All posts tagged: abstention

U.S. abstention on UN cease-fire vote triggers Netanyahu rage

U.S. abstention on UN cease-fire vote triggers Netanyahu rage

Published by skeptic

US Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield votes abstain during a vote on a resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza during a United Nations Security Council meeting on the situation in the Middle East, including the Palestinian question, at the UN headquarters in New York on March 25, 2024. Angela Weiss | Afp | Getty Images The United Nations Security Council on Monday adopted a resolution demanding an immediate cease-fire between Israel and Palestinian militant group Hamas, after the United States abstained from the vote — prompting Israel to cancel the visit of a high-level delegation to Washington. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had warned before the vote that the delegation’s visit would be pulled, if Washington did not veto the motion. The U.S. abstention signals a widening divide between the White House and Israel’s current government, the most right-wing in its history, nearly six months into its war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip. Israel’s offensive into the Gaza enclave, which comes in response to the Oct. 7 Hamas terror attacks, …

Japan’s democracy beset by political scandals and high voter abstention

Japan’s democracy beset by political scandals and high voter abstention

Published by skeptic

Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida on January 14, 2023 in Washington. JULIA NIKHINSON / REUTERS Japan’s political stability is certainly surprising. The dominant Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), has been in office practically without interruption since 1955. However, this stability has a price: It masks an underbelly that has recently been brought to light by a vast public prosecutor’s investigation into the slush funds of lawmakers. The looming crisis is “the kind that happens once in a generation,” said the Japanese political analyst Tobias Harris. The mid-December “purge” of four ministers and five vice-ministers implicated in this scandal is aggravating the unpopularity of Prime Minister Fumio Kishida. Nearly 80% of those questioned in a poll conducted by the daily Mainichi Shimbun said they disapproved of the prime minister, who is also the LDP’s president. Without public support, Kishida has little chance of imposing reforms and his potential successors are already lining up. The revelations that 179 LDP elected representatives had links with the controversial Unification Church (Moon sect) in 2022 coupled with the slush funds scandal …