Netanyahu rejects Biden to push ahead with Rafah plan
Great power rivalry
Gaza: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu this week rejected a demand from United States President Joe Biden to avoid invading Rafah, as the United Nations called for an immediate ceasefire to address the “horrifying” levels of hunger in Gaza.
Despite agreeing to Biden’s request to send officials to Washington to discuss the plans for Rafah, Netanyahu on Tuesday said a ground assault was necessary to “complete the elimination” of Hamas’s fighters in the city, which is housing more than a million people and is the last remaining refuge in Gaza.
The White House has backed Israel’s goal of defeating Hamas but urged Israel to avoid an all-out attack and target “key elements” of the Iran-backed group.
Responding to Netanyahu’s comments, a US State Department spokesperson, Vedant Patel, said: “We are just squarely in a different place and have a different viewpoint.”
In an extraordinary display of the worsening rift between Netanyahu and US Democrats, US Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer last week branded Netanyahu an obstacle to peace in the Middle East and called for elections in Israel to replace him. Biden then praised Schumer for “a good speech”.
Israel also faced growing pressure to allow more aid to flow into Gaza following a report by aid groups that said residents in the north faced “catastrophic levels of hunger”. The report said Gaza’s entire population of 2.2 million residents faced acute food insecurity, but the risk of famine was worst in the north and could occur between midMarch and May.
Volker Türk, the UN high commissioner for human rights, said on Tuesday the starvation was “entirely preventable”, blaming Israel’s restrictions on entry of aid, the displacement of Gazan residents, and the destruction of infrastructure.
Israel said it had been facilitating a “flood” of aid, blaming the UN and aid groups for the slow pace of deliveries.
As of Thursday, 31,923 Gazans had been killed in Israel’s military campaign, including 13,000 children, according to local officials. Israel vowed to topple Hamas in Gaza after the group killed about 1100 people in southern Israel on October 7 and took about 250 hostages.
Israeli and Hamas representatives held ceasefire talks this week in Qatar, reportedly focusing on a six-week truce that would initially include the release of 40 children, women, elderly people and sick hostages. The negotiations, brokered by Qatar, the US and Egypt, are expected to continue for two weeks.
The neighbourhood
New Zealand: Winston Peters, New Zealand’s foreign affairs minister, hosted a “convivial” visit this week by his Chinese counterpart, Wang Yi, despite the pair disagreeing about Pacific diplomacy and the AUKUS security pact between Australia, the US and the United Kingdom.
The visit by Wang, ahead of his trip to Australia, was the first high-level visit by a Chinese official to New Zealand since 2017.
Peters said the meeting was warm but included a “frank, candid and open” discussion about the AUKUS pact after it was raised by Wang. New Zealand has indicated support for the pact and recently expressed interest in participating in the sharing of nonnuclear defence technology.
“It was just a matter of making certain that he understood that we did not have imaginary concerns about long-term security,” Peters told reporters.
Peters also indicated he had told Wang to avoid trying to reach wide-ranging deals in the Pacific, saying Pacific nations should collectively manage their security without outsiders. Two years ago, China proposed a commercial and security deal with 10 Pacific states, but they rejected it.
In 2008, New Zealand became the first developed country to sign a free trade deal with China. But ties have frayed in recent years, particularly as Wellington has attempted to address foreign interference and worked with Canberra and Washington to counter Beijing’s growing influence in the Pacific.
Democracy in retreat
Russia: Vladimir Putin this week credited his overwhelming victory in the Russian presidential election – he won 87 per cent of the vote, his biggest winning margin – to his invasion of Ukraine, insisting the ballot had been more democratic than those held in the West.
In a vote dismissed by observers as a sham, Putin, who came to power in 1999, cemented another six-year term and is on track to surpass the length of Stalin’s rule and become Russia’s longest-serving leader since Catherine the Great in the 1700s.
Putin has high approval ratings, though opposition figures were banned and criticism of him or of the war in Ukraine has been criminalised and silenced. The election, which included voting in occupied Ukraine, came just weeks after the sudden death of his main political rival, Alexei Navalny, in an Arctic prison.
Putin, who is widely suspected of being behind Navalny’s death, said last weekend he had agreed to release Navalny as part of a prisoner exchange, just days before his death. “It happens. What can you do? That’s life,” he said.
Celebrating his win on Monday, Putin, who is 71, told a rally he planned to open a railway line that would run from Russia through occupied Ukraine to Crimea, which he annexed in 2014.
Novaya Gazeta, a Russian independent newspaper, estimated 31.6 million votes – almost half of the total – were fake. An election monitor, Golos, said the ballot was marred by military censorship and the use of state institutions for “propaganda, coercion and control over voters”. It said citizens were afraid to discuss politics “even with neighbours and loved ones”.
“Never before have we seen a presidential campaign that was so inconsistent with constitutional standards,” it said.
The US, the European Union and other Western nations – including Australia – condemned the election, saying it had been undemocratic and unfair.
A spokesperson for German chancellor
Olaf Scholz told reporters: “Russia is a dictatorship and is ruled in an authoritarian manner by Vladimir Putin.”
Putin’s victory was welcomed by Chinese President Xi Jinping, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr
Zelensky said Putin was “simply sick for power and is doing everything to rule forever”.
Spotlight: Japan’s stagnation era ends
Japan this week raised interest rates for the first time in 17 years, ending an era of negative rates as its stagnant economy finally showed signs of growth.
The decision on Tuesday by the Bank of Japan came weeks after the country’s
Nikkei 225 stocks index climbed to the record level it had set in 1989. Back then, 15 of the world’s 20-biggest companies were Japanese; today, only Toyota, ranked 28th by the Companies market cap website, is in the top 50.
Japan introduced negative rates in 2016 amid a decades-long battle against deflation. But wages and consumer prices have recently been increasing, with the country finally appearing to experience sustained inflation. In January the annual inflation rate was
2.2 per cent.
Japan’s central bank had been the last in the world to leave negative rates in place – meaning customers effectively paid for banks to hold their money – and has now lifted rates to a range of zero to 0.1 per cent, still well below levels in other developed economies.
But Japan’s deeper, long-term problems remain entrenched. It has enormous public debt, which means it cannot significantly raise rates without incurring crippling interest payments. And it faces a rapidly shrinking and ageing population. Last year, 758,631 babies were born in Japan, marking an eighth successive annual drop and the lowest number
• since records began in 1899.