deficit raise.? A review of the tax structure in Georgia shows the personal and corporate income tax is 4% as compared to Illinois? 6.25%.

?

Texas has no personal or corporate income tax.

?

Add to this the fact that the gasoline tax in Illinois is 60.9 cents per gallon (while Texas collects just 38.4 cents per gallon and Georgia charges 47 cents tax on a gallon of gas), and it is easy to see why any company or individual would want to move.

The worst thing about the coming loss of jobs in Bloomington is that both the town?s state senator and Assembly representative are Republicans who did not vote for the policies that have destroyed their state and local economies. ? ?

Please share this post with your friends and comment below. If you haven?t already, take a moment to sign up for our free newsletter above and friend us on Twitter and Facebook to get real time updates.
Follow @WestJournalism

Source: http://www.westernjournalism.com/state-farm-to-leave-illinois-move-to-texas/

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Israel?s illegal settlement enterprise breaches peremptory norms of international law - HRC 22nd session - NGO statement (Al-Haq) 19/02/2013

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Written statement* submitted by Al-Haq, Law in the Service of Man, a non-governmental organization in special consultative status

The Secretary-General has received the following written statement which is circulated in accordance with Economic and Social Council resolution 1996/31^.

[11 February 2013]

^*This written statement is issued, unedited, in the language(s) received from the submitting nongovernmental organization(s).

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Israel?s illegal settlement enterprise breaches peremptory norms of international law

Al-Haq would like to take this opportunity of the 22^nd United Nations (UN) Human Rights Council session to welcome the report of the UN Fact-Finding Mission on Israeli Settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT).

The release of this report has proven particularly timely given Israel?s renewed threats of settlement expansion in the so-called ?E1 area,? which would separate East Jerusalem from the West Bank, in addition to its reported authorisation of 346 new housing units in the southern West Bank and 90 new homes in Beit El settlement near Ramallah.¹

Despite repeated condemnation by the international community of Israel?s settlement policy, Palestinian communities continues to be subjected to dispossession, demolitions, evictions, forcible transfer, violence and intimidation by Israeli authorities and settlers in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem. In 2012, Al-Haq documented 202 incidents of settler violence in the West Bank, almost equalling the 208 in 2011 and twice as many as the 98 incidents documented in 2010.

Since the outset of the occupation, Israel has coercively constructed more than 200 settlements in the West Bank, including 14 in East Jerusalem, transferring more than 500,000 settlers into the territory.² The presence of Israeli settlements in the OPT succeeds to permanently deny the Palestinian population the exercise of their right to self-determination by fragmenting the territory of the OPT and preventing the Palestinian population from exercising sovereignty over their natural resources.

More than 42 per cent of the land in the West Bank, as well as the majority of its natural resources, have been appropriated and allocated to Israeli colonies. This land includes some of the most geopolitically strategic areas of the West Bank, including the Jordan Valley, which represents the most fertile and resource-rich area of the West Bank and is crucial for the sustainability of an independent Palestinian State.

Agriculture is the main source of income for Israeli settlements in the occupied Jordan Valley and Dead Sea areas. The government of Israel actively sustains settlements located here by lavishing large financial incentives on both the settlements themselves and foreign companies involved in the settlement enterprise.³ The estimated value of agricultural goods produced in the settlements in this area is 500 million NIS (approximately 128 million USD) a year.⁴

The export of settlement goods to international markets reinforces Israel?s settlement enterprise. Together with the unlawful appropriation and exploitation of prime agricultural land, water and other natural resources to the detriment of the occupied Palestinian population and Palestinian economic development,⁵ this export trade has transformed illegally-established settlement-based production operations into sources of private commercial profit and fiscal revenue for the Occupying Power.

The significance of this Mission?s report is that it brings to the attention of the Council and the international community not only Israel?s on-going illegal practices and policies in the OPT, widely documented and reported by human rights organisations over decades, but clearly identifies the responsibilities of private actors and States in bringing an end to these violations of international law.

The Mission?s report has affirmed that Israeli settlements in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, are a breach of Israel?s obligations as the Occupying Power and entail the violation of peremptory norms of international law. These breaches include the denial of the Palestinian right to self-determination, the extensive destruction and appropriation of property and the prohibition of colonialism.

Article 41 of the International Law Commission Articles, which reflects customary law, affirms that in case of breaches of peremptory norms all States are under an obligation not to recognise the situation as lawful, not to render aid or assistance in maintaining the illegal situation, and to actively cooperate in order to bring it to an end.⁶

The prolonged nature of Israel?s military occupation has allowed for the institutionalisation of its discriminatory and degrading treatment of the Palestinian people as a matter of policy. The settler colonial enterprise is further sustained by Israel?s illegal practice of applying its laws extra-territorially to the settler population, creating two parallel but segregated societies in the OPT. Israeli settlers benefit from superior living conditions, protection under Israeli civil law, greater access to natural resources in the OPT, and complete freedom of movement. In contrast, Palestinians in neighbouring villages live under the jurisdiction of Israeli military law and are denied basic civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights.

