Dear Corporation – An Open Letter to Fyffes

The Christmas period is one of the busiest times of the year for date importers. Tonnes of dates are imported into the UK from illegal Israeli agricultural settlements on Palestinian land. Campaigners have been focusing on Israeli companies, such as Carmel Agrexco, importing these dates into the UK but little is known about Fyffes, a transnational company that has also sourced dates from Israeli settlements.
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Making New Markets: ParcAberporth and the commercialisation of drone technology

The western Welsh county of Ceredigion is home to Danger Area D201, a former RAF missile testing ground, now converted into a 22km x 1.5km restricted airspace for the testing of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). The area is the embodiment of the tangled relationships existing between corporate, governmental and private commercial interests. A section of the old RAF land is now operated by arms giant QinetiQ; the runway is owned by the same private businessman who runs the local airport; and at the centre of this hub of UAV promotion is the ParcAberporth facility, made possible, and owned by, the Welsh Assembly. (more…)

Veolia tries to bail out of one apartheid project; two to go!

In 2005, just after the publication of the Palestinian call for boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) against Israeli apartheid, Palestinians began calling for an international boycott campaign against Veolia, a company involved in the Citypass Consortium, a scheme to build a tramline on occupied territory in the West Bank. Veolia is a huge multinational, that arguably has the biggest financial commitment of any international company to Israel’s colonisation of the West Bank. (more…)

Occupation as Profit: The Settler Economy

The calls for a boycott of Israeli goods are gaining increased mainstream credence. Much noise has been made about the British government finally beginning to question Israel on their export of settlement produce. But the single direct result so far has been a freeze on negotiations on an upgrade of the EU-Israel Association Agreement, which already gives Israel preferential trade terms with the 27 EU countries. Whilst politicians make symbolic gestures, it is the people of Palestine who feel the harsh reality of Israel’s illegal settlement economy, writes Therezia Cooper.
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