Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon began trying yesterday to form a right-wing government after the Labor Party abandoned his ruling coalition in a bitter dispute over funding for Jewish settlements.
Sharon lost his parliamentary majority when the center-left party quit, and Israeli officials said he was trying to form a narrower alliance with far-right and religious parties that could demand a harder line against the Palestinians.
PHOTO: REUTERS
"We will continue to serve the people of Israel, even under the difficult conditions that have been created," Cabinet Secretary Gideon Saar told reporters.
Labor's pullout ended a 19-month "national unity" partnership forged as a common front against a Palestinian uprising. The break-up could undermine US efforts to calm the region while it prepares for a possible war on Iraq.
"No chance," Labor's leader, Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer, replied when asked on Army Radio if he might change his mind about bolting from the coalition before the split becomes final late tomorrow after a 48-hour mandatory cooling-off period extended until the end of the Jewish sabbath.
Former army chief Shaul Mofaz, known for tough tactics against the Palestinians and advocating Palestinian President Yasser Arafat's expulsion, agreed to take over from Ben-Eliezer, an Israeli diplomatic source said yesterday.
Arafat responded that the appointment did not bode well for efforts to calm more than two years of Middle East violence.
"Mofaz has accepted the post of defense minister," the Israeli source said. Israeli media said the appointment must be approved by the government and then parliament, a process likely to take place in the next week.
Mofaz, army chief until July this year, employed tough tactics against the Palestinian uprising which erupted in September 2000, about halfway through his four-year tenure heading the Middle East's mightiest army.
"We did everything [to avert the break-up]," Sharon, head of the rightist Likud party, told a stormy session of parliament on Wednesday night.
After the collapse of his broad-based coalition, Sharon vowed to go on leading the country, suggesting he wanted to avoid early elections.
Israel Radio reported he had started making contacts with the ultranationalist Yisrael Beitenu party, whose seven seats in the 120-member parliament could restore Sharon's majority in the legislature.
Palestinian Cabinet member Saeb Erekat said the coalition crisis was further evidence that Israeli politics was "moving faster and faster away from an atmosphere of peace."
With the departure of the center-left Labor Party, which has 25 members in the Knesset, Sharon now controls only 55 parliamentary seats.
The crisis was precipitated by Ben-Eliezer's demands to divert funds earmarked for Jewish settlements to the poor and the elderly.
But critics inside and outside Labor said the hawkish Ben-Eliezer had latched on to the issue only to try to beat back dovish challengers leading him in opinion polls ahead of a Nov. 19 election for the party chairmanship.
Ben-Eliezer has denied the allegations.
Sharon, a long-time champion of settlement building, was in no mood to make concessions a day after a Palestinian gunman killed three settlers in the West Bank.
When last-ditch talks failed, Ben-Eliezer resigned followed by Foreign Minister Shimon Peres and four other ministers.
Labor, Sharon's main coalition partner, had vowed to reject the state's 2003 austerity budget unless he met demands to reallocate US$145 million in settlement funding.
The fate of 145 settlements built on occupied land in the West Bank and Gaza Strip is an issue at the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and has deeply divided Israelis.
ROLLER-COASTER RIDE: More than five earthquakes ranging from magnitude 4.4 to 5.5 on the Richter scale shook eastern Taiwan in rapid succession yesterday afternoon Back-to-back weather fronts are forecast to hit Taiwan this week, resulting in rain across the nation in the coming days, the Central Weather Administration said yesterday, as it also warned residents in mountainous regions to be wary of landslides and rockfalls. As the first front approached, sporadic rainfall began in central and northern parts of Taiwan yesterday, the agency said, adding that rain is forecast to intensify in those regions today, while brief showers would also affect other parts of the nation. A second weather system is forecast to arrive on Thursday, bringing additional rain to the whole nation until Sunday, it
LANDSLIDES POSSIBLE: The agency advised the public to avoid visiting mountainous regions due to more expected aftershocks and rainfall from a series of weather fronts A series of earthquakes over the past few days were likely aftershocks of the April 3 earthquake in Hualien County, with further aftershocks to be expected for up to a year, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Based on the nation’s experience after the quake on Sept. 21, 1999, more aftershocks are possible over the next six months to a year, the agency said. A total of 103 earthquakes of magnitude 4 on the local magnitude scale or higher hit Hualien County from 5:08pm on Monday to 10:27am yesterday, with 27 of them exceeding magnitude 5. They included two, of magnitude
CONDITIONAL: The PRC imposes secret requirements that the funding it provides cannot be spent in states with diplomatic relations with Taiwan, Emma Reilly said China has been bribing UN officials to obtain “special benefits” and to block funding from countries that have diplomatic ties with Taiwan, a former UN employee told the British House of Commons on Tuesday. At a House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee hearing into “international relations within the multilateral system,” former Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) employee Emma Reilly said in a written statement that “Beijing paid bribes to the two successive Presidents of the [UN] General Assembly” during the two-year negotiation of the Sustainable Development Goals. Another way China exercises influence within the UN Secretariat is
Taiwan’s first drag queen to compete on the internationally acclaimed RuPaul’s Drag Race, Nymphia Wind (妮妃雅), was on Friday crowned the “Next Drag Superstar.” Dressed in a sparkling banana dress, Nymphia Wind swept onto the stage for the final, and stole the show. “Taiwan this is for you,” she said right after show host RuPaul announced her as the winner. “To those who feel like they don’t belong, just remember to live fearlessly and to live their truth,” she said on stage. One of the frontrunners for the past 15 episodes, the 28-year-old breezed through to the final after weeks of showcasing her unique