THE HAGUE, Netherlands —  Police detained several people Sunday for taking part in a demonstration in central Amsterdam that had been outlawed following violence targeting fans of an Israeli soccer club, a local broadcaster reported.  Amsterdam Mayor Femke Halsema banned all demonstrations over the weekend in the aftermath of the grim scenes of youths on scooters and on foot attacking Maccabi Tel Aviv supporters on Thursday and Friday in what was widely condemned as a violent outburst of antisemitism in the Dutch capital.  Israel's ambassador to the Netherlands said that 2,000 Israelis were brought home on special flights from Amsterdam over the past few days  Before the match against Ajax, Maccabi fans also tore a Palestinian flag off a building in Amsterdam and chanted anti-Arab slogans on their way to the stadium. There were also reports of Maccabi fans starting fights.  Video on local broadcaster AT5 showed police detaining one man Sunday who was taking part in a small demonstration on the central Dam Square. The protesters yelled slogans including "Free, free Palestine." AT5 reported that about 20 people were detained.  Amsterdam Municipality said on X that police had begun arresting demonstrators who refused to leave the square, which is in the heart of the city's downtown shopping area and close to the historic canal network.  Organizers of the protest went to court on Sunday morning seeking an injunction to allow the demonstration, but a judge upheld the ban imposed by the municipality.  At the hearing, senior Amsterdam police officer Olivier Dutilh said that there were again incidents overnight targeting people thought to be Jewish, including some being ordered out of taxis and others being asked to produce their passports to confirm their nationality.  Police launched a large-scale investigation Friday after gangs of youths conducted what Amsterdam's mayor called "hit and run" attacks on fans that were apparently inspired by calls on social media to target Jewish people. Five people were treated at hospitals and more than 60 suspects were arrested.  Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar rushed to the Netherlands on Friday and offered Israel's help in the police investigation. He met on Saturday with Dutch Prime Minister Dick Schoof and said in a statement that the attacks and demands to show passports "were reminiscent of dark periods in history." 

Israeli airstrikes killed dozens of people in Lebanon and northern Gaza on Sunday, even as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and U.S. President-elect Donald Trump have been discussing the way forward for when Trump takes office in January. The Israeli leader said he has spoken with Trump three times since the U.S. presidential election last week and that they “see eye-to-eye on the Iranian threat in all its aspects, and on the dangers they reflect.” Netanyahu said he sees “great opportunities facing Israel, in the area of peace and its expansion,” but did not expand on his statement.   Before the election, Trump, according to Israeli news accounts, told Netanyahu that he wanted Israel to resolve its wars against two Iranian-supported groups, Hamas militants in Gaza and Hezbollah militants in Lebanon, before his inauguration as president on January 20. Israeli President Isaac Herzog is scheduled to meet with outgoing U.S. President Joe Biden on Tuesday in Washington as the mid-month deadline approaches for Israel to meet a Biden administration ultimatum that it allow more humanitarian aid into Gaza to assist Palestinians or risk possible restrictions on U.S. military funding. Israeli forces have encircled and largely isolated Jabaliya and the nearby northern Gaza towns of Beit Lahiya and Beit Hanoun for the past month, allowing in only a trickle of humanitarian aid. Experts from a panel that monitors food security say famine is imminent or may already be happening.   In the Sunday fighting, an Israeli airstrike killed at least 23 people, including seven children, in Aalmat village north of Beirut, far from the areas in the east and south where Hezbollah militants have a major presence. Lebanon's health ministry said another six people were wounded. Watch related report by Arash Arabasadi: There was no Israeli evacuation warning and no immediate Israeli comment on the attack. In northern Gaza, an Israeli strike on a home sheltering displaced people in the urban refugee camp of Jabaliya killed at least 17 people including nine women, according to Dr. Fadel Naim, director of Al-Ahly Hospital in Gaza City. The Israeli military, without offering evidence, said it had targeted a site where militants were operating. It said the details of the strike are under review. A separate strike hit a house in Gaza City, killing Wael al-Khour, a minister in the Hamas-run government, as well as his wife and three children, according to the Civil Defense first responders who operate under the government. In Syria, the state news agency SANA said an Israeli airstrike hit a residential building in the Damascus suburb of Sayyida Zeinab, killing seven civilians. The Britain-based opposition war monitor, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, suggested Hezbollah was targeted, but Israel did not offer any immediate comment. The war in Gaza was triggered when Hamas-led militants stormed into southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting about 250. Some 100 hostages are still inside Gaza, although about one-third of them are believed to be dead. Israel's counteroffensive has killed more than 43,000 Palestinians, more than half of them women and children, according to local health authorities. The Israeli military says the death toll includes thousands of Hamas militants. Some material in this report came from The Associated Press.