Palestinians in the occupied territory, therefore, have no recourse to effective judicial remedies within the Israeli domestic legal system.⁷ This has been affirmed by the Mission?s report which states that the Israeli High Court has ?rendered the question of the legality of the settlements non-justiciable?.⁸ In the evident absence of domestic judicial remedy, recourse must be had to international mechanisms.

Given Israel?s policy of non-cooperation with the Council and continued noncompliance with its legal obligations, each individual Member State of the UN must demonstrate its opposition to Israel?s breaches of peremptory norms of international law by adhering to its own obligations and taking concrete steps to ensure that it does not recognise the unlawful situation created by Israel?s settlement policy nor render aid or assistance in maintaining the illegal situation.

Member State of the UN must also reaffirm the authority of the Council to act within the full extent of its mandate and demonstrate their support for the work of this report by actively cooperating to bring Israel?s serious breaches of peremptory norms of international law to an end through lawful means.

Through the establishment of this Mission, the Council has demonstrated its willingness to address the international crimes inherent in Israel?s settlement enterprise. However, thirty- four years ago, in 1979, a UN commission on settlements reached similar findings to that of this Mission.⁹ In the intervening period between the commission?s report and that of the most recent Mission, the number of settlers in the OPT has increased fivefold, hundreds of thousands of dunums have been annexed, and hundreds of thousands Palestinians were forcibly displaced.

By implementing the recommendations made by the Fact-Finding Mission in its report, the UN and Member States will ensure that Israel?s 34 year-long policy of ?creeping? annexation is finally brought to an end.

Al-Haq further calls on the Human Rights Council to:

• Adopt the report on the Fact-Finding Mission on Israeli Settlements in the OPT and identify concrete means by which the international community can begin to implement the recommendations therein, including by suggesting that international policies and preferential trade schemes do not contribute to the perpetration of violations of international humanitarian and human rights law.
• Reiterate that international law must be the foundation of peaceful resolution of the conflict in the region and that political negotiations must not contain preconditions that undermine access to justice and accountability by the Palestinian population.
• Request that the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights establish an expert organ or suitable mechanism within its field office in the OPT with a mandate to serve as a record, in documentary form, of settlement expansion, population housed in settlements, and whether the land used was or is privately-owned.

Al-Haq therefore calls on each Member State of the UN to:

• Ensure that State policies and preferential trade schemes do not contribute to the perpetration of violations of international humanitarian and human rights law.
• Ensure that their organs, as well as private and public entities and persons whose activities are attributable to the State under international law, do not violate these obligations.
• Adopt restrictive measures on the import of Israeli products originating from the settlements in the OPT, as a means of adequately reflecting the serious violations of peremptory norms of international law that settlements and their related infrastructure represent, principally by imposing a ban on settlement trade. Interim measures which can and should be adopted by individual Third States include adopting binding guidelines on labeling to retailers, discouraging companies from trading with and investing in settlements and excluding settlement products and companies from public procurement.
• Adopt effective guidelines to ensure that companies domiciled in their jurisdiction do not participate in Israel?s illegal settlement policies, including the construction and maintenance of the Annexation Wall.

Endnotes
¹Al Arabiya News (11 February 2012) <http://english.alarabiya.net/articles/2013/02/10/265547.html>accessed 11 February 2013.
²Peace Now, ?Settlements and Outposts Numbers and Data? (Website)
<http://peacenow.org.il/eng/content/settlements-and-outposts> accessed 15 November 2012.
³See Crisis Action (n 7) 17; see also, Ma?an Development Centre, ?Parallel Realities: Israeli
Settlements and Palestinian Communities in the Jordan Valley? (2012), 13.
⁴See Research and Development Center in the Jordan Valley, ?Agriculture in the Valley,? <http://www.mop-bika.org.il/130651/haklaut_babika> (in Hebrew) accessed 3 January 2013. See also, Jordan Valley Regional Council?s website at <http://www.jordanvalley.org.il/?categoryId=38842> accessed 3 January 2013.
⁵World Bank, ?Fiscal Crisis, Economic Prospects ? The Imperative for Economic Cohesion in the Palestinian Territories? (23 September 2012), paragraph 26.
⁶Draft Article on Responsibility of States for Internationally Wrongful Acts with commentaries, International Law Commission, United Nations, 2001.
⁷See Al-Haq, ?Legitimising the Illegitimate? The Israeli High Court of Justice and the Occupied Palestinian Territory? (25 November 2010) 11-13 <http://www.alhaq.org/publications/publicationsindex/item/legitimising-the-illegitimate> accessed 15 November 2012.
⁸Report of the independent international fact-finding on Israeli settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, para. 45. (Advanced Unedited Version) UN Human Rights Council. ( January 2013).
⁹Report of the Security Council Commission established under Resolution 446 (1979), S/13679:
<http://domino.un.org/UNISPAL.NSF/5ba47a5c6cef541b802563e000493b8c/6956b6bc3e956094852563b7005ac2bd?OpenDocument>.

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