Keeping track of the latest developments in this story — a sharp lesson for any company thinking to purchase fashionable political “virtues”.
[IsraelTimes] Ben & Jerry’s is seeking an injunction in a New York court against its parent company, amid ongoing legal fallout over the ice cream maker’s attempted boycott of West Bank settlements last year.
The ice cream maker wants to prevent its parent company Unilever from transferring intellectual property to Ben & Jerry’s Israel, which Unilever granted independence in a settlement earlier this year.
Ben & Jerry’s argues that Ben & Jerry’s Israel could usurp the company’s image by taking a new flavor and changing its branding. For example, Ben & Jerry’s could make a pro-Paleostinian flavor, and the Israeli branch could take the same flavor, and brand it as pro-settlement, the lawyers argue.
Ben & Jerry’s considers the branding surrounding its social mission and activism as key to its business success.
As evidence, the plaintiff’s lawyers point to the Ben & Jerry’s Israel website, which displays company branding in English, and an interview Israeli franchise owner Avi Zinger gave to Haaretz, in which he said he "can do what he wants" with the company.
Lawyers representing Conopco, the main US branch of Unilever, say Ben & Jerry’s does not have the authority to make such claims because the intellectual property is owned by Unilever, and Unilever’s agreement with Ben & Jerry’s Israel is already closed.
The Ben & Jerry’s board, which is pressing the case, only has limited power related to its social mission, and does not have the authority to force business decisions, the lawyers argue.
They also say there is no imminent threat to Ben & Jerry’s branding, calling the suspicions "highly speculative and remote," and that the agreement with Ben & Jerry’s Israel only allows the use of Hebrew and Arabic branding anyway.
The judge has not yet ruled on the injunction. The hearing takes place in the federal Southern District Court of New York.
[ToloNews] During his visit to the province of Khost ...which coincidentally borders North Wazoo and Kurram Agency... , Noorullah Munir, the acting minister of education, stated that girls' schools had been shut down due to cultural constraints. He expressed his hope that the Islamic Emirate's leaders and the elders would agree to reopen girls' schools.
"People are not sensitive to the education of their girls, but to their girls leaving the house, and the culture of Afghans is quite sensitive in this area. You know better that the Islamic Emirate is attempting to reach an agreement with the people and start this process," he said.
Munir denies reports that the closure of the girls' schools was caused by the change in the curriculum. He said that the Afghan curriculum has issues and that there is currently no plan to change it.
"We have never said that we would begin working on the curriculum right away. Bringing changes to the curriculum is the right of every nation, people, and every government," he stated.
On Sunday, the Deputy Minister of Education said that the delay in reopening girls' schools was caused by problems in the curriculum for girls.
"Three times work has been done on the available curriculum, still this issue has not been completed. God willing, we are responsible to our people over this issue, whether it is a man or a woman," said Sayed Ahmad Shahidkhail, deputy of the Ministry of Education.
The Acting Minister of Education admits that more than 5,000 of the 20,000 schools in the country do not have buildings and need reconstruction and renovation.
[KhaamaPress] Residents of Kabul, the Afghan capital, say that telecommunications services have been interrupted and cut off in a number of the city’s areas. "Mo didn't have Giganet access, and neither do you!"
According to a resident of Kabul, mobile networks are currently not working in the third, fifth, and thirteenth districts of the capital of Afghanistan.
Another 13th district resident said that the networks have been down since yesterday.
They express their concern regarding the internet outage and say that no one is willing to provide an answer for the reason the internet is not accessible.
Despite the Taliban ...Arabic for students... authorities’ silence on the matter, a telecommunications company claims that the Muharram ceremony has caused technical issues with telecommunications services in Kabul’s western districts.
Security threats against mourners have recently increased in the Shia-populated area west of Kabul.
Not only are there disrupted internet and telecommunications services, but several of the roads in Kabul’s western areas are also inaccessible.
Numerous people were killed and injured in two deadly explosions that took place in the western Kabul areas of Sar-e-Kariz and Pol-e-Sokhta on Friday and Saturday, respectively.
The majority of those killed and injured were Shi’ite Afghans who were practicing the Shi’ite Moslem occasion of Muharram.
[Jpost] The head of Lebanon's powerful armed movement Hezbollah, Sayyed His Eminence Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah ...The satrap of the Medes and the Persians in Leb... , warned on Tuesday against any Israeli attempts to expand their targeting of Palestinian militants to Lebanon.
"Any attack on any human being will not go unpunished or unanswered," Nasrallah said in a televised address marking Ashura, a melancholic commemoration for Shi'ite Muslims of the killing the Prophet Mohammad's grandson Hussein.
On Saturday, Israeli defense minister Benny Gantz hinted at the possible targeting of Islamic Jihad officials abroad, who he said could be seen in "restaurants and hotels in Tehran, Syria and Lebanon."
"They too will have to pay the price," Gantz said.
On Monday, a day after a truce brokered by Egypt ended the Gaza violence, he said Israel could carry out "pre-emptive strikes" abroad.
"In the future too, if necessary, we will deliver a pre-emptive strike in order to defend Israel's citizens, sovereignty and infrastructure and this is true for all fronts, from Teheran to Khan Younis," he said.
Iran-backed Hezbollah is vehemently opposed to Israel and tensions between the two have been escalating in recent months over a disputed maritime border between Lebanon and Israel.
[Jpost] Tehran has rejected claims the satellite could be used by Moscow to boost its intelligence capabilities in Ukraine, saying Iran will have full control and operation over it "from day one."
A Russian rocket carrying an Iranian satellite successfully launched into space on Tuesday, causing national security and intelligence concerns for Israel and the West.
