Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's Gaza pullout plan was hanging in the balance yesterday as members of his right-wing Likud party prepared to vote on his ambitions to bring the opposition Labor Party into a new broad-based coalition.
While opponents of the pullout plan will submit a motion to the party's 2,900-strong convention that would specifically rule out Labor joining the govern-ment, Sharon is expected to counter with his own motion which would authorize him to negotiate with "any Zionist party."
Sharon needs to bring Labor into government in order to pass his so-called disengagement plan through parliament.
Declining support
He lost his majority in the 120-seat Knesset in June when traditional right-wing supporters baulked at what they regard as the "forcible transfer of Jews" from the Gaza Strip.
Convention president Israel Katz, who is one of the leading opponents of the disengagement plan, said yesterday that the party members were likely to first vote on Sharon's motion and then on Labor in government.
"Technically, one could vote for the two motions, which represent two totally opposite concepts," Katz, who is agriculture minister in the government, told public radio.
Likud divisions
Amid fears that the outcome of the vote could lead to a deep division within party ranks, Katz said it was vital that the vote took place in a "calm atmosphere which is vital to preserve unity within Likud."
Sharon has said that he will not be bound by the outcome of the vote, but a rejection of his overall political strategy would be extremely damaging.
The disengagement plan was rejected in a wider ballot of Likud members in May but Sharon has ploughed ahead with his project.
Sharon has been insisting that a coalition with Labor is far from inevitable and hopes that his alternative resolution will convince sceptics to give the prime minister room to maneuver.
A beauty queen who pulled out of the Miss South Africa competition when her nationality was questioned has said she wants to relocate to Nigeria, after coming second in the Miss Universe pageant while representing the West African country. Chidimma Adetshina, whose father is Nigerian, was crowned Miss Universe Africa and Oceania and was runner-up to Denmark’s Victoria Kjar Theilvig in Mexico on Saturday night. The 23-year-old law student withdrew from the Miss South Africa competition in August, saying that she needed to protect herself and her family after the government alleged that her mother had stolen the identity of a South
BELT-TIGHTENING: Chinese investments in Cambodia are projected to drop to US$35 million in 2026 from more than US$420 million in 2021 At a ceremony in August, Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet knelt to receive blessings from saffron-robed monks as fireworks and balloons heralded the breaking of ground for a canal he hoped would transform his country’s economic fortunes. Addressing hundreds of people waving the Cambodian flag, Hun Manet said China would contribute 49 percent to the funding of the Funan Techo Canal that would link the Mekong River to the Gulf of Thailand and reduce Cambodia’s shipping reliance on Vietnam. Cambodia’s government estimates the strategic, if contentious, infrastructure project would cost US$1.7 billion, nearly 4 percent of the nation’s annual GDP. However, months later,
HOPEFUL FOR PEACE: Zelenskiy said that the war would ‘end sooner’ with Trump and that Ukraine must do all it can to ensure the fighting ends next year Russia’s state-owned gas company Gazprom early yesterday suspended gas deliveries via Ukraine, Vienna-based utility OMV said, in a development that signals a fast-approaching end of Moscow’s last gas flows to Europe. Russia’s oldest gas-export route to Europe, a pipeline dating back to Soviet days via Ukraine, is set to shut at the end of this year. Ukraine has said it would not extend the transit agreement with Russian state-owned Gazprom to deprive Russia of profits that Kyiv says help to finance the war against it. Moscow’s suspension of gas for Austria, the main receiver of gas via Ukraine, means Russia now only
‘HARD-HEADED’: Some people did not evacuate to protect their property or because they were skeptical of the warnings, a disaster agency official said Typhoon Man-yi yesterday slammed into the Philippines’ most populous island, with the national weather service warning of flooding, landslides and huge waves as the storm sweeps across the archipelago nation. Man-yi was still packing maximum sustained winds of 185kph after making its first landfall late on Saturday on lightly populated Catanduanes island. More than 1.2 million people fled their homes ahead of Man-yi as the weather forecaster warned of a “life-threatening” effect from the powerful storm, which follows an unusual streak of violent weather. Man-yi uprooted trees, brought down power lines and smashed flimsy houses to pieces after hitting Catanduanes in the typhoon-prone
RSS