Ramallah building boom symbolizes West Bank growth
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Reuters
August 2, 2010 - 12:00am

The din of earth-movers leveling the hilly terrain of Ramallah for construction is unremitting as modern buildings shoot up all over the West Bank city. Once a mere village on the outskirts of Jerusalem, Ramallah has seen its population double in the last 10 years and land prices surge, in part due to the fact it falls within the 40 percent of the West Bank where Palestinians can build without Israeli permission.

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PNA to punish dealers importing Jewish settlement products
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Xinhua
July 25, 2010 - 12:00am

The Palestinian National Authority (PNA) on Sunday said merchants importing and selling products of Jewish settlements in the West Bank would be punished from the beginning of August. The dealers who bring the settlement products "would have to pay big amounts of fine or might be imprisoned," Hassan Abu Libda, Palestinian minister of economy, told reporters. Abu Libda added that his ministry would inspect the markets next month and search all stores "and would transfer anybody dealing with the settlements' products to justice."

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PNA to punish dealers importing Jewish settlement products
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Xinhua
July 25, 2010 - 12:00am

The Palestinian National Authority (PNA) on Sunday said merchants importing and selling products of Jewish settlements in the West Bank would be punished from the beginning of August. The dealers who bring the settlement products "would have to pay big amounts of fine or might be imprisoned," Hassan Abu Libda, Palestinian minister of economy, told reporters. Abu Libda added that his ministry would inspect the markets next month and search all stores "and would transfer anybody dealing with the settlements' products to justice."

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MESS Report / In the West Bank, new cars signal the good life
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Haaretz
by Avi Issacharoff - July 16, 2010 - 12:00am

New car lots and showrooms, offering vehicles of every kind but mainly Korean, have sprung up at the entrances to Nablus, from the Hawara checkpoint in the south and from the west. Similar showrooms have appeared at Jenin's southern and northern entrances. The dealerships, showing brand-new cars, reflect the economic growth in the West Bank. While in the '90s, West Bank cities served as a hideout for cars stolen from Israel, today their streets are lined with just-bought models. A Palestinian journalist in Nablus calls it "the car intifada."

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IDF mulls entry to West Bank cities by Jewish Israelis
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jerusalem Post
by Yaakov Katz - July 14, 2010 - 12:00am

The IDF has told the Palestinian Authority it is willing to consider a request to permit Jewish Israelis to visit a number of West Bank cities as part of an effort to strengthen the Palestinian economy, The Jerusalem Post has learned. On Monday, OC Central Command Maj.-Gen. Avi Mizrahi visited Jenin as a guest of the PA’s local security commander. He spent close to four hours there, during which he toured a mall and soccer field, and met with Palestinian security chiefs and local businessmen.

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Economy minister wants standards for local products
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from Ma'an News Agency
July 8, 2010 - 12:00am

National Economy Minister Hassan Abu Libdeh asked the government to work harder on Tuesday, in developing national consumer standards, to protect Palestinians and improve the marketability of products globally. Speaking in Nablus at the first conference for Palestinian consumer protection, Abu Libdeh accused the interior ministry and his own ministry of impeding a new project aimed at improving the labeling on Palestinian produce.

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WEST BANK: A tit for tat or just a new policy?
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Los Angeles Times
by Maher Abukhater - (Blog) July 6, 2010 - 12:00am

Hundreds of Palestinian dairy and meat producers demonstrated Monday outside the Palestinian Authority prime minister’s office in the West Bank city of Ramallah, demanding that Israel cancel an order banning the sale of their products in East Jerusalem markets. The demonstration took place only hours before Prime Minister Salam Fayyad of the Fatah-led Palestinian Authority was scheduled to meet Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak in Jerusalem to discuss such matters and many more that directly affect Palestinian living conditions.

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The Real Palestinian Revolution
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The New York Times
by Thomas L. Friedman - (Opinion) June 30, 2010 - 12:00am

Pssssst. I’ve got a stock tip. Ready? The Al-Quds Index. What’s that? It’s the P.S.E., or Palestine Securities Exchange. Based in Nablus, in the West Bank, the Al-Quds Index has actually been having a solid year — and therein lies a tale.

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Palestinians : look forward, not backward
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Jerusalem Post
by Ray Hanania - June 25, 2010 - 12:00am

Qatar is unlike many of the other Arab countries that support the Palestinians. Instead of donating lip-service and writing checks to be used in conflict, it has invested heavily in a project with a Palestinian construction company to build a new city in the West Bank called Rawabi. The Palestinians should be focused on doing more of this; building Palestine, and switching gears from the confrontation-style politics of Hamas, Hizbullah, Iran and a lot of other losers who love to exploit Palestinian suffering. Even Turkey might consider putting a cork in its rhetoric.

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Palestine is open for business!
ATFP World Press Roundup Article from The Huffington Post
by Ziad Asali - (Blog) June 18, 2010 - 12:00am

Almost everything about the second Palestine Investment Conference held in Bethlehem in early June, which I had the honor of attending as a member of President Barack Obama's official delegation, was encouraging.

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