washington — The U.S. military said Monday that it had carried out strikes against nine targets associated with Iranian groups in Syria.  In a statement, the U.S. military said the strikes were made against two locations in Syria and were a response to several attacks on U.S. personnel in Syria in the past 24 hours.  The U.S. has occasionally carried out strikes against targets linked to Iran in both Iraq and Syria. In February, the U.S. launched airstrikes in Iraq and Syria against more than 85 targets linked to Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and militias it backs, in retaliation for a deadly attack on U.S. troops.  "These strikes will degrade the Iranian backed groups' ability to plan and launch future attacks on U.S. and coalition forces," the U.S. military said after the most recent strikes.  The U.S. has 900 troops in Syria and 2,500 in neighboring Iraq, on a mission to advise and assist local forces trying to prevent a resurgence of Islamic State, which in 2014 seized large swaths of both countries but was later defeated.  The U.S. has sent warships and fighter aircraft to the region since the Israel-Hamas conflict erupted on October 7, 2023, to try to deter Iran and Iran-backed groups from getting involved in the conflict.  U.S. forces have also helped shoot down projectiles that Iran launched toward Israel this year. 

The United States said Tuesday that Israel has made limited progress on increasing the flow of humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip as Washington requested, so the Biden administration will not limit arms transfers to Israel. State Department deputy spokesperson Vedant Patel told reporters that "we at this time have not made an assessment that the Israelis are in violation of U.S. law." The administration told its ally on October 13 that it had one month to increase aid to Gaza, where the situation after 13 months of war between Israel and Hamas militants has unleashed a catastrophic humanitarian situation, or face a reduction in military aid. The deadline was Tuesday. “We are not giving Israel a pass," Patel said, adding that "we want to see the totality of the humanitarian situation improve, and we think some of these steps will allow the conditions for that to continue to progress." Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with Israel’s top national security adviser, Ron Dermer, in Washington on Monday to go over the steps that Israel has taken. At the United Nations, U.S. envoy Linda Thomas-Greenfield told the Security Council that Israel has taken some important steps, including restoring aid deliveries to the north, but that it must ensure its actions are “fully implemented and its improvements sustained over time.” “And we continue to reiterate, there must be no forcible displacement nor policy of starvation in Gaza, which would have grave implications under U.S. and international law,” she said. A senior U.N. human rights official said at the same meeting that the entry and distribution of aid into Gaza has fallen to “some of the lowest levels in a year” and criticized Israel’s conduct of military operations in the north. “All states, consistent with their obligations under international law, must therefore assess arms sales or transfers and provision of military, logistical or financial support to a party to the conflict, with a view to ending such support if this risks serious violations of international law,” Ilze Brands Kehris, U.N. assistant secretary-general for human rights, said. Israel denies it is limiting aid to Gaza, blaming the U.N. and aid agencies for slow distribution and Hamas for stealing it. Earlier Tuesday, eight international aid organizations said that of 19 measures of compliance with the U.S. demands, Israel failed to comply with 15 and only partially complied with four. "Israel not only failed to meet the U.S. criteria that would indicate support to the humanitarian response, but concurrently took actions that dramatically worsened the situation on the ground, particularly in Northern Gaza," the report said. “That situation is in an even more dire state today than a month ago.” Asked what grade the United Nations would give Israel, spokesperson Stephane Dujarric would not offer one, but said, “I think from what we've been telling you over the last few days and frankly much longer, it's pretty clear that we're nowhere near what we need.” While aid entering Gaza is insufficient overall, the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs says it is especially bad in northern Gaza, where 85% of its attempts to coordinate aid convoys and humanitarian visits in October were denied or impeded. “As I brief you, Israeli authorities are blocking humanitarian assistance from entering North Gaza, where fighting continues, and around 75,000 people remain with dwindling water and food supplies,” acting humanitarian chief Joyce Msuya told the Security Council meeting. “Conditions of life across Gaza are unfit for human survival,” she said. Famine alert On Friday, U.N.