U.S. intensifies criticism of Israel on settlement plan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States on Monday ratcheted up criticism of Israel over plans to expand Jewish settlement building on occupied land, urging it to reconsider despite Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's refusal to back down.

The Obama administration's tougher-than-usual words for close ally Israel came after five European governments summoned Israeli ambassadors in their capitals to express concern over the new settlement projects. But Washington stopped short of threatening any concrete measures against the Jewish state.

The White House and State Department said Israeli settlement expansion in East Jerusalem and the occupied West Bank, including expedited planning in the politically sensitive "E1" zone, ran counter to long-standing U.S. policy and hindered peace efforts with the Palestinians.

It was a marked shift in tone after a recent display of close cooperation - including U.S. backing for Israel in last month's Gaza crisis and against a Palestinian bid for U.N. recognition of de facto statehood.

Israel announced plans on Friday to build 3,000 more settler homes just a day after the U.N. General Assembly upgraded the Palestinians' status in the world body from "observer entity" to "non-member state" over Israeli and U.S. objections.

"We have made clear to the Israeli government that such action is contrary to U.S. policy opposing unilateral action, including settlement activity and housing construction in East Jerusalem," White House spokesman Jay Carney told reporters.

"We urge Israeli leaders to reconsider these unilateral decisions and exercise restraint, as these actions are counterproductive and make it harder to resume direct negotiations to achieve a two-state solution," he said.

Netanyahu's pro-settler government ordered "preliminary zoning and planning work" for thousands of housing units in areas including the "E1" zone east of Jerusalem.

Such construction in the barren hills of E1 has never been put into motion in the face of opposition from the United States. Building in the area could bisect the West Bank, cut off Palestinians from Jerusalem and further dim their hopes for a contiguous state.

HISTORY OF STRAINED TIES

President Barack Obama has had a history of strained ties with Netanyahu that date back to the U.S. leader's failed efforts to secure a durable freeze on Israeli settlement activity early in his term.

Since then, the Obama administration has routinely criticized settlement construction announcements, but this time went further than usual in detailing its concerns and publicly asking Israel to reverse course.

Asked whether Israel would face any consequences if it went ahead with the settlement construction, Carney said, "I don't have anything additional to provide to you on that."

The U.S. response is expected to be tempered by recognition that Netanyahu may be taking a tough stand on settlements ahead of a January 22 Israeli national election, but that any actual building could take a long time to place in motion.

It was not immediately known whether Israel gave the United States advance notice of its settlement-building plan.

At the State Department, spokesman Mark Toner said the E1 plans were "especially damaging" to prospects for a resumption of long-stalled Israeli-Palestinian peace talks toward a two-state solution.

Such projects, on land Israel captured in a 1967 war, are considered illegal by most world powers and have routinely drawn condemnation from them. Approximately 500,000 Israelis and 2.5 million Palestinians live in the two areas.

(Reporting By Matt Spetalnick; editing by Philip Barbara)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/u-intensifies-criticism-israel-settlement-plan-234419766.html

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Amy Winehouse's home sells for $3.2 million

7 hrs.

Reuters

LONDON?-- The London home where British singer Amy Winehouse died has sold for 1.98 million pounds ($3.2 million) at auction, after it failed to attract serious buyers on the real estate market.

The semi-detached Camden Square house where the musician died last year at age 27 had remained empty since it was put up for sale in May for 2.7 million pounds, but continued to draw flocks of fans paying tribute to the "Back to Black" singer.

Winehouse's family decided early in November to put the house to auction after "the estate agency route didn't work," property auctioneer Chris McHugh told Reuters on Tuesday.

Media reports suggested the family had been overwhelmed with viewing requests from fans, but not real prospective buyers.

"We had probably 50 to 100 viewings and we showed people around at all times of the day and night," McHugh said.

The 2,500-square-foot,?four-story property features three bedrooms, a large dressing room, two bathrooms and a sound-proofed music room and gym.

At an auction held on Monday in Piccadilly, bids started at 1.7 million pounds, reached the 1.8 million guide price and stopped just short of the 2 million-mark beyond which a 7 percent stamp duty applies on UK home sales.

McHugh said a middle-aged couple had secured the house at a price he believed was "about right" given property values in the area and the fact there were only five serious bidders that day.

The auction catalogue had made no reference to the former owner of the property, whose fans turned a nearby square into a candle-lit shrine in the days following Winehouse's death.

Winehouse, famous for her distinctive voice, beehive hairstyle and long battle with addiction to alcohol and drugs, was found dead in the house on July 23, 2011.

