In West Bank, one family's stand against made-in-China keffiyehs

Manufacturing in the West Bank has collapsed due to a flood of cheap Chinese imports and the effects of the Israeli occupation. But one family is holding the line as the last local producer of a symbol of Palestinian resistance. By Christa Case Bryant | Christian Science Monitor No one told the looms at the Hirbawi Keffiyeh factory that business is slow in the West Bank. Some are as old as the factory, bearing the inscription "1961." But they still churn out the fabric for traditional Palestinian head scarves, and at a deafening pace. This is the only Palestinian factory that still produces keffiyehs, popularized by the late Yasser Arafat as a symbol of the Palestinian national struggle. All other keffiyehs sold in the West Bank these days are made in China, which many blame on the Palestinian Authority's liberalization of trade policies over the past two decades. RECOMMENDED: How much do you know about Israel? Take the quiz "This is a national product that should be protected by the government, not sabotaged by the government," says Abdulaziz Karaki, one of only two workers still employed by the Hirbawi family, which had as many as 15 employees in the 1990s. After years of lobbying by small producers such as the Hirbawis, the Palestinian Authority (PA) last week announced that it had introduced new tariffs on imports that directly compete with Palestinian goods. Among them are not only textiles such as keffiyehs, but also shoes, leather goods, and furniture. The move goes against nearly 20 years of market liberalization in the West Bank, which mirrored the Israeli trend of lowering barriers for international goods. It represents a "revolutionary" step by the PA to use the limited tools at its disposal to develop the West Bank economy, says economist Raja Khalidi of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD). "This is the first time that they decided to reverse and go in the opposite direction [from Israel] because of their own national development and industrial interests," says Dr. Khalidi, who attributes the move to increasingly intolerable pressures on the PA economy. MANUFACTURING Indeed, the influx of imports has taken a serious toll on Palestinian manufacturing jobs. For example, the number of shoe and leather factories in the West Bank was roughly halved from 2000 to 2010, and those remaining are only working at 20 percent capacity on average. The number of employees in those factories dropped even more sharply, from 40,000 to 1,997 during the same period, according to PA Ministry of Finance statistics. In Hebron alone, only a third as many factories remain, while textile factories were nearly all wiped out, according to Hebron Chamber of Commerce CEO Jawwad Sayyed al-Herbawi. Mr. Karaki, in the keffiyeh factory, says that when his fellow workers started losing jobs, he blamed first the PA and second those businessmen who had decided to start importing cheap goods fromChina. But both the government and local tradesmen are affected by Israeli decisions as well. Many Israeli businesses used to subcontract work to Hebron manufacturers, but have since sought factories elsewhere – such as Turkey. And while Israeli security restrictions, including internal checkpoints, have eased somewhat since the Second Intifada petered out around 2005, they still add costs and sometimes deter customers and investors due to the unpredictability of business. ECONOMIC COLLAPSE Under the British Mandate, the ratio of Arabs to Jews in Palestine was about 60/40 and their shares of the local economy were roughly inverse, with Jews producing about 60 percent of GDP. Today, the proportion of Arabs (in Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza) has dropped somewhat to just under half, but the ratio of Jewish-Arab GDP has plummeted, with the Arab share of the local economy now down to 18 percent, according to Khalidi. For the past two decades, trade between Israel and the Palestinians has been governed by the 1994 Paris Protocol, signed as part of the Oslo peace accords. The Palestinian Authority, formed the same year, initially welcomed the agreement because it enabled them to collect trade tax revenues for the first time. But with strict rules binding the PA economy to Israel's and reliant on Israel's currency and interest rate polices, the PA was left with few levers to help the economy flourish. In the past year, the PA faced one of its worst economic crises of its two-decade existence. It began introducing a series of unpopular measures including a hike in the value-added tax and fuel prices, which precipitated intense protests in September 2012. RELATED: Fed up, West Bank Palestinians tell leaders to fix the economy In mid-April, the PA decided to impose tariffs of up to 35 percent on products traditionally made in the West Bank, such as shoes, leather, textiles, furniture, and aluminum. In practice, the tariffs on some 