-backed food security experts issued an urgent warning, saying there is a strong likelihood that famine is occurring or imminent in parts of northern Gaza and that immediate action is needed to avert a catastrophe. “By the time famine has been declared, people are already dying of hunger, with irreversible consequences that can last generations,” Rein Paulsen told the Security Council meeting. Paulsen is the director of the Office of Emergencies and Resilience at the U.N.’s Food and Agriculture Organization. “The window of opportunity to deliver this assistance is now, today, not tomorrow,” he said. Israel’s U.N. ambassador told reporters ahead of the council meeting that the report by the famine committee of the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, or IPC as the experts are known, is “harmful propaganda” and “filled with baseless and slanderous claims” against Israel. “As I have said here in the past, there are agencies dedicated to real humanitarian work, and then there are those like the IPC, which prioritize smearing Israel over actually helping those in need,” Danny Danon said. Inside the council, he said IPC claims of imminent famine in northern Gaza are “simply false,” and that Israel facilitated over 713 trucks into the north in October. He said across Gaza, a dozen bakeries produce pita bread, and overall, Israel is allowing aid in through multiple crossing points, including the Kissufim crossing to central Gaza, which was opened on Tuesday after having been shuttered 19 years ago. “Are these the actions of a state wishing to cause a famine?” Danon asked. Palestinian envoy Riyad Mansour said Israel should allow international journalists into Gaza to see for themselves whether there is famine or not. “We need international media, independent media, to go and to document exactly what is happening,” Mansour told reporters. “It is genocide in northern Gaza, and we need the international media to go and tell the story.” In 13 months of war, Israel has allowed only a few handpicked reporters to accompany its troops into Gaza on brief tours to see the Hamas tunnels. It has also shuttered the bureau of Qatar-based news channel Al Jazeera in Israel. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, at least 137 journalists and media workers have been killed, nearly all of them Palestinian. As the situation worsens, the Security Council’s 10 elected members are working on a draft resolution on the protection of civilians in the conflict and the need for an immediate cease-fire, release of hostages and scaling up of aid. Biden reaffirms support for Israel President Joe Biden reiterated his support of Israel during a Tuesday Oval Office meeting with Israel’s president and echoed the wish to see the return of the remaining hostages still held by Hamas in Gaza for more than a year. “My commitment to Israel is ironclad,” Biden told President Isaac Herzog during their morning meeting in the White House. “And we share a deep friendship.” Herzog underscored his government’s main objective: “First and foremost, we have to get the hostages back.” As President-elect Donald Trump begins to put his government together, his transition office announced Tuesday that former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee is his nominee for U.S. ambassador to Israel, and real estate investor Steve Witkoff will be his special envoy to the Middle East. Air strikes in Gaza, Beirut Israeli airstrikes killed at least 14 people in Gaza on Tuesday, Palestinian authorities said, while in Lebanon, plumes of smoke rose above Beirut’s southern suburbs less than an hour after Israeli forces told residents to evacuate. A strike early Tuesday hit a house at a refugee camp in central Gaza, killing three people, according to Al-Awda Hospital, which received the casualties. Israel's new defense minister, Israel Katz, said on X that during a meeting with military officials Tuesday, he reiterated that Israel will continue hitting Hezbollah with full force, and that there will be no cease-fire in Lebanon. The war in Gaza was triggered when Hamas-led militants stormed into southern Israel on October 7, 2023, killing about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting about 250. Some 100 hostages are still inside Gaza, although about one-third of them are believed to be dead. Israel's counteroffensive has killed more than 43,000 Palestinians, more than half of them women and children, according to local health authorities. The Israeli military says the death toll includes thousands of Hamas militants. The war spread to Lebanon in mid-September, after months of rocket fire from Hezbollah into Israel and drone and airstrikes by Israel’s military in south Lebanon escalated. More than 3,200 Lebanese have been killed, most of them in the past six weeks. Both Hamas and Hezbollah have been designated as terrorist organizations by the United States. VOA White House correspondent Anita Powell and United Nations correspondent Margaret Besheer contributed to this report. Information from The Associated Press and Reuters was used in this report.