The remote sensing satellite, called "Khayyam" was launched by a Russian Soyuz rocket from the Baikonur Cosmodrome, the home of Russian space launches located in southern Kazakhstan, at 08:52 a.m. Moscow time (0552 GMT) on Tuesday, according to a video broadcast by Russia's Roscosmos space agency on YouTube.
Israeli officials are concerned that the latest space cooperation between Moscow and Tehran will increase Iran’s capabilities to potentially launch intercontinental ballistic missiles with nuclear warheads in the future, as well as improve its monitoring of targets in the Jewish state and throughout the region.
An additional concern for Jerusalem could be this and future Russian-Iranian satellites reducing Israeli spies’ ability to penetrate the Islamic Republic’s border with operations which hold back its nuclear progress.
Meanwhile, the US and the West are concerned that the satellite could be used by Moscow to boost its intelligence capabilities in Ukraine.
Tehran has rejected the West’s claims, saying Iran will have full control and operation over it “from day one,” though this did not assuage Israeli concerns.
Iran says the satellite is designed for scientific research including radiation and environmental monitoring for agricultural purposes.
Iran’s space organization has received the first telemetry data sent from the Khayyam satellite.
WHITE NOISE OR SECURITY CONCERN?
This is the second time in three months that Russia has made noise about its assistance to Iran in the satellite technology sphere. Russia has sought to deepen its ties with Iran since February 24, when the Kremlin ordered tens of thousands of troops into Ukraine.
In July, Russian President Vladimir Putin visited Iran on his first international trip outside the former Soviet Union since the start of Russia’s military campaign in Ukraine. While there, Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei told Putin that Tehran and Moscow needed to stay vigilant against “Western deception.”
In past Russian-American crises, space had been one field where the sides found a way to maintain cooperation and strong ties despite geopolitical tensions.
Roscosmos and NASA recently inked a deal to carry each other’s astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS), but Moscow has declared its intent to quit the ISS at some point in the future.
In mid-June, The Washington Post reported that Russia was preparing to provide Iran with an advanced satellite that would enable it to track potential military targets across the Middle East, sending shudders through much of the region. The Post followed up with another report with similar concerns last week.
Anonymous Israeli officials told KAN in mid-June that they were concerned by the report, while US officials in public did little to dispel the mystery surrounding the issue.
In addition, officials were worried that Tehran might acquire photos and pass them on to proxies like Hezbollah and Hamas to increase the accuracy and effectiveness of their destructive power.
Putin had called the report “garbage,” but the Russian leader rarely admits to controversial actions that he orders.
The mid-June report had said that the new satellite would allow “continuous monitoring of facilities ranging from Persian Gulf oil refineries and Israeli military bases to Iraqi barracks that house US troops,” citing three unnamed sources – a current and a former US official and a senior Middle Eastern government official – briefed on the sale.
Though the Kanopus-V reported on in mid-June is marketed for civilian use, seemingly similar to the Khayyam, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps officials had reportedly made several trips to Russia since 2018 to work on Russian-Iranian space cooperation.
Further, the report said that Russian experts traveled to Iran this spring to train crews who would operate the satellite from a newly built facility near Karaj, west of Tehran.
The mid-June satellite report said it would feature Russian hardware, “including a camera with a resolution of 1.2 meters – a significant improvement over Iran’s current capabilities, though still far short of the quality achieved” by US or Israeli spy satellites.
The IRGC announced in April 2020 that it had successfully launched the country’s first military satellite into orbit. This led former US secretary of state Mike Pompeo to demand consequences before the UN Security Council.
In a press briefing in June, US State Department Deputy Spokeswoman Jalina Porter responded to a question about the Russian-Iranian satellite cooperation without taking a clear position. The US has not yet commented about the latest Russian-Iranian launch.
Israel space program chief and Maj. Gen. (res.) Isaac Ben-Israel was unfazed by concerns from the mid-June report, saying that it lacks any strategic significance.
To an average reader, a satellite that can get pictures within 1.2 meters from the ground sounds phenomenal. However, he said, currently Iran and any other country can buy satellite photos from the commercial sector at a mere $10,000 per shot, which are three times better.
Prating, posturing fools all — they know this does not even postpone the inevitable if Israel does not successfully intervene. But they cannot bear openly admitting what even the slightest thought makes clear, and the Mad Mullahs allow themselves to be bribed to help them humiliate themselves as they march together toward the hoped for eschaton.
[IsraelTimes] The United States indicates it is willing to adopt a new European Union ...the successor to the Holy Roman Empire, only without the Hapsburgs and the nifty uniforms and the dancing... proposal for a mutual return to the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran.
In a statement, the US State Department describes the tabled draft as "the best and only basis on which to reach a deal."
"For our part, our position is clear: we stand ready to quickly conclude a deal on the basis of the EU’s proposals," the State Department says, indicating the deal’s restoration was up to Iran.
"They (Iran) repeatedly say they are prepared for a return to mutual implementation," the spokesperson added. "Let’s see if their actions match their words."
Iran, for its part, sounded guarded, raising skepticism about the chances for a breakthrough after a months-long stalemate.
"Naturally, the cases require comprehensive study," IRNA quotes an anonymous senior Iranian Foreign Ministry official as saying. "We will transfer our views and supplementary points."
But Western diplomats have warned that time is running short, as Iran’s nuclear program rapidly advances under diminishing international oversight. They also worry that looming midterm elections in the US could empower Republicans who oppose the accord.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
08/09/2022 00:00 ||
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
...Arabic for 
...The satrap of the Medes and the Persians in Leb...
...the successor to the Holy Roman Empire, only without the Hapsburgs and the nifty uniforms and the dancing...
