Tuesday’s briefing: Israel’s Supreme Court rejects move to restrict this
Israel’s Supreme Court rejects an attempt to limit his power
Israel’s Supreme Court has narrowly rejected a law proposed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that aimed to limit the court’s own powers. The momentous ruling, which was decided by a majority of eight to seven judges, could trigger a constitutional crisis.
Here’s the latest.
Members of Netanyahu’s Likud party said the Supreme Court’s decision was “contrary to the nation’s desire for unity, especially in times of war.” They condemned the court for ruling on the issue while Israeli soldiers were “fighting and endangering themselves in battle.”
The decision is likely to reignite a serious domestic crisis that began a year ago over the right-wing government’s judiciary overhaul plan, which sparked mass protests that at times brought the country to a near standstill. It heralds a potential confrontation between the court and the ruling coalition that could fundamentally reshape Israeli democracy.
Background: The law would prevent judges from using the legal concept of ‘reasonableness’ to overrule decisions made by lawmakers and ministers. In a country that has one parliament building, no formally written constitution and a largely ceremonial president, many people view the Supreme Court as the only bulwark against government power. The government argued that “reasonableness” was ill-defined and subjective.
In Gaza:
Israel announced it would begin withdrawing several thousand troops from Gaza, at least temporarily. The military emphasized that the move did not indicate a compromise on Israel’s intention to continue fighting or to heed U.S. requests to scale back.
The fighting remains fierce. Half of Gaza’s approximately 2.2 million residents are at risk of starvation and 90 percent say they regularly go a whole day without food, according to the UN.
A powerful earthquake struck Japan
Western Japan was hit by an earthquake that prompted evacuation orders in several prefectures, trapped people under collapsed buildings and disrupted electricity for tens of thousands of people in Ishikawa prefecture, officials and Japan’s public broadcaster said.
Here’s the latest.
The earthquake struck the Noto Peninsula around 4:10 p.m. and measured 7.6 on Japan’s seismic intensity scale, the Japan Meteorological Agency said. The US Geological Survey reported a magnitude of 7.5. Here is a map of the affected areas.
Officials issued tsunami warnings and then downgraded them to warnings, but warned that aftershocks and tsunamis could last for up to a week.
Embroiled in espionage tensions between the US and China
In the growing spy war between the U.S. and China, some U.S. federal employees with ties to Asia, even distant ones, say they are being unfairly scrutinized. They say U.S. counterintelligence and security agents wrongly view them as potential spies and deny them jobs in foreign policy and national security.
The paranoia weakens the U.S., they say, by preventing qualified workers — including many Asian Americans — from serving in diplomatic missions, intelligence units and other crucial posts where their fluent language skills or cultural backgrounds could be useful.
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Around the world
In the 1950s, followers of the Afro-Brazilian religion, Umbanda, began gathering on Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro on New Year’s Eve to make offerings to Iemanjá, a sea goddess of motherhood and fertility. After the area began hosting a fireworks show in the 1980s, the event became one of the world’s largest New Year’s celebrations, attracting more than two million revelers every year.
But it remains one of the holiest times of the year for devotees of Afro-Brazilian religions, which have their roots in slavery, worship a range of gods and have long faced prejudice in Brazil.
These classics lose their copyrights
In 2024, thousands of copyrighted works published in 1928 will enter the public domain after their 95-year term has expired, including Tigger, Peter Pan, and the original, black-and-white version of Mickey Mouse. This means those characters and stories can be recreated without permission. So if you’d rather your childhood favorites never change, well… you might want to stop reading.
This February, Tigger will join his old friend in a slasher film – the sequel to ‘Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey’, in which that lovable bear becomes a sledgehammer-wielding maniac. We could also get new versions of Peter Pan, the song ‘Mack the Knife’ or DH Lawrence’s novel ‘Lady Chatterley’s Lover’.
Here is the full list of everything that ends up in the public domain this year.