Obama Pledges New Aid to Palestinians
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The New York Times
by Helene Cooper, Isabel Kershner - June 10, 2010 - 12:00am

President Obama urged the Israeli government to loosen its blockade of Gaza on Wednesday, as the United States continued to scramble to find a way out of the stalemate in the Middle East and address the outcry over Israel’s deadly raid on a Gaza-bound flotilla last week.

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Conflict with Palestinians damages Israeli economy
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Xinhua
by David Harris - June 10, 2010 - 12:00am

Israel's ongoing occupation of the Palestinian territories is damaging the economy of the Jewish state, said a report published on Tuesday by the Adva Center for Information on Equality and Social Justice in Israel. The document, entitled the Cost of the Conflict, is the latest in a series of reports, which is published once every two years. Perhaps the main conclusion of its author, Adva's academic manager Shlomo Swirski, is that Israel's three-week military operation in and around the Gaza Strip 18 months ago cost the country dear.

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Palestine Investment Conference Promotes Private Entrepreneurialism
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Media Line
by Felice Friedson, Arieh O'Sullivan - June 9, 2010 - 12:00am

A conference of Arab investors, foreign officials and Palestinian businesspeople garnered nearly a billion dollars in pledges to the Palestinian economy, with special focus on boosting small and medium businesses. Meeting in Bethlehem, the second Palestine Investment Conference (PIC) focused on investment opportunities in the West Bank and Gaza Strip where small and medium operations account for some 90 percent of Palestinian businesses.

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Enough
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Bitterlemons
by Ghassan Khatib - (Opinion) June 8, 2010 - 12:00am

When is the world going to say to Israel, enough? When will the international community make clear that the situation in this part of the world is too dangerous to allow the Israeli government to act like a rogue state? The moment is now. The world must insist that Israel cease to behave as if it is the one country that can act with impunity, above the law, with no regard for consequences.

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Israel must clarify Palestine's status
Media Mention of Hussein Ibish In - June 7, 2010 - 12:00am

While world attention has been heavily focused on efforts to break the siege of Gaza, Palestinians in the West Bank are pursuing a series of new, nonviolent, strategies challenging the Israeli occupation. What they are primarily seeking, and what the Israeli government is desperately trying to avoid, is clarity about the status of the occupied territories.

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2,000 financiers to attend Palestine Investment Conference
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ma'an News Agency
June 1, 2010 - 12:00am

Bethlehem - Ma'an - Over 125 projects will be presented to investors attending this year's Palestine Investment Conference in Bethlehem beginning Wednesday, which will see 2,000 conveners, Palestinian Authority Minister of National Economy Hasan Abu Libdeh said. Each projects' feasibility will be discussed during PIC, giving investors the chance to "build relations between businesses," the minister told Ma'an on Sunday. The conference will focus on small to medium enterprises, which Abu Libdeh said the ministry is keen on promoting during the conference.

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Political coup? Israel welcomed into OECD despite criticism over Gaza, settlements.
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Christian Science Monitor
by Erin Cunningham - May 27, 2010 - 12:00am

Israel won an important symbolic victory against its international critics today, as it officially joined the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). Membership in the elite, staunchly capitalist 31-member club has long been sought by Israel as a stamp of approval on its efforts to transform itself from a nation of socialist farmers to a high-tech powerhouse that dramatically outperforms its Middle Eastern neighbors.

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Heat rises in boycott of Israeli settlers' goods
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The National
by Omar Karmi - May 21, 2010 - 12:00am

As thousands of volunteers took to the streets of the West Bank to distribute lists of companies whose products the Palestinian Authority wants to ban from shelves in shops and homes, Israeli groups representing settlers and manufacturers mulled their own response to what is quickly becoming a new front in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

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Palestinian Agro-Resistance
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from This Week in Palestine
by Vivien Sansour - May 20, 2010 - 12:00am

Abu Adnan does not talk about a global movement to save the earth. He doesn’t know much about Greenpeace or the Kyoto Protocol; but he does know everything about keeping his soil healthy and fertile, and the terraces he builds to protect his soil make his mountainous piece of land a visual paradise. A farmer since childhood in his home village of Faqua in the Jenin district, Abu Adnan Abed El Salam, who is now 78 years old, has built over 60 terraces in his lifetime, one stone at a time. When people come to talk to him about the “new” trend of organic agriculture he smiles.

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Regulator says Gaza banking OK despite closures
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Statesman
by Karin Laub - May 12, 2010 - 12:00am

The top Palestinian financial regulator sought to assure an anxious public Wednesday that the Gaza Strip is not facing a banking crisis after the Palestinian territories' largest lender closed two of its three Gaza branches last week. The decision by the Jordan-based Arab Bank to shutter the shops set off jitters among its Gaza customers. On Wednesday, dozens of clients lined up at the bank's sole remaining branch in Gaza City, some of them in order to close their accounts.

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