protest

Protesters Urge Leviev Diamonds Boycott

Filed under: Jewelry

Those hoping to dash into the Leviev store on Madison Avenue in New York City on Saturday found themselves running a bit of a gauntlet. National Jeweler reports that around 45 pro-Palestinian protesters clustered outside the store urging shoppers to boycott the jewelry store, which is owned by Israeli diamond king Lev Leviev. The group, Adalah-NY has protested in front of Leviev's store seven times since it opened last November (the pieces shown above were displayed during the store opening). They chose last Saturday to make their case to shoppers on a pre-Valentine's day shopping quest. The group says that Leviev, who is also a real estate developer, is building Israeli settlements on what they claim is occupied Palestinian land. Protesters also boycotted outside Leviev's London store (perhaps a more cutting blow since Leviev recently moved to London.

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Tags: boycott, expire-images:2009-2-11, israel, lev leviev, LevLeviev, new york, palestine, protest

Wine Protests in France

by Deidre Woollard (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Wine

It's time once again for angry French winegrowers to take their disgruntlement to the streets. Growers in the southern regions of Avignon, Beziers, Narbonne, Bordeaux and Nimes are demanding that the government help out the floundering industry with a variety of measures from tax easements to special loans. Paris spent more than $130 million in aid to the wine sector in 2005 alone. As wines from the U.S., South America and Australia gain more of the market and French drinkers continue to consume less of their own wines, the problem continues to plague the growers. According to Decanter, the desperate situation, in which some growers have seen their income decline by 50%, has led to several suicides in the region. It seems to be a problem that worsens every year and no real solution, beyond turning the wine into industrial alcohol which is more of a stopgap at best, has been found.

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Tags: france, french wine, protest, vineyards, wine demonstration, WineDemonstration