An inquest into her death found she had more than five times the legal driving limit of alcohol in her blood when she died.

Source: http://www.nbcnews.com/business/amy-winehouses-london-home-sells-3-2-million-1C7421218

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Egypt's Mursi calls referendum as Islamists march

CAIRO (Reuters) - Egypt's President Mohamed Mursi called a December 15 referendum on a draft constitution on Saturday as at least 200,000 Islamists demonstrated in Cairo to back him after opposition fury over his newly expanded powers.

Speaking after receiving the final draft of the constitution from the Islamist-dominated assembly, Mursi urged a national dialogue as the country nears the end of the transition from Hosni Mubarak's rule.

"I renew my call for opening a serious national dialogue over the concerns of the nation, with all honesty and impartiality, to end the transitional period as soon as possible, in a way that guarantees the newly-born democracy," Mursi said.

Mursi plunged Egypt into a new crisis last week when he gave himself extensive powers and put his decisions beyond judicial challenge, saying this was a temporary measure to speed Egypt's democratic transition until the new constitution is in place.

His assertion of authority in a decree issued on November 22, a day after he won world praise for brokering a Gaza truce between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist Hamas movement, dismayed his opponents and widened divisions among Egypt's 83 million people.

Two people have been killed and hundreds wounded in protests by disparate opposition forces drawn together and re-energized by a decree they see as a dictatorial power grab.

A demonstration in Cairo to back the president swelled through the afternoon, peaking in the early evening at least 200,000, said Reuters witnesses, basing their estimates on previous rallies in the capital. The authorities declined to give an estimate for the crowd size.

"The people want the implementation of God's law," chanted flag-waving demonstrators, many of them bussed in from the countryside, who choked streets leading to Cairo University, where Mursi's Muslim Brotherhood had called the protest.

Tens of thousands of Egyptians had protested against Mursi on Friday. "The people want to bring down the regime," they chanted in Cairo's Tahrir Square, echoing the trademark slogan of the revolts against Hosni Mubarak and Arab leaders elsewhere.

Rival demonstrators threw stones after dark in the northern city of Alexandria and a town in the Nile Delta. Similar clashes erupted again briefly in Alexandria on Saturday, state TV said.

"COMPLETE DEFEAT"

Mohamed Noshi, 23, a pharmacist from Mansoura, north of Cairo, said he had joined the rally in Cairo to support Mursi and his decree. "Those in Tahrir don't represent everyone. Most people support Mursi and aren't against the decree," he said.

Mohamed Ibrahim, a hardline Salafi Islamist scholar and a member of the constituent assembly, said secular-minded Egyptians had been in a losing battle from the start.

"They will be sure of complete popular defeat today in a mass Egyptian protest that says 'no to the conspiratorial minority, no to destructive directions and yes for stability and sharia (Islamic law)'," he told Reuters.

Mursi has alienated many of the judges who must supervise the referendum. His decree nullified the ability of the courts, many of them staffed by Mubarak-era appointees, to strike down his measures, although says he respects judicial independence.

A source at the presidency said Mursi might rely on the minority of judges who support him to supervise the vote.

"Oh Mursi, go ahead and cleanse the judiciary, we are behind you," shouted Islamist demonstrators in Cairo.

Mursi, once a senior Muslim Brotherhood figure, has put his liberal, leftist, Christian and other opponents in a bind. If they boycott the referendum, the constitution would pass anyway.

If they secured a "no" vote to defeat the draft, the president could retain the powers he has unilaterally assumed.

And Egypt's quest to replace the basic law that underpinned Mubarak's 30 years of army-backed one-man rule would also return to square one, creating more uncertainty in a nation in dire economic straits and seeking a $4.8 billion loan from the IMF.

"NO PLACE FOR DICTATORSHIP"

Mursi's well-organized Muslim Brotherhood and its ultra-orthodox Salafi allies, however, are convinced they can win the referendum by mobilizing their own supporters and the millions of Egyptians weary of political turmoil and disruption.

"There is no place for dictatorship," the president said on Thursday while the constituent assembly was still voting on a draft constitution which Islamists say enshrines Egypt's new freedoms.

Human rights groups have voiced misgivings, especially about articles related to women's rights and freedom of speech.

The text limits the president to two four-year terms, requires him to secure parliamentary approval for his choice of prime minister, and introduces a degree of civilian oversight over the military - though not enough for critics.

The draft constitution also contains vague, Islamist-flavored language that its opponents say could be used to whittle away human rights and stifle criticism.

For example, it forbids blasphemy and "insults to any person", does not explicitly uphold women's rights and demands respect for "religion, traditions and family values".

