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THE US HAS vetoed an Arab-backed UN draft resolution calling for measures to protect the Palestinians but failed to win any backing for its own text condemning Hamas for the violence in Gaza.
The two failed votes at the Security Council came a few hours after a young Palestinian woman was shot dead by Israeli soldiers near the Gaza border fence.
At least 123 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire since the protests began at the end of March. No Israelis have been killed.
US Ambassador Nikki Haley declared that “it is now completely clear that the UN is hopelessly biased against Israel,” saying council members were “willing to blame Israel, but unwilling to blame Hamas”.
Ten countries, including China, France and Russia voted in favor of the draft put forward by Kuwait on behalf of Arab countries. Four countries — Britain, Ethiopia, the Netherlands and Poland — abstained.
Kuwait’s Ambassador Mansour al-Otaibi said the US veto “will increase the sense of despair among the Palestinians,” fuel further violence and “feed the sentiments of hatred and extremism”.
The Kuwait-drafted text had called for “measures to guarantee the safety and protection” of Palestinian civilians in Gaza and the occupied West Bank, and requested a UN report on proposals for an “international protection mechanism”.
Haley told the council the measure was “wildly inaccurate in its characterization of recent events in Gaza” by condemning Israel for the violence and failing to mention Hamas, which rules Gaza.
“The terrorist group Hamas bears primary responsibility for the awful living conditions in Gaza,” she told the council ahead of the vote.
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No support for US draft
During a second vote, the United States failed to win support for its own rival measure calling on Palestinian militants to halt their protests in Gaza and condemning Hamas.
Eleven countries abstained, while Russia and two others opposed it.
A draft resolution requires nine votes to be adopted in the 15-member council and no veto from the five permanent members — Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States.
The outcome deepened the deadlock at the top UN body over how to respond to the flare up of violence in Gaza that a UN envoy has warned is close to the brink of war.
“This session was another missed opportunity for this council,” French Ambassador Francois Delattre said, deploring an “increasingly deafening silence” from the United Nations on the Israeli-Palestinian crisis.
A barrage of rocket and mortars into Israel from Gaza on Tuesday was followed by Israeli strikes on 65 militant sites in the Gaza Strip in the worst flareup since the 2014 war.
Israel has fought three wars in Gaza against Hamas, which the United States considers a terrorist