200-plus items are more in the range of 12 to 24 percent. But they still stand in stark contrast with an Israeli decision March 1 to drop such trade tariffs altogether. "This is the first time the Palestinians have used something they have in this nearly empty toolbox [the Paris Protocol], which they could have done at any point in the 1990s or 2000s," says Khalidi. GOOD NEWS? Some Palestinian producers have been calling the Ministry of Finance in glee over the decision, saying they're going to reopen their factories. But others are more cautious, and concerns remain that Chinese goods could still be imported without any tariffs into Israel and then smuggled into the West Bank. "It has not been implemented yet so I don't take it seriously," says Izzat Hirbawi, one of three brothers that run the keffiyeh factory for their octogenarian father. Instead, they've taken their own initiative to improve business. In the past five years, they started introducing new colors into the traditional white-and-black keffiyeh market. Spools of brilliant turquoise, violet, and gold thread line the cubbyholes along one wall of the factory, where Mr. Hirbawi designs new patterns. He credits that innovation with boosting sales to more than twice what they were in 2000 and the fact that he soon plans to have all his looms running again – and an extra worker on the floor. Other Hebron entrepreneurs have adapted by opening their own factories in China, which make paper goods, shoes, leather, and household goods like cups and glasses. Mr. Herbawi of the Chamber of Commerce says he personally knows 10 such businessmen, but that there are many others. Enough, apparently, that there is reportedly even a street in Shenzhen, China, named Khalil, the Arabic name for Hebron. And among some of Hebron's newer, fancier homes can be seen the influence of Chinese architecture – not least of all pagoda-style roofs and balconies. Herbawi says local customers are starting to think twice about the supposedly good value of Chinese goods. "People are starting to realize that low quality and low prices are costing them much higher than what they could have paid for a local product," says Herbawi, who advocates some sort of standards commission rather than tariffs as the best solution. "They are buying a pair of shoes for 20 to 40 NIS ($6 to $11) and spending a couple of months and then throwing it away and buying another one." While some are motivated by pocketbook considerations, however, others buy "Made in Palestine" for more patriotic reasons. "I don't want Chinese-made stuff," says Ismail Wazwaz, a Hebron native who dropped by the keffiyeh factory on a visit home from his job in Paris. "I prefer to pay for my country." Related stories

Joseph Estrada : from President to Mayor

Can you imagine if Obama after the end of his presidency becoming New York Mayor  or Chicago Mayor??? This happens in Philippine....just read the article below  MANILA, Philippines (AP) — Former President Joseph Estrada was declared the winner of Manila's mayoral election on Tuesday, his first ballot victory since his ouster in a 2001 anti-corruption revolt and a possible prelude to a return to higher office. Estrada's was among a host of familiar names, including former first lady Imelda Marcos, to score wins in Monday's congressional and local elections. About half the votes have been counted so far, and if they accurately reflect the whole, President Benigno Aquino III will have enough congressional support to enact his policies in his last three years in office. Presidential spokesman Edwin Lacierda said Aquino has described the election as a referendum on his administration. "It seems clear that our countrymen have spoken overwhelmingly to confirm and expand the mandate for reform and change that they first granted in 2010 to President Aquino," Lacierda said. Estrada is a leader of the opposition coalition, but Lacierda said he and Aquino remain "good friends" and will be able to work together. Estrada, 76, capitalized on his movie-star popularity, particularly among the poor, and promised to reverse urban decay of the historic capital along Manila Bay. Manila was once a lively tourist spot, but the streets have become neglected and many residents complain of crime. "I have no other desire in the final years of my life than to offer my experience in public service, to give everything I can to uplift the poor," Estrada told supporters after he was proclaimed the winner at a stadium. "Manila has been left behind by its neighbors. We will revive the vigor of Manila that we can be proud of," he said. Estrada, popularly known as Erap, had served for nearly 20 years as mayor of nearby San Juan city, senator and vice president. After his presidential term was cut short by the 2001 revolt, he was convicted of corruption, then pardoned. Estrada, who finished second in the 2010 presidential election, could use his new position as a springboard for another shot at the