The draft injects new Islamic references into Egypt's system of government but retains the previous constitution's reference to "the principles of sharia" as the main source of legislation.

"We fundamentally reject the referendum and constituent assembly because the assembly does not represent all sections of society," said Sayed el-Erian, 43, a protester in Tahrir and member of a party set up by opposition figure Mohamed ElBaradei.

Several independent newspapers said they would not publish on Tuesday in protest. One of the papers also said three private satellite channels would halt broadcasts on Wednesday.

Egypt cannot hold a new parliamentary election until a new constitution is passed. The country has been without an elected legislature since the Supreme Constitutional Court ordered the dissolution of the Islamist-dominated lower house in June.

The court is due to meet on Sunday to discuss the legality of parliament's upper house.

"We want stability. Every time, the constitutional court tears down institutions we elect," said Yasser Taha, a 30-year-old demonstrator at the Islamist rally in Cairo.

(Additional reporting by Marwa Awad, Yasmine Saleh and Tom Perry; Editing by Myra MacDonald and Jason Webb)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/islamists-rally-behind-mursi-egypts-rifts-widen-091452668.html

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Palestinian Legal strategy against Israel: The Real Prize is Europe ...

The United Nations General Assembly voted overwhelmingly to accord Palestine the status of ?Observer State? on Thursday, with 138 countries voting in favor of the measure, 41 abstaining, and only 9 voting against. The US and Israel were decisively marginalized, as Italy and Sweden joined France, Spain, Portugal, Ireland and several other European countries in voting for the new status. Continental Western Europe and Scandinavia were almost unanimous in supporting the Palestinians, in a kind of declaration of independence from the Obama administration. Even Germany, which for historical reasons is typically reluctant to buck Israel, voted to abstain rather than to oppose.

From the Israeli press, it appears that many government and press figures are absolutely stunned and in a state of angry disbelief over the magnitude of this diplomatic defeat. The Israeli Right wing is so out of touch with how its aggressive policies are seen by the outside world and so self-righteous and arrogant that it even launched a Facebook page urging a boycott of Israeli supermodel Bar Rafaeli merely for tweeting during the recent Gaza war, ?I pray for the safety of the citizens on both sides and for the day when we will live in peace and harmony. Amen.? Caring about human beings from the other side, or praying for peace are apparently verboten in ?Strong Israel.? (Somehow I think Ms. Rafaeli?s fan base is secure, inside and outside Israel).

How the World voted:

Green: In favor; Red: Against; Yellow: Abstain; Blue: Absent; Grey: Non-Members

The UNGA vote will not have a big immediate effect on the lives of Palestinians toiling under Israeli occupation. But over time, if the Palestinian leadership deploys it wisely, the new status could have an incremental effect, especially affecting Israel?s relationship to Europe. Europe itself now has the opportunity to play the kind of honest broker between the two sides that the US pretended to but almost never did (Jimmy Carter a partial exception).

Many European countries have elevated the Palestine mission in their capitals to the status of full embassy. Palestine?s new status as UN observer state could well become a basis for it being given further embassies in Europe. Being an embassy rather than a mission strengthens the legal status of Palestine, including in national courts and EU tribunals.

Israel?s economy is deeply dependent on its relationship to Europe, the largest single source of imports into Israel and the second-largest market for exports (after the United States). European investment in Israel is also significant, as are various agreements giving Israel access to European technological advances and promoting scientific and technological exchange.

The European Union imports 15 times more goods from Israeli setter enterprises in the Occupied West Bank than from the Palestinians themselves. Europe is therefore a major, hidden support for Israeli crimes against the Palestinians.

Much speculation has focused on whether Palestine will attempt to take Israel to the International Criminal Court, getting specific Israeli officials or officers indicted for war crimes or crimes against humanity. Such cases may well be brought, and if successful might more or less imprison the individual inside Israel, since traveling abroad would risk arrest by Interpol.

But actually, gaining the standing to provoke resolutions and statements from various United Nations bodies and committees is also important. Such documents can then be cited in the European Parliament and in national parliaments in Europe. Over time, a latticework of human rights law on the treatment of the Palestinians can be erected that might well cause Europeans to boycott settler-made goods or even Israel proper (after all, the squatters are being sent into Palestine by the Likud government). One Israeli strategy over the years has been to attempt to prevent the creation of such a body of resolutions, findings, and judgments (the US veto on the Security Council and the lack of Palestinian standing as a state to bring matters before the UNGA both aided in this Israeli quest for impunity).

