WB settlers stealing tons of soil from Palestinian land

West Bank settlers stealing tons of soil from Palestinian land

Roughly a month ago, infrastructure work began in one of the house-trailer neighborhoods in the West Bank settlement of Ofra. Brown soil was needed to cover the foundations. In properly functioning places, such soil is bought and paid for, but not in Ofra. Tzvi, a local farmer, nicknamed “Kishu,” found an alternative: He sent a rented tractor and truck to the outskirts of the settlement, next to the Palestinian villages of Silwad and Deir Dibwan, where they simply stole dirt. Tzvi claims that the land belongs to him.

The theft was made possible – even easy – by the fact that wide expanses of land belonging to Deir Dibwan and Silwad are enclosed within Ofra’s security fence, and the villages’ residents do not have free access to their own fields. Entry into Ofra requires coordination with the Israel Defense Forces and a constant security escort. The fence, like many parts of Ofra, was built without any permits.

In 2009 and 2010, residents of Silwad and Deir Dibwan petitioned Israel’s High Court of Justice, demanding that the illegal sections of the fence be dismantled. The IDF responded to the petition, confirming that the fence was in fact built without permits and unnecessarily closes off land owned by others. At the same time, the army asked for time to build a new, modern security fence, closer to the houses in Ofra. The IDF requested until the end of 2012 to finish the job, but no work has yet begun at the site.(1)

 

The theft of Pal. land continues by the illegal settlers in the OPT.
And of course barely a blip from Obama

Note:
(1) http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/west-bank-settlers-stealing-tons-of-soil-from-palestinian-land.premium-1.469522

News International wins court ruling

News International wins court ruling on searches related to phone hacking

Lawyers acting for more than 170 phone-hacking victims, including Cherie Blair and Hugh Grant, were dealt a blow on Friday after losing a high court application to force News International to do a general search of its databases for potential evidence of illegal voicemail interception.
However, the high court did order News International to hand over nine previously undisclosed emails between News International and the private investigator Glenn Mulcaire, who is at the centre of the phone-hacking scandal.
The phone-hacking claimants were seeking further disclosure in relation to Mulcaire's activities before 2001 in an effort to establish whether voicemail interception had taken place earlier than admitted by News International during the course of the civil litigation proceedings.
They were also seeking access to 433 emails in a file on the computer in the room of a senior News International executive labelled "3 - Neville Thurlbeck.pst", along with other documentation submitted to the Metropolitan police and the Leveson inquiry. The .pst suffix would ordinarily refer to personal Microsoft Outlook email folders.
Mr Justice Vos said the decision not to allow more generic disclosure "does not come easily to me" in the light of previous evidence that News International, even during the course of litigation, had failed to disclose material it should have, and had also admitted to the destruction of emails.(1)

I don't personally agree with the decision. But ah well. I'm sure more will be found out even without full cooperation of News International.

Note:
(1) http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2012/oct/05/news-international-ruling-searches-phone-hacking