Fadi Abboud, president of the Lebanese Industrialists Association, said last week his group was planning to raise a lawsuit to stop Israel from marketing hummus and other dishes as Israeli.
"It is not enough they are stealing our land. They are a
lso stealing our civilisation and our cuisine," said Abboud.
He added that there had been numerous complaints by Lebanese businessmen that Israel was exporting and marketing Lebanese dishes as Israeli.
It is not clear which court the Lebanese would file such a suit with – Lebanon and Israel are still in a state of war and any contact with the Jewish state is punishable by a prison term.
Israel's Food Industries Association and the Foreign Ministry declined comment.
In 2002, Greece won exclusive rights to use the name feta in the European Union after a long court case with Denmark.
NORWAYA Norwegian Labour Party politician has taken sick leave and said she wouldn't seek re-election after running up big phone bills at the parliament's expense by turning to an unusual set of advisers: fortune tellers.
Saera Khan's mobile phone habits became known after Parliament said it would no longer cover her bills, which were reportedly as high as 48,000 kroner (£4,500) in one three-month period.
"Advice from fortune tellers has not influenced the Labour party's work in Parliament," Labour's parliamentary leader Hill-Marta Solberg said in announcing Khan's leave.
The 29-year-old politician released a statement confirming that her bills were so high because she called pay-by-the-minute fortune tellers 793 times in one nine-month period. She said she had paid back the amount.
"A large part of the cost was due to calls to alternative advisers: so-called fortune tellers," she said. "I apologise."
CAMBODIAA couple in rural Cambodia have terminated their 18-year marriage with a divorce settlement that entails sawing in two the wooden house they once lived in together.
The husband, 42-year-old Moeun Sarim, has taken away with him all the bits and pieces of his half a house in the "strange" settlement, said his 35-year-old wife, Vat Navy.
"Very strange, but this is what my husband wanted," she said from the village, about 62 miles east of Cambodia's capital, Phnom Penh. She said they ended their marriage last month.
SUDANSouth Sudan's president shut down a police investigation last week that saw scores of young women arrested for "disturbing the peace" by wearing tight trousers.
The women were arrested by police who said they suspected them of belonging to youth gangs known for drinking, fighting and public nudity.
But government officials, including the south's gender minister, said they were angry at the way the women had been targeted and treated after their arrest.
The full article contains 501 words and appears in Scotland On Sunday newspaper.