A big problem with international law, such as the Geneva Convention on the treatment of Occupied populations (1949), the Apartheid convention, etc., is that they typically do not have attached to them any court in which a practical judgment of guilt can be rendered. The European Court of Human Rights and the International Criminal Court are steps toward achieving such arenas of adjudication for claims of rights violation. But the European Court of Human Rights, e.g., has no mechanism for enforcing its rulings.

It seems to me that any court rulings against Israel will have their major effect through providing a basis for civil society organizations (unions, businesses, associations, NGOs) and parliaments to punish Israeli war crimes, Apartheid crimes, and crimes against humanity through boycotts. Over time, such steps could begin having a major impact on settler enterprises and even on the Israeli economy itself (which is fragile and highly dependent on foreign trade with Europe, since its goods are often shunned in the Middle East).

An example is the recent demand of the youth wing of the Swedish Social Democratic Party that Sweden boycott all settler-made goods. (Sweden, a little unexpectedly, voted for the UNGA resolution yesterday). If such demands proliferate, and the next generation of Europeans feels so strongly on this issue, the settlers could end up bankrupted.

How this could work is clear on a small scale is apparent in the 2010 European Court of Justice ruling that goods from the Occupied West Bank do not fall under the European Union?s preferential trade provisions for Israeli goods. What is important here is that German authorities declined to allow the British firm Brita to import mineral water tariff-free into Germany because they believe it originated with a squatter company in the West Bank. The German decision was upheld by the ECJ.

Expect to see more such decisions by governments in Europe, and by its courts. The Palestinian victory at the UN will likely begin creating a whole set of new opportunities for the Palestinians to make their case in the most important Israeli market.

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Source: http://www.juancole.com/2012/11/palestinian-legal-strategy-against-israel-the-real-prize-is-europe.html

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Authentocracy in America

Illustration by Lilli Carre.

A scant few weeks ago the New York Times published an essay that upset the Internet, entitled ?How to Live Without Irony,? written by a Christy Wampole, assistant professor of French at Princeton. The gist was that we should cool it with all the mocking detachment and just live authentically and kindly. Y?know?

I?m sure you?ve seen such pieces before: Paeans to honest dealing, encomia to loving the ones you?re with, to turning off your cellphone when you go a-mapling in Vermont. No sound is sweeter than the bark of a fox on a chilly morning while you drink that cup of Earl Grey, peering out of your bay window, etc.

I?ve heard foxes bark. What interests me more is why people keep writing these things. I?m subscribed to this mailing list, the Listserve, where once a day a person is selected at random to write whatever they want and send it to the rest of the list, its membership now numbering in the tens of thousands. And nearly every one of these emails ends up with someone telling a bunch of strangers to live, dammit. To love openly and dance like no one?s watching.

I?ve come to resent the Listserve. What?s with this innate assumption that everyone is living in some repressed nightmare? This urge to punish a mass of strangers with bromides that would test the patience even of the editor-in-chief of a fridge magnet company? From whence comes this desperate human urge to advise?

From media, of course. ?The media is comprised of people who have dedicated their lives to drawing distinctions for others:

Real things	Fake things
War in Afghanistan	Petraeus scandal
Certain kinds of rock music	Rihanna
Love-inspired sexual intercourse	Twitter
African teenagers	American teenagers
Local	Artisanal
TV with friends	Blogs
Seapunk	Seapunk
Christmas	Fat acceptance

Thus says the contemporary Authentocracy, who derive power and authority by drawing a line of authenticity then saying that anyone who crosses that line is tacky, unspiritual?someone who eats, but without the requisite praying and loving. (Eat, Pray, Love is of course fake.) Our world is filled with authentocrats, propping up velvet ropes wherever they can.

And so, wrote Wampole in the Times: ?People may choose to continue hiding behind the ironic mantle, but this choice equals a surrender to commercial and political entities more than happy to act as parents for a self-infantilizing citizenry.?

It?s not just bad to be an ironist; it?s a surrender to infantilizing commerce. That ?commerce,? marching through our streets like the Soviets in Red Dawn, is something to which we might surrender is a common bit of received humanist wisdom. It would surprise most people in commerce, by which I mean most of us, to learn how much we are feared.

Which is why Authentic?: The Politics of Ambivalence in a Brand Culture, by Sarah Banet-Weiser, is an interesting book, because it makes it its business to find the halfway point between this so-called infantilizing commerce and the world of the authentic and real?thus that ?ambivalence.?

