Thousands of troops poured into four Gaza settlements yesterday -- the final phase of removing settlers from the coastal strip -- and were met by blazing barricades, pleading settlers and a mock cemetery built "for anyone who expels Jews from their homes."
Israel's Cabinet, meanwhile, gave final approval to the evacuation of the last seven of 25 Gaza and West Bank settlements marked for dismantling.
In the West Bank, extremists exchanged blows with soldiers and slashed tires of army jeeps near Sanur, one of the enclaves to be dismantled later this week. The clashes gave a foretaste of violent confrontations expected when the evacuations move to the West Bank.
In comments at the start of a Cabinet meeting yesterday, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon called acts of violent resistance to the pullout "hooliganism" and said Jewish settler leaders -- once his friends and allies -- were exploiting the suffering of their followers to push a political agenda.
The forcible removal of settlers in 21 Gaza communities began Wednesday, more than a year after Sharon concluded that Israel could no longer defend its 38-year-old occupation of the coastal strip, which Palestinians claim as part of a future state. The evacuations have proceeded with relatively little violence.
Katif, Atzmona and Slav -- the remaining communities in the main settlement bloc, Gush Katif -- were being emptied yesterday, as was the northern Gaza settlement of Elei Sinai.
The last of the 21 Gaza settlements, Netzarim, is to be evacuated Monday, with the entire Gaza evacuation compressed into just one week, far shorter than the three weeks security forces foresaw.
In Katif, an Israeli army bulldozer broke through the locked gates of the community yesterday to clear a blazing fire of hay, tire and wooden planks so troops could move freely.
CREDIT-GRABBER: China said its coast guard rescued the crew of a fishing vessel that caught fire, who were actually rescued by a nearby Taiwanese boat and the CGA Maritime search and rescue operations do not have borders, and China should not use a shipwreck to infringe upon Taiwanese sovereignty, the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) said yesterday. The coast guard made the statement in response to the China Coast Guard (CCG) saying it saved a Taiwanese fishing boat. The Chuan Yu No. 6 (全漁6號), a fishing vessel registered in Keelung, on Thursday caught fire and sank in waters northeast of Diaoyutai Islands (釣魚台). The vessel left Keelung’s Badouzih Fishing Harbor (八斗子漁港) at 3:35pm on Sunday last week, with seven people on board — a 62-year-old Taiwanese captain surnamed Chang (張) and six
RISKY BUSINESS: The ‘incentives’ include initiatives that get suspended for no reason, creating uncertainty and resulting in considerable losses for Taiwanese, the MAC said China’s “incentives” failed to sway sentiment in Taiwan, as willingness to work in China hit a record low of 1.6 percent, a Ministry of Labor survey showed. The Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) also reported that the number of Taiwanese workers in China has nearly halved from a peak of 430,000 in 2012 to an estimated 231,000 in 2024. That marked a new low in the proportion of Taiwanese going abroad to work. The ministry’s annual survey on “Labor Life and Employment Status” includes questions respondents’ willingness to seek employment overseas. Willingness to work in China has steadily declined from
The Legislative Yuan’s Finance Committee yesterday approved proposed amendments to the Amusement Tax Act (娛樂稅法) that would abolish taxes on films, cultural activities and competitive sporting events, retaining the fee only for dance halls and golf courses. The proposed changes would set the maximum tax rate for dance halls and golf courses at 50 and 20 percent respectively, with local governments authorized to suspend the levies. Article 2 of the act says that “amusement tax shall be levied on tickets sold or fees charged by amusement places, facilities or activities” in six categories: “Cinema; professional singing, story-telling, dancing, circus, magic show, acrobatics
INFLATION UP? The IMF said CPI would increase to 1.5 percent this year, while the DGBAS projected it would rise to 1.68 percent, with GDP per capita of US$44,181 The IMF projected Taiwan’s real GDP would grow 5.2 percent this year, up from its 2.1 percent outlook in January, despite fears of global economic disruptions sparked by the US-Iran conflict. Taiwan’s consumer price index (CPI) is projected to increase to 1.5 percent, while unemployment would be 3.4 percent, roughly in line with estimates for Asia as a whole, the international body wrote in its Global Economic Outlook Report published in the US on Monday. The figures are comparatively better than the IMF outlook for the rest of the world, which pegged real GDP growth at 3.1 percent, down from 3.3 percent
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