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WORLD NEWS Friday 10 June 2022
Biden administration takes step to bolster Palestinian ties

By LAURIE KELLMAN and with Israel or destabilizing
MATTHEW LEE its fragile coalition govern-
JERUSALEM (AP) — The Unit- ment.
ed States is restoring a line Israeli Prime Minister Naftali
of communication for the Bennett has said there was
Palestinians that had been no room in Jerusalem for
canceled by the Trump ad- another American mission.
ministration. The Palestinian Foreign
The move, announced Ministry said it views the re-
Thursday before a possible opening of the consulate
visit by President Joe Biden as part of the international
to Israel and the occupied community’s commitments
West Bank, is bureaucratic to ending Israel’s decades-
in nature. But it means the long occupation of territo-
Palestinians will deal di- ries the Palestinians seek for
rectly with the U.S. State their future state.
Department in Washington Dan Shapiro, a former U.S.
rather than first go through ambassador to Israel who is
the American ambassador now a distinguished fellow
to Israel. with the Atlantic Council,
In a statement, the new- called Thursday’s move “an
ly renamed office said interim step by the Biden
the move was meant to administration toward re-
“strengthen our diplomatic A U.S. flag flies at the United States consulate building in Jerusalem, March 4, 2019. establishing a consulate in
reporting and public diplo- Associated Press Jerusalem.”
macy engagement.” pected for months and the shuttered that consulate in open the Jerusalem consul- The Biden administration
“We felt that it was im- announcement had been one of a series of contro- ate, which was established has already moved to im-
portant to reintroduce postponed several times. versial moves that favored in 1844, well before the cre- prove ties with the Pales-
separate reporting lines But it falls short of Biden ad- Israel over the Palestinians. ation of the state of Israel. tinians, in part by restor-
to Washington on Israeli ministration pledges and Those steps included rec- But Israel says such a move ing U.S. assistance to the
and Palestinian issues, by Palestinian demands for ognizing Jerusalem as Is- would challenge its sover- Palestinian Authority and
our respective teams on the U.S. to reopen its consul- rael’s capital despite Pales- eignty over the city. funding to the U.N. agency
the ground that focus on ate in Jerusalem, which for tinian claims that east Jeru- It was thought that such that deals with Palestinian
these issues,” according to decades had functioned salem become the capital a reopening could help refugees. It has also looked
the statement, which also as a de facto U.S. Embassy of an eventual state, and mend U.S. ties with the into ways that the Palestin-
said the U.S. was reinstat- to the Palestinians. moving the U.S. Embassy to Palestinians that were rup- ian mission to Washington,
ing a system in place for Both the Palestinian Author- the holy city from Tel Aviv. tured under Trump. The U.S. closed under Trump, could
decades before President ity and Israel declined to Under Biden, U.S. Secretary has so far failed to reopen be reopened, although
Donald Trump’s decision. comment. of State Antony Blinken has the consulate, apparent- there are congressional
The move had been ex- The Trump administration repeatedly promised to re- ly in fear of upsetting ties hurdles to such a step.q

Activists decry French retailer over Amazon deforestation

By JADE LE DELEY last year against France’s an agreement by Sept. 15 analyzing the Casino pro- government policies are
Associated Press Casino Group, which has through a confidential me- posals,” said Sebastien Ma- further threatening indig-
PARIS (AP) — A Paris judge supermarkets around the diation process. If no agree- bile, a lawyer for one of the enous lands.
on Thursday ordered a me- world, accusing it of violat- ment can be reached, the environmental groups. Since taking office in 2019,
diation process to settle a ing human rights and envi- case will go to trial. Casino Group lawyers Sé- Bolsonaro has repeatedly
legal dispute pitting envi- ronmental rules. “We will meet with the me- bastien Shapira and Thom- said that Indigenous peo-
ronmental groups and rep- At a court hearing Thurs- diator before the end of as Rouhette told The Associ- ples have too much land,
resentatives of Brazil’s Indig- day, the judge ordered July and see if we can start ated Press that the France- saying he would revise de-
enous community against both parties to try to reach a mediation process upon based supermarket chain marcations, even though
a major French retailer ac- “satisfied” with the judge’s such a move is forbidden by
cused of selling beef linked move and has always law. Cattle ranching is one
to deforestation and land been open to discussion. of the main drivers of defor-
grabs in the Amazon rain- The company said it is “un- estation in Brazil’s Amazon,
forest. Several leading In- doubtedly one of the com- with levels reaching record
digenous representatives, panies most advanced in highs earlier this year. More
including some wearing combating deforestation,” than 1,000 square kilome-
traditional headdresses, without elaborating on ters (nearly 400 square
traveled from Brazil to the measures it takes to do so. miles) were deforested in
main Paris courthouse, For the Indigenous move- April, according to satel-
where they held a demon- ment, the lawsuit against lite alerts. The biome holds
stration to denounce inter- Casino Group is an attempt about 57 million hectares
national threats to their ter- to hold someone account- (140.8 million acres) of pas-
ritories and attract public able for buying cattle they ture, an area slightly larger
attention to cattle farming say is raised illegally in their than France, according to
practices in the Amazon. Indigenous representatives from Brazil protest outside Paris territory, with activists warn- MapBiomas, a network of
Climate groups and Indige- courthouse, in Paris, Thursday, June 9, 2022. ing that far-right Brazilian nonprofits, universities and
nous activists filed a lawsuit Associated Press President Jair Bolsonaro’s technology startups.q