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Scandaleuse intervention de la Commission européenne (ndlr)
“Europe Funding Illegal Israeli Lab”
Mercredi, 25 janvier 2012 - 6h51 AM
Wednesday 25 January 2012
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Des scientifiques anglais et autres personnalités ont protesté dans "The Independent" contre le financement à travers la commission européenne d’un projet scientifique coordonné par le Musée National d’Histoire Naturelle de GB avec le laboratoire israelien de cosmétiques AHAVA....
Vous trouverez après cet article la lettre avec liste des signataires parue dans The Independent
http://the-scientist.com/2012/01/23/europe-funding-illegal-israeli-lab/
Europe Funding Illegal Israeli Lab
Critics are shaming the European Commission for directing research funds to a laboratory operating in the occupied West Bank.
By Bob Grant | January 23, 2012
The European Commission should stop funding a research project coordinated by the United Kingdom’s Natural History Museum (NHM) because of the involvement of an Israeli laboratory that operates in the occupied Palestinian West Bank, according to a letter written by more than 20 British scientists and other public figures. The 5-year, €5.19 million project, called NanoReTox, began in 2008 and is seeking to elucidate the environmental and health impacts of nanoparticles used in cosmetic products.
“We find it almost inconceivable that a national institution of the status of the Natural History Museum should have put itself in this position,” wrote the authors of the letter, which was published in British paper The Independent last week. “We call on the museum to take immediate steps to terminate its involvement in NanoReTox and to establish safeguards that protect against any comparable entanglement.”
The Israeli laboratory’s corporate owner, a cosmetic company called Ahava Dead Sea Laboratories, is based in Tel Aviv but runs the lab in a West Bank settlement that runs afoul of international law. The International Court of Justice has ruled that all such Israeli settlements in the Palestinian West Bank violate the Fourth Geneva Convention, which states that an occupying power “shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies.”
“It should be brought to people’s attention that the NHM of all organizations is very much tied up in a project that involves the exploitation of Palestinian resources,” University of Southampton chemist and letter signatory Malcom Levitt, told Nature. Other NanoReTox participants include Kings College London, Imperial College, and the US Geological Survey.
According an NHM spokesperson, the European Commission and the museum failed to properly vet Ahava Dead Sea Laboratories when the lab was awarded more than €300,000 to perform analyses as part of the NanoReTox project. “When selecting research partners we focus on their scientific appropriateness, and because they were offered through a recognized European Commission channel, we did not investigate their background further,” NHM spokesperson Chloe Kembery told Nature.
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/letters/letters-museum-must-drop-west-bank-link-6290556.html
Letters: Museum must drop West Bank link
Tuesday 17 January 2012
It is extraordinary, but true, that one of our great national museums is co-ordinating an activity that breaks international law. That museum is the Natural History Museum, which is collaborating in research with an Israeli commercial firm located in an illegal settlement in the Palestinian West Bank.
The firm is Ahava/Dead Sea Laboratories, whose business is manufacturing cosmetics out of mud, which it excavates from the banks of the Dead Sea. Ahava/DSL is located at Mitzpe Shalem, a settlement 10km beyond the Green Line. The collaboration with the Museum is through an EU-funded project called Nanoretox, in which Kings College London, Imperial College and a number of foreign institutions are also involved. The museum is the coordinating partner for this project.
Ahava/DSL is based on occupied territory. It extracts, processes and exports Palestinian resources to generate profits that fund an illegal settlement. Israel’s settlement project has been held by the International Court of Justice to break international law. Organisations which aid and abet this process may well themselves be found to be in violation. We find it almost inconceivable that a national institution of the status of the Natural History Museum should have put itself in this position.
We call on the museum to take immediate steps to terminate its involvement in Nanoretox and to establish safeguards that protect against any comparable entanglement.
Professor Sir Patrick Bateson FRS
University of Cambridge
Professor Malcolm Levitt FRS
University of Southampton
Professor Tim Shallice FRS
SISSA, Trieste
Mike Leigh
Ken Loach
Jonathan Miller
Victoria Brittain
Baroness Tonge
Dr Gillian Yudkin
Professor Laurence Dreyfus FBA
University of Oxford
Professor Jacqueline Rose FBA
Queen Mary University of London
Professor Jonathan Rosenhead
London School of Economics
Professor John Armitage
University of Bristol
Professor Haim Bresheeth
University of East London
Professor Barry Fuller
University College London
Professor Colin Green
University College, London
Dr Ghada Karmi
University of Exeter
Professor Adah Kay
City University
Professor David Pegg
University of York
Professor Steven Rose
Open University
Professor Lynne Segal
Birkbeck College