BAKU, Azerbaijan — The head of the United Nations' nuclear watchdog said Tuesday he's hopeful that meetings this week with Iranian officials, including the country's new president, can lead to a breakthrough in monitoring the country's nuclear program, a longstanding issue that has gained new urgency as Israel has twice struck Iran amid rising tensions in the Middle East. Rafael Mariano Grossi, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, will travel to Iran on Wednesday to meet for the first time with President Masoud Pezeshkian, who was elected in July. Grossi said he hopes to build on positive discussions he had with Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi during the U.N. General Assembly in September. "We have a problem that we need to solve," Grossi said in an interview at the U.N. climate conference in Azerbaijan. "That is this gap, this lack of confidence, which we should not allow to grow into a self-fulfilling prophecy of using nuclear facilities as targets." He added: "There has been a bit of a dire straits dynamic with Iran that we want to go beyond." Iran is rapidly advancing its atomic program while increasing stockpiles of uranium enriched to near weapons-grade levels, all in defiance of international demands, according to the IAEA. Iran says its program is for energy purposes, not to build weapons. Grossi's visit comes as Israel and Iran have traded missile attacks in recent months after more than a year of war in Gaza, which is governed by Hamas, a group supported by Iran. Grossi noted that international law prohibits the attack of nuclear facilities and "it's obvious that is something that can have radiological consequences." The Biden administration said last month that it had won assurances from Israel that it would not attack nuclear or oil sites. A 2015 nuclear agreement between Iran and world powers put limits on Iran's nuclear program, which the West fears could be used to make nuclear weapons. The deal included the lifting of economic sanctions on Iran. But that deal collapsed after Donald Trump's administration in 2018 pulled the United States from it. That led Iran to abandon all limits put on its program and enrich uranium to up to 60% purity. When asked if the IAEA feared Iran may be developing a bomb, Grossi said he didn't "have any information that would sustain that." He added that inspectors' job was not to "judge intentions," but rather verify that what Iran says about its nuclear program was true. Trump's reelection last week raises questions about whether and how the incoming administration and Iran may engage. Grossi said he had worked with the first Trump administration, which he said engaged in "seamless, professional work," and looked forward to looking with Trump's second administration. "Circumstances have changed in that the problem has grown bigger than it was," said Grossi. "The problem of not finding a solution."

"By faith Enoch was taken up so that he should not see death; and he was not found because God took him up; for he obtained the witness that before his being taken up he was pleasing to God" (Heb 11:5).

When you walk by faith, you enjoy intimacy with God.

Our second hero of faith is Enoch. Genesis 5:21-24 records that "Enoch lived sixty-five years, and became the father of Methuselah. Then Enoch walked with God three hundred years after he became the father of Methuselah, and he had other sons and daughters. So all the days of Enoch were three hundred and sixty-five years. And Enoch walked with God; and he was not, for God took him."

What a wonderful epitaph: "Enoch walked with God." His life exemplifies the walk of faith. Adam and Eve had walked with God in the Garden of Eden, but their sin separated them from such intimacy. Enoch experienced the fellowship with God they had forfeited.

Enoch's faithful walk pleased God greatly. And after more than three hundred years on earth, Enoch was translated to heaven without ever experiencing death. It's as if God simply said, "Enoch, I enjoy your company so much, I want you to join me up here right now."

Like Enoch, there is coming a generation of Christians who will never see death. Someday—perhaps soon—Jesus will return for His church, "then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up . . . in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and thus we shall always be with the Lord" (1 Thess. 4:17). Enoch is a beautiful picture of that great future event, which we call the rapture of the church.

As you walk with God, He delights in you. You're His child and your praises and fellowship bring Him joy. Psalm 116:15 says, "Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His godly ones." Even death itself simply ushers you into His presence for all eternity.

Let the joy of intimacy with God, and the anticipation of seeing Christ face to face—either by rapture or by death— motivate you to please Him more and more each day of your life.

Suggestions for Prayer

Thank God for the promise of Christ's return.

For Further Study

Read 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18.

• What events surround the rapture of the church?
• How were the Thessalonians to respond to Paul's teaching about the rapture?
• How should you respond?