presidency. He defeated incumbent Mayor Alfredo Lim, an 83-year-old former Manila police chief who once served in Estrada's Cabinet as interior secretary. Under Lim's watch, eight Hong Kong tourists were killed by a hostage-taker in 2010 in a bungled police rescue. An investigation found him liable and negligent. Political dynasties and familiar names continue to monopolize political life in the Philippines. Marcos, the 83-year-old widow of dictator Ferdinand Marcos, won her second consecutive term as congresswoman of Ilocos Norte province. Daughter Imee ran unopposed and was re-elected governor. Aquino's predecessor, Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, is in hospital detention while facing corruption charges but still appears headed to a second term as a representative of her northern home province of Pampanga. Her son, Dato Arroyo, is ahead in the congressional race in Camarines Sur province southeast of Manila. Twelve of the 24 Senate seats were up for election, and if early results hold up, Estrada's son JV Ejercito will be among the winners, joining a half-brother who is already a senator. Others among the top 12 for Senate seats include Aquino's cousin Benigno "Bam" Aquino. Two-thirds of the Senate candidates in position to win belong to one of the country's dominant elite political families. Elections Commission Chairman Sixto Brillantes said he expects turnout of 70 percent out of more than 52 million registered voters. He said that most, if not all, of Senate winners will be proclaimed by late Wednesday. ___ Associated Press writers Hrvoje Hranjski and Jim Gomez contributed to

Ryan Fogle : From diplomat to spy

The Cold War is long over, but espionage is forever. Russian spies still operate in the U.S. and American ones in Russia. On Tuesday, Russia's security services said they had caught a U.S. diplomat whom they claim is a CIA official trying to recruit a Russian agent. Here's some other cases of apparent spying between the old rivals: THE ANNA CHAPMAN RING These Russian spies lived in suburban U.S. homes and worked at jobs like real estate brokers or travel agents, quietly inserting themselves into American life and trying to penetrate U.S. policy circles. Court papers said Chapman and nine others assumed the identities of people who had died, swapped bags in passing at train stations and communicated with invisible ink and coded radio transmissions. After their 2010 arrests, all 10 pleaded guilty to spying charges. An 11th man was arrested in Cyprus but jumped bail. Dubbed a femme fatale, the red-headed Chapman, 28 at the time, became the most notorious member of the ring, partially because of glamorous photos she posted on social networking sites of her international travels. She has stayed in the limelight since her deportation to Russia, hosting a reality TV show, modeling lingerie and becoming the face of a Moscow bank. SERGEI TRETYAKOV Tretyakov once called the United Nations a nest of spies. And he would know. For five years in the 1990s, Tretyakov worked at Russia's diplomatic mission at the U.N. — recruiting and running spies. He also found Canada to be fertile ground for finding people willing to rat on the U.S. Tretyakov claimed his agents helped Russia siphon nearly $500 million from the U.N. oil-for-food sanctions program for Iraq. Then in 2000, he defected to the U.S. It's thought that Tretyakov handed significant information over to Washington, although he never specifically confirmed that he became a double agent. He died in Florida in 2010 at age 53 of a heart attack. STANISLAV BORISOVICH GUSEV Gusev, a Russian diplomat, planted a bug inside the State Department in Washington, D.C., and then hung around on a bench outside the building or in his car to listen, according to U.S. authorities. Agents became suspicious when they spotted him feeding a parking meter outside State Department headquarters without ever going inside. He was arrested in 1999 and expelled from the U.S. ALDRICH AMES As a CIA officer in Turkey, Ames worked to turn Russians against their government. But in 1985, he switched sides himself, offering his services to the Soviets. He continued working for the Russians after the Soviet Union broke up in 1991. He communicated with his handlers by leaving chalk marks on a Washington, D.C., mailbox. He eventually passed along to Moscow dozens of names of Russians who were spying for the U.S. The Soviet Union executed 10 of them. The FBI arrested Ames in 1994 and he pleaded guilty to spying that same year. MOSCOW (AP) — A U.S. diplomat disguised in a blond wig was caught trying to recruit a Russian counterintelligence officer inMoscow, Russia's security services announced Tuesday, claiming the American was a CIA officer. Ryan Fogle, a third secretary at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow, was carrying special technical equipment, disguises, written instructions and a large sum of money when he was detained overnight, Russia's