Actress Scarlett Johansson has resigned her position as an Oxfam ambassador after she received criticism for her advert for SodaStream, which operates a factory in a controversial settlement in the West Bank.
In my part of the world, Ariel Sharon was known as the “Butcher of Beirut.” Even though his bloody legacy began to be built decades before he led the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982 – through years of killing Palestinians in British-controlled Palestine prior to the Arab-Israeli War of 1948 – he will still be primarily remembered for the responsibility he bore for Beirut’s Sabra and Shatila Massacre in the Palestinian refugee camp of the same name.
The nuclear deal reached between the United States and Iran represents both a breakthrough and a risk for Barack Obama. A breakthrough because it stalls Iran’s progress towards nuclear weapons capability for six months, in exchange for only moderate concessions on sanctions, while a bigger final settlement is haggled over. The very existence of such extended high-level negotiations, let alone ones concluding in agreement, marks a high for US-Iran diplomacy after 34 years alternating between fiery acrimony and deep freeze.
Archaeologists in Israel have unearthed what they believe is the world’s oldest wine cellar, dating back more than 3,000 years.
Traces of the radioactive substance polonium-210 have been found on some personal belongings of former Palestinian president Yasser Arafat, fuelling claims he was poisoned in 2004.