From Drawing Near by John MacArthur Copyright © 1993. Used by permission of Crossway Books, a division of Good News Publishers, Wheaton, IL 60187, www.crossway.com.

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TAIPEI, TAIWAN — Taiwanese businessman Robert Tsao said on Monday he would sue in a Taiwan court senior Chinese officials over sanctions they had placed on him, saying he was seeking to counter China's intimidation of lawful activity. China, which claims Taiwan as its own territory, last month said it would punish and sanction Tsao, the retired founder of chipmaker UMC, for alleged criminal and pro-Taiwan independence activities. China's Taiwan Affairs Office said the "Black Bear Academy" that Tsao has helped fund was seeking to incite separatism that would endanger cross-strait ties. Tsao, one of Taiwan's richest men who has pledged to provide millions to two civilian defense training programs, told a press conference that China was threatening the lawful holding of political views in Taiwan, and his personal safety. The lawsuit will be lodged in a Taipei court against Song Tao, head of China's Taiwan Affairs Office, and also the office's spokesperson Chen Binhua. Taiwan courts have no jurisdiction in China and senior Chinese officials do not visit the island. China's Taiwan Affairs Office did not respond to a request for comment. Cheng Wen-lung, one of Tsao's lawyers, said they understood that neither Song nor Chen would come to Taiwan and there would be no way of enforcing any judgment, but the case was about sending a message to Beijing, given it has been seeking to use legal means to put pressure on Taiwanese persons it does not like. "Legally, we have to do this," Cheng said. "Taiwan is in a difficult spot, but we have to work hard. You cannot not do anything." Tsao's team is also looking at suing in a U.S. court under that country's Alien Tort Claims Act. China's announcement against Tsao came as the country's military staged a day of war games around Taiwan it said were a warning to "separatist acts." Taiwan's government rejects Beijing's sovereignty claims. UMC says Tsao has nothing to do with the company any longer having retired a decade ago.

Taipei, Taiwan — Taiwan on Monday said it had closed a probe into pagers that exploded in Lebanon in September and caused a deadly blow to Iran-backed Hezbollah, saying no Taiwanese citizens or companies were involved. Israeli media reported that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claimed responsibility for the attack during a cabinet meeting, telling ministers that senior defense officials and political figures were opposed to the detonation of the pagers but that he went ahead with the operation. Security sources have previously said the pagers carried the name of Taiwan-based Gold Apollo, a company which has asserted that it did not make them. Taiwan's government has also said the pagers were not made in Taiwan. Taipei prosecutors, who were investigating the case, said in a statement the AR-924 pager model that exploded in Lebanon was manufactured, traded, and shipped by a firm called Frontier Group Entity, and made outside of Taiwan. They added, however, that Gold Apollo had authorized the company to use the Apollo trademark. "There is no evidence indicating that any domestic manufacturers or individuals were accomplices in the relevant explosions, violating the Counter-Terrorism Financing Act, or engaging in other illegal activities," the prosecutors said in a statement. "No concrete evidence of criminal activity has been discovered in this case, nor have any specific individuals been implicated in any criminal activity, following a comprehensive investigation." Prosecutors have previously confirmed that they questioned Gold Apollo's president and founder Hsu Ching-kuang and a woman called Teresa Wu, the sole employee of a company called Apollo Systems Ltd. In their statement, the prosecutors said Wu acted as a liaison with Frontier, but there was no evidence she "had prior knowledge or participated in any conspiracy or collaboration related to the explosion incidents." The prosecutors said there was some information they did not know, including the exact identities of the Frontier employees Wu communicated with. It said one person was called "T" and was presumably the head of Frontier, while another was called "M" and was presumably the sales director. Gold Apollo told Reuters it had also just seen the prosecutor’s statement, and that it was not immediately able to comment further.