?In the contemporary US,? writes the author, ?building a brand is about building an affective, authentic relationship with a consumer, one based?just like a relationship between two people?on the accumulation of memories, emotions, personal narratives, and expectations.? Familiar territory for anyone who lived through the No Logo years: We live in a branded world doing branded things and thinking branded thoughts. (Full disclosure: I love branding and have enjoyed both its practice and study for many years. There?s just something majestic about the ability of humans to turn bullshit into money.)

But there the book starts to diverge from the nologoesque. Banet-Weiser, a professor at USC, clearly came to this world of commerce with deep academic suspicion, but to her credit she left with?well, not an appreciation, but a sort of hesitant, furrowed-brow empathy. There are worse things than living in the same world as Beyonc? and Applebee?s, and this book, in its attempt to describe the ?transformation of culture of everyday living into brand culture,? doesn?t imagine otherwise.

The book leads off with a somewhat perfunctory breakdown of the Dove ?Real Beauty? campaign, in which perfectly attractive women who occasionally enjoyed cupcakes were encouraged by Dove Soap to stop thinking of themselves as hideous hag-beasts but rather to esteem themselves and, not coincidentally, to celebrate their unique and perhaps curved bodies by cleaning them with Dove. ?When Dove criticizes the beauty industry for damaging girls' self-esteem through a very visible, social activist campaign that is funded through the selling of beauty products,? concludes Banet-Weiser, ?the relationship between political (read: individual) empowerment and consumer culture is intricately, and often ambivalently, configured within the contours of the brand.? By which she means: Dove wants a feminism that sells soap. ?Ambivalence? here is almost a synonym for ?having it both ways,? but it?s key to remember that ?both ways? is a fiction. The folks who want you to sell that soap also want you to feel great about your boobs, even if they?re not aspirational boobs. That?s noble and all, but it?s happening because they want to get some soap on those boobs. And not just any soap.

Source: http://feeds.slate.com/click.phdo?i=e924f51b5e13345552b11668142c6e17

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If You're Going To Make a Crappy Star Wars Tie-in, At Least Do It Right

Nestle Japan will be releasing a limited edition Star Wars version of its Gold Blend coffee maker next week. But it has to be one of the laziest tie-ins ever to cash in on the Star Wars name. Available in two versions, it looks like Nestle's just slapped a sticker on the side of each one with a random quote and called it a day. More »

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/a61PjmjljCg/if-youre-going-to-make-a-crappy-star-wars-tie+in-at-least-do-it-right

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Real estate ? remember real estate? | For What It's Worth

November 30, 2012 ? 4:02 pm

A little bit of activity reported.

69 Rockwood Lane

Sales: 69 Rockwood, $6.050 million, 7 Old Kings Highway, $880,000, so that pretty much spans the spectrum. 69 Rockwood is new construction, on the market for 549 days, started at $7.250 back in April, 2011. The builders contracted to pay $2.729 million for the land back in April 2008 and apparently had second thoughts after the market crashed that summer but closed anyway in October 2008. They then tried flipping it the following January but asked $3.495 for what they?s just bought and no one shared their sense of increased value. So they did what builders are supposed to do: they built. I?m not a big fan of expensive houses on rocky bits of land, but someone obviously is, so now it?s sold and despite not getting what they?d hoped for, $6 million is bound to make its builders happy. Good for them ? nice house.

7 Old Kings Highway was another surprise, to me. I didn?t much like it at $865,000 but obviously at least two buyers did and one of them bid its price up to $880,000. That?s testimony both to the dearth of inventory in this price range and the importance of individual taste ? one man?s meat, and all that.

?

450 North Street

450 North Street, that failed spec house across from St. Mary that was foreclosed on by Patriot Bank some years ago reports an accepted offer. The builder tried getting $6.899 for it in 2009 which was obviously the wrong price at the wrong time. Patriot sold its loan, along with others, to Summit Development last year and they finished the house (including redoing floors after pipes burst) and put it back up for sale in June, 2012 for $4.195. Whoever has now purchased Summit?s properties repriced it at $4.195, and that seems to have done the trick. Nice construction, location is marginal, in my opinion, because of the noise. But perhaps the sales price includes custom shooters? muffs for the entire family.

14 Buckingham

14 Buckingham Lane, quite close to 450 North, is a short sale, and now has an executed contract. Asking price was $1.195, which seems like a great deal for this completely renovated ranch. Owners paid $1.250 for it in 2007 and then put a lot of money into those renovations. They asked $1.649 for it in 2008, didn?t get it and so the bank did. It had an accepted offer for $1.350 back in January but like so many short sales, that deal fell through, so it came back on at this lower price. The buyers will do well on this one, I think.

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Source: http://christopherfountain.wordpress.com/2012/11/30/real-estate-remember-real-estate/

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