Federal Security Service said. The FSB, the successor agency to the Soviet-era KGB, said Fogle was trying to recruit a Russian counterterrorism officer who specializes in the Caucasus, the volatile region in southern Russiawhere the two Boston Marathon bombing suspects have their ethnic roots. Fogle, who was handed over to U.S. Embassy officials, was declared persona non grata and ordered to leave Russia immediately, theForeign Ministry said. He has diplomatic immunity, which protects him from arrest. It was the first case of an American diplomat publicly accused of spying in about a decade and seemed certain to aggravate already strained relations between Russia and the United States. The Foreign Ministry summoned U.S. Ambassador Michael McFaul to appear Wednesday in connection with the case. McFaul, who was doing a question-and-answer session on Twitter when the detention was announced, said he would not comment on the spying allegation. Russia's Caucasus region includes the provinces of Chechnya and Dagestan. The suspects in the Boston Marathon bombings are ethnic Chechen brothers and the elder brother spent six months last year in Dagestan, now the center of an Islamic insurgency. U.S. investigators have been working with the Russians to try to determine whether suspected Boston bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev had established any contacts with the militants operating in Dagestan. Russian officials expressed indignation Tuesday that a U.S. diplomat would carry out such an espionage operation at a time when the presidents of the two countries have pledged to improve counterterrorism cooperation. "Such provocative actions in the spirit of the Cold War do nothing to strengthen mutual trust," the Foreign Ministry said. Despite the end of the Cold War, Russia and the United States still maintain active espionage operations against each other. Last year, several Russians were convicted in separate cases of spying for the U.S. and sentenced to lengthy prison sentences. On Tuesday, Russian state television showed pictures of a man said to be Fogle, wearing a baseball cap and a blond wig, lying face down on the ground. The man, without the wig, was also shown sitting at a desk in the offices of the FSB. Two wigs, a compass, a map of Moscow, a pocket knife, three pairs of sunglasses and packages of 500 euro notes ($649 each) were among the items the FSB displayed on a table. The FSB also produced a typewritten letter that it described as instructions to the Russian agent who was the target of Fogle's alleged recruitment effort. The letter, written in Russian and addressed "Dear friend," offers $100,000 (€77,059.41) to "discuss your experience, expertise and cooperation" and up to $1 million (€0.77 million) a year for long-term cooperation. The letter also includes instructions for opening a Gmail account to be used for communication and an address to write. It is signed "Your friends." Samuel Greene, director of the Russia Institute at King's College London, called the evidence bizarre. "I wouldn't have thought that spies gave each other written instructions," he said in a telephone interview. Greene also noted that the FSB had displayed Fogle's official diplomatic ID, suggesting he was carrying it along with the spy paraphernalia when he was detained. "Maybe this is what the CIA has come to, maybe the propaganda folks in the Kremlin think we are this stupid, or maybe both," he said. A five-minute video produced by the FSB and aired on state television showed a Russian official speaking to what appear to be three American diplomats who had come to pick up Fogle in the FSB office. The official, whose face is blurred, alleged that Fogle called an unnamed FSB counterintelligence officer who specializes in the Caucasus at 11:30 p.m. on Monday. He then said that after the officer refused to meet, Fogle called him a second time and offered him 100,000 euros ($129,770) if he would provide information to the U.S. The Russian official said the FSB was flabbergasted. He pointed to high-level efforts to improve counterterrorism cooperation, specifically FBI director Robert Mueller's visit to Moscow last week and phone calls between President Barack Obama and Russian President Vladimir Putin. "At a time when the presidents of the two countries are striving to improve the climate of relations between the two countries, this citizen, in the name of the U.S. government, commits a most serious crime here in Moscow," the official said. State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki confirmed that an officer at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow was briefly detained and released. "We have seen the Russian Foreign Ministry announcement and have no further comment at this time," said Psaki, who was in Sweden with Secretary of State John Kerry. The CIA declined to comment on the case. Little was immediately known about Fogle. A third secretary is an entry level