Zhuhai, China — Stealth fighter jets and attack drones took center stage as China's largest air show officially opened on Tuesday, an opportunity for Beijing to showcase its growing military might to potential customers and rivals alike. China has poured resources into modernizing and expanding its aviation capabilities as it faces off against the United States and others around regional flashpoints like Taiwan. Record numbers of Chinese warplanes have been sent around the self-ruled democratic island, which Beijing claims as its territory, over the past few years. The star of Airshow China, which showcases Beijing's civil and military aerospace sector every two years in the southern city of Zhuhai, is the new J-35A stealth fighter jet. Its inclusion in the airshow suggests it is nearly ready to enter operation, which would make China the only country other than the United States to have two stealth fighters in action, experts said. The J-35A is lighter than China's existing model, the J20, and looks more similar in design to a US F-35. A group of J20s performed a display flight on Tuesday morning, flying in a diamond formation across a grey sky. State news agency Xinhua quoted military expert Wang Mingzhi as saying the combination of the two models greatly enhances the People's Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF)'s "ability to conduct offensive operations in high-threat and contested environments." Attack drones The airshow will feature a dedicated drone zone for the first time, reflecting their increased prominence in warzones, including Ukraine. The SS-UAV -- a massive mothership that can rapidly release swarms of smaller drones for intelligence gathering, as well as strikes -- will be on display in Zhuhai, according to the South China Morning Post. In October the United States unveiled sanctions targeting China-based companies linked to the production of drones that Russia has deployed in Ukraine. Moscow and Beijing have deepened military and defense ties since Russia's invasion of its neighbor three years ago, and the secretary of its Security Council, Sergei Shoigu, is due to visit Zhuhai. This year the show's focus is squarely on the military sector, as it coincides with the 75th anniversary of the PLAAF, but China's burgeoning space industry will also be showcasing developments. A model of a homegrown reusable space cargo shuttle will debut at the show, Xinhua reported on Monday. Named Haoloong, the shuttle is designed to be launched on a commercial rocket, and then dock with China's space station Tiangong. "It can re-enter the atmosphere, fly and land horizontally at a designated airport, allowing for recovery and reuse," Xinhua said. Beijing has poured huge resources into its space program over the past decade in an effort to catch up to traditional space powers the United States and Russia.

TOKYO — Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, battered in parliamentary elections last month, has survived a rare runoff vote against the opposition to remain the country's leader but he still faces turmoil ahead. One of his top priorities is dealing with the aftermath of a major corruption scandal in the long-ruling Liberal Democratic Party, in which dozens of lawmakers from the party are alleged to have pocketed profits from event ticket sales as kickbacks. Ishiba also now has a much-emboldened, opposition eager to push through policies long stymied by the LDP. Support ratings for his Cabinet have fallen to about 30%. Here is a look at what's happening in Japan's tumultuous politics, and what it might mean for Ishiba and his government as they prepare to navigate a second term of U.S. President-elect Donald Trump. Why did the vote in parliament take place? A parliamentary vote for a new leader is mandatory within 30 days of a general election. In the past that was mostly ignored as the head of the LDP usually enjoyed a majority in the Lower House, the more powerful of Japan’s two-chamber parliament. This time, though, because Ishiba's LDP and its junior coalition partner lost its majority in the recent election, the runoff on Monday couldn't be avoided — the first in 30 years. What's next for the prime minister? Opposition's top leader, Yoshihiko Noda, has noted that nearly half of all lower house steering committees are now headed by the