Flushed from his victory in the parliamentary debate endorsing Israel's withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has repeated his opposition to holding a referendum on the issue, the Ha'aretz daily reported yesterday.
Although one coalition party, backed by senior ministers in his own Likud Party is threatening to quit the government unless he agreed to hold a nationwide referendum on the pullout within two weeks, Sharon remained defiant, telling the Israeli daily that "I will never give into pressures and threats and I won't accept any ultimatums."
"My position on the referendum is unchanged -- I am opposed because it will lead to terrible tensions and a rupture in the public," Sharon said.
Capping a highly charged two-day debate, the Knesset voted 67 to 45, with seven abstentions Tuesday night to support Sharon's plan to evacuate all 21 Israeli settlements in the Gaza Strip and four in the northern West Bank.
It was the first time the Knesset voted to uproot settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories and Sharon's victory was only assured by the support he received from left wing opposition parties, as hardliners in his coalition and the Likud added their voices to the "nay" vote.
AGING: As of last month, people aged 65 or older accounted for 20.06 percent of the total population and the number of couples who got married fell by 18,685 from 2024 Taiwan has surpassed South Korea as the country least willing to have children, with an annual crude birthrate of 4.62 per 1,000 people, Ministry of the Interior data showed yesterday. The nation was previously ranked the second-lowest country in terms of total fertility rate, or the average number of children a woman has in her lifetime. However, South Korea’s fertility rate began to recover from 2023, with total fertility rate rising from 0.72 and estimated to reach 0.82 to 0.85 by last year, and the crude birthrate projected at 6.7 per 1,000 people. Japan’s crude birthrate was projected to fall below six,
US President Donald Trump in an interview with the New York Times published on Thursday said that “it’s up to” Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) what China does on Taiwan, but that he would be “very unhappy” with a change in the “status quo.” “He [Xi] considers it to be a part of China, and that’s up to him what he’s going to be doing, but I’ve expressed to him that I would be very unhappy if he did that, and I don’t think he’ll do that. I hope he doesn’t do that,” Trump said. Trump made the comments in the context
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PREPAREDNESS: Given the difficulty of importing ammunition during wartime, the Ministry of National Defense said it would prioritize ‘coproduction’ partnerships A newly formed unit of the Marine Corps tasked with land-based security operations has recently replaced its aging, domestically produced rifles with more advanced, US-made M4A1 rifles, a source said yesterday. The unnamed source familiar with the matter said the First Security Battalion of the Marine Corps’ Air Defense and Base Guard Group has replaced its older T65K2 rifles, which have been in service since the late 1980s, with the newly received M4A1s. The source did not say exactly when the upgrade took place or how many M4A1s were issued to the battalion. The confirmation came after Chinese-language media reported
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