position at the State Department, the lowest diplomatic rank in the foreign service. Putin has stoked anti-American sentiments among Russians in recent years in what is seen as an effort to bolster his support at home. He also appears to have a genuine distrust of Russian nongovernmental organizations that receive American funding, which he has accused of being fronts that allow the U.S. government to meddle in Russia's political affairs. Hundreds of NGOs have been searched this year as part of an ongoing crackdown by the Russian government. Mark Galeotti, a professor at New York University who studies the Russian security services, said the public exposure of Fogle and the pictures splashed across Russian television suggest a political purpose behind the detention. He said these kinds of spying incidents happen with some frequency, but making such a big deal of them is rare. "More often, the etiquette is that these things get dealt with quite quietly — unless they want to get a message out," Galeotti said. "If you identify an embassy staffer who is a spy for the other side, your natural impulse is to leave them be, because once you identify, you can keep tabs on them, see who they talk to and everything else." "There's no reason to make a song and dance, detain them, eject them," he said. Greene said the American diplomat's detention should be seen as part of Putin's confrontation with the opposition and not as something likely to have a major impact on U.S.-Russia relations. "I think this is mostly for domestic consumption in Russia so that people say, 'look at these naughty Americans trying to meddle in our internal affairs and spy on us,'" Greene said. "But everybody's got spies everywhere so I don't see this as a major issue." In Washington, State Department spokesman Patrick Ventrell also said the incident was unlikely to hamper U.S.-Russia relations. "I'm not sure I'd read too much into one incident one way or another," he told reporters, and pointed to Kerry's meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in Sweden on Tuesday evening. "We have a very broad and deep relationship with the Russians across a whole host of issues, and we'll continue to work on our diplomacy with them directly." Alexei Pushkov, who heads the international affairs committee in Russia's parliament, wrote in a Twitter post that the spy scandal would be short-lived and would not interfere in Kerry and Lavrov's discussions aimed at bridging deep differences over the civil war in Syria. "But the atmosphere is not improving," Pushkov commented. ___ Associated Press writers Max Seddon in Moscow, Bradley Klapper in Washington and Lara Jakes in Kiruna, Sweden, contributed to this report. MOSCOW (AP) — Russia's Federal Security Service has released a photograph of a letter that it claims contains instructions on spying for the United States. The FSB said the letter was found on a U.S. diplomat, who they claim is a CIA officer caught trying to recruit a member of one of Russia's special services. There was no immediate response from the U.S. State Department. This is the Associated Press' translation of the typewritten letter shown on Russian state television channels: Dear friend, This is an advance from someone who is very impressed by your professionalism and who would greatly value working together with you in the future. For us, your safety is of the utmost importance, so we have chosen this route to make contact with you. And we will continue to take steps to secure your safety and keep our correspondence secret. We are prepared to offer you $100,000 and discuss your experience, expertise and cooperation, and your payment might be far greater if you are prepared to answer some specific questions. Additionally, for long-term cooperation we offer up to $1,000,000 a year with the promise of additional bonuses for information that will help us. To contact us again, please open a new Gmail account, which you will use only for communicating with us, in an Internet cafe or a cafe with a WiFi connection. When signing up, do not use any personal information that could be used to identify you and the new account. So do not offer any real contact information, i.e. your telephone numbers or other email addresses. If Gmail asks for your personal information, please, start the registration process again and try not to give them any information. After you register the new inbox, send an email to the address unbacggdA(at)gmail.com, and then check the inbox again exactly one week later to see if you have received our reply. If you register the new email account in a cafe with a netbook or another device (for example, a tablet), then please do not use your own device with your own personal data on it. If possible, you should get a new device to connect with us, for cash. We will reimburse you for the purchase. Thank you for reading this. We eagerly await the possibility of working with you in the near future. Your friends.