opposition. That’s a huge change from the pre-election domination of the LDP, which controlled all but three of the 27 committees. “We are going to have a new landscape in Japanese politics,” Noda said. Twelve of the committees in key areas, including budget, political reforms, national security and legal affairs, will be headed by Noda’s Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan and two other main opposition groups. What's certain is that the era of LDP’s one-sided rule is over, for now, and the opposition has a chance to achieve policies long opposed by the ruling conservatives, including on issues like gender equality and diversity. Noda last Friday said a legal committee that is now headed by his party’s gender equality chief, Chinami Nishimura, is aiming to achieve a civil code revision to allow married couples the option of keeping separate surnames. That change has been stalled by LDP conservatives for 30 years despite widespread support by the public and a United Nations panel on discrimination against women. Who is the opposition kingmaker? Yuichiro Tamaki is head of the conservative Democratic Party for the People, which quadrupled its seats to 28 in the election. The vote elevated his party from a fringe group to a major player. He is now being cast as a potential key to Ishiba’s survival. A Harvard-educated former Finance Ministry bureaucrat, the 55-year-old Tamaki has seen success by pushing for the raising of a basic tax-free income allowance and an increase of take-home wages. His messages on social media have appealed to younger voters, who have long been ignored by LDP policies catering to conservative elderly. Ishiba apparently seems to find Tamaki’s 28-member DPP an attractive partner to secure a majority. The two parties, which have common ground in some areas — including support for greater nuclear energy use and a stronger military — have started policy talks. Ishiba met with both Tamaki and Noda on Monday but Tamaki may be cautious about moving too close to a scandal-plagued LDP ahead of another election next year. Noda is struggling to form a unified opposition to force a change of government, which he says is his next goal. What does this mean for Ishiba's government? For Ishiba, the “hung parliament” requires him to win over opposition forces so he can push his policies. While considered unstable, it might also provide a chance for a more consensus-based policy making process, experts say. “I’m taking the current situation positively as a chance to get our opposition voice heard more carefully,” Tamaki said. Ishiba also faces challenges of restoring unity in his own party. A number of senior LDP lawmakers are waiting to overthrow Ishiba, though their priority is to resolidify their footholds, not infighting — and nobody is eager to do damage control at this difficult time anyway. “The [Ishiba] administration is quite unstable. ... He will have to get opposition parties' cooperation every time he wants to get a bill approved, which could stall policies,” said University of Tokyo political science professor Yu Uchiyama. And even if Ishiba survives politically in the coming months, there could be a call for his replacement ahead of next elections. “Japan is likely to return to a period of short-lived government,” Uchiyama said. How does this affect Japan's diplomacy, security and ties with Trump? Ishiba congratulated Trump hours after his victory and in a brief telephone conversation, they agreed to closely work together to further elevate their alliance. While experts say Trump understands the importance of U.S.-Japan relations, he may — as he did in his first administration — pressure Japan to pay more for the cost of 50,000 U.S. troops in Japan or to buy more expensive American weapons. Trump's possible tariff proposals could also hurt Japanese exporters. Ishiba on Saturday renewed his pledge to pursue an ongoing military buildup plan under a strategy that calls for a counter-strike capability with long-range cruise-missiles. He has long advocated a more equal Japan-U.S. security alliance but could face difficulty pursuing those plans. ‘’It will be a fantastic experiment to see if a national unity government can get Japan through until the next election,” said Michael Cucek, an expert in Japanese politics at Temple University in Japan.  