UN: Eat more insects; good for you, good for world By FRANCES D'EMILIO

The latest weapon in the U.N.'s fight against hunger, global warming and pollution might be flying by you right now. Edible insects are being promoted as a low-fat, high-protein food for people, pets and livestock. According to the U.N., they come with appetizing side benefits: Reducing greenhouse gas emissions and livestock pollution, creating jobs in developing countries and feeding the millions of hungry people in the world. Some edible insect information in bite-sized form: WHO EATS INSECTS NOW? Two billion people do, largely in Asia, Africa and Latin America, the Rome-based U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization said Monday as it issued a report exploring edible insect potential. Some insects may already be in your food (and this is no fly-in-my-soup joke). Demand for natural food coloring as opposed to artificial dyes is increasing, the agency's experts say. A red coloring produced from the cochineal, a scaled insect often exported from Peru, already puts the hue in a trendy Italian aperitif and an internationally popular brand of strawberry yogurt. Many pharmaceutical companies also use colorings from insects in their pills. PACKED WITH PROTEIN, FULL OF FIBER Scientists who have studied the nutritional value of edible insects have found that red ants, small grasshoppers and some water beetles pack (gram-per-gram or ounce-per-ounce) enough protein to rank with lean ground beef while having less fat per gram. Bored with bran as a source of fiber in your diet? Edible insects can oblige, and they also contain useful minerals such as iron, magnesium, phosphorous, selenium and zinc. WHICH TO CHOOSE? Beetles and caterpillars are the most common meals among the more than 1,900 edible insect species that people eat. Other popular insect foods are bees, wasps, ants, grasshoppers, locusts and crickets. Less popular are termites and flies, according to U.N. data. ECO-FRIENDLY Insects on average can convert 2 kilograms (4.4 pounds) of feed into 1 kilogram (2.2 pounds) of edible meat. In comparison, cattle require 8 kilograms (17.6 pounds) of feed to produce a kilogram of meat. Most insects raised for food are likely to produce fewer environmentally harmful greenhouse gases than livestock, the U.N. agency says. DON'T SWAT THE INCOME Edible insects are a money-maker. In Africa, four big water bottles filled with grasshoppers can fetch a gatherer 15 euros ($20). Some caterpillars in southern Africa and weaver ant eggs in Southeast Asia are considered delicacies and command high prices. Insect-farms tend to be small, serving niche markets like fish bait businesses. But since insects thrive across a wide range of locations — from deserts to mountains — and are highly adaptable, experts see big potential for the insect farming industry, especially those farming insects for animal feed. Most edible insects are now gathered in forests. LET A BUG DO YOUR RECYLING A 3 million euro ($4 million) European Union-funded research project is studying the common housefly to see if a lot of flies can help recycle animal waste by essentially eating it while helping to produce feed for animals such as chickens. Right now farmers can only use so much manure as fertilizer and many often pay handsome sums for someone to cart away animal waste and burn it. A South African fly factory that rears the insects en masse to transform blood, guts, manure and discarded food into animal feed has won a $100,000 U.N.-backed innovation prize. ___ Details about the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization's work on edible insects at www.fao.org/forestry/edibleinsects Follow Frances D'Emilio at http://twitter.com./fdemilio

U.N. encourages people to eat more insects

Deep-fried insects By Eric Pfeiffer, Yahoo! News | The Sideshow  for sale at a food stand in Bangkok, Thailand (Wikicommons)The United Nations has some advice for the starving people of the world that might bug you. Eating insects might just be the future of food. A new report from the U.N. says that eating insects (high in protein, low in fat) can help fight global warming, pollutions, and yes, hunger. And if the suggestion catches on, it could even be great for small businesses. The concept of eating insects as part of a regular diet is known as entomophagy is already practiced by an estimated two billion people, according to the report, which was issued on Monday, the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization. In 2012, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation named Dr. Aaron T. Dossey's "All Things Bugs" company the winner of the foundation's annual Grand Challenges Explorations contest. The group received a grant to pursue its project to come up with viable insect protein options to combat malnutrition in children. So, which bugs earned the U.N.'s seal of approval? Well, there are reportedly more than 1,900 edible insect species. The international governing body suggested people try red ants, bees, caterpillars, crickets, grasshoppers, locusts wasps and certain types of water beetles. And why do insects provide a viable alternative to other livestock? That's because on average insects product less greenhouse gas than larger animals and require a smaller ratio of food compared to the amount of substanance they provide. A Rice University study found that cultivating insects for food requires about 10 times less plant and land-mass than producing food from traditional livestock sources. And the U.N. is looking to insects for more than food. A recent $100,000 was given by the organization to study whether South African flies can be used to transform blood, manure and other organic waste into animal feed.