International aid groups say Israel hasn’t met the U.S. demand deadline for allowing more humanitarian access into the Gaza Strip. The groups say conditions are worse now than any point in the 13-month-old war. This week, the outgoing Biden administration is expected to judge whether Israel has done enough to meet a demand issued last month to get more aid flowing into Gaza. We speak to Larry Garber, former USAID Mission Director to the West Bank and Gaza.

U.S. President-elect Donald Trump has left little question about the sort of economic policies he will pursue when he is sworn in for a second term as president in January. The once-and-future president has promised to extend existing tax cuts and implement new ones; to pursue a deregulation agenda, particularly when it comes to energy production; to reinstate a strong protectionist trade policy, including substantial tariffs on imports; and to undertake a "mass deportation" program that would remove a large number of the millions of undocumented immigrants currently residing in the United States. While there may be little doubt about the kind of policies Trump will implement, the degree to which he will pursue them is an open question. "The problem that all economists are dealing with is they don't know how much of what Trump said on the campaign trail to take seriously," Steven B. Kamin, a senior fellow at the conservative-leaning American Enterprise Institute, told VOA. "They don't know if he's going to do a lot of these things, or if he is, how far he'll take it." When it comes to tariffs, Trump has promised across-the-board 10%-20% levies on all imports, and charges of up to 60% on goods coming from China, which experts warn would be economically ruinous. His rhetoric about fossil fuel extraction suggests he will drive up oil and gas production, even though the U.S. is currently producing more energy than it ever has. On immigration, he and his advisers have vacillated between suggesting that all undocumented people will be forcibly removed and describing a much more targeted operation. Tax policy One thing that appears certain is that Trump will work with Congress — which seems likely to be fully controlled by the Republican Party — to extend the tax cuts that became law as part of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which he signed into law in 2017. Those tax cuts reduced the income taxes paid by many American workers and reduced taxable income by increasing the standard deduction. They also sharply cut the top business income tax bracket from 39% to 21%. Those provisions are all scheduled to expire over the next several years, some as soon as 2025, and Trump has proposed making them permanent. Trump has also floated the idea of other tax cuts, including further reducing the business income tax to a maximum of 15%, and making income from overtime wages, tips and Social Security payments nontaxable, all of which would reduce government revenues. Kamin said the stimulative impact of Trump's proposed additional tax changes would likely not be great, but the impact on the country's debt might be, because they will virtually guarantee additional government borrowing to finance deficit spending. "The real concern for folks that are concerned about the fiscal balance — and I'm one of them — is that by cementing in place large fiscal deficits as far as the eye can see, even in environments of strong economic activity when we should be running surpluses, that leads to increases in the debt," he said. "That, eventually, should lead to crowding out of private investment, rising interest rates, and more worries about the government's sustainability position," Kamin added. "But when the debt will reach a level that will be worrisome in that respect, nobody knows." Cost-cutting In theory, some of the deficit spending made necessary by large tax cuts could be offset by a reduction in government spending, something Trump has also floated on the campaign trail. In particular, the president-elect has proposed creating a Department of Government Efficiency, to be headed by Elon Musk, the billionaire founder of the electric car company Tesla and the rocket builder SpaceX, and the owner of X, the social network formerly known as Twitter. For his part, Musk has mused that it should be possible to slash federal spending by as much as $2 trillion per year, or about 30%. Reductions of that magnitude would require deep cuts to a vast array of programs, including elements of the social safety net such as Social Security and federal health programs like Medicaid. However, it is unclear how Trump would persuade even a Republican Congress to enact such a wide-ranging reduction in government services. Immigration policy If Trump follows through on a policy of mass deportation of undocumented immigrants, it is virtually certain to have a negative impact on economic sectors where they are present as laborers in significant concentrations, especially agriculture and construction, said Marcus Noland, executive vice president and director of studies at the Peterson Institute for International Economics. "If you take lots of people out of the labor force, you reduce the amount of output, because there's less labor available, and you raise prices," Noland told VOA. "These people are not distributed evenly across the United States economy," he said. "They're concentrated in agriculture and construction, so you would disrupt those sectors the most, especially if you combine it with tariffs." Trade policy Trump's tariff proposals, especially if he follows through with his maximalist proposals from the campaign trail, could be significantly damaging. While theoretically meant to stimulate American manufacturing, Noland warned that they could have the opposite effect. "Some modeling that I worked on suggest that those tariff policies, instead of reviving the industrial sector, will actually reduce industrial activity in the United States," he warned. Blanket tariffs on imports, and especially high levies on Chinese goods, would create severe challenges for U.S. manufacturers. "The reason is that you would increase the price of industrial inputs, and so, the United States would become a high-cost place to produce," he said. "Investment would fall — and investment is intensive in industrial materials — so, ironically, it has the opposite effect of what its proponents say."

Ukraine abandoned its constitutional neutrality to pursue EU and NATO membership only in 2019, years after Russia annexed Crimea and backed pro-Russia separatists in Donbas. NATO considered Ukraine’s membership after Moscow invaded Georgia, starting a war in Europe.

The naira on Tuesday continued to depreciate against the dollar at both official and parallel foreign exchange markets. According to data from FMDQ, the local currency fell to N1689.88 per dollar on Tuesday from N1681.42 exchanged on Monday, recording N8.42 depreciation. Similarly, at the black market, the naira lost N5 to close at N1740 on […]

The post Naira slumps further across FX markets first appeared on Business Hallmark.

To drive the enforcement of the compulsory insurance of public buildings across the country, The National Insurance Commission (NAICOM) in Abuja has inaugurated a technical committee. The committee was inaugurated by NAICOM’s Commissioner for Insurance, Mr Mohammed Kari, and it has membership drawn from NAICOM, the Federal Fire Service (FFS) from all the zones and […]

NAICOM moves to enforce compulsory insurance of public buildings

Over 1000 companies expressed interest in 17 categories of projects for the 2017 capital projects of the Nigerian Railway Corporation (NRC). The Managing Director of the NRC, Engr. Fidet Okhiria disclosed this on Tuesday while declaring open the process for the opening of bids for the projects. The formal opening of bids held at the […]

Over 1,000 firms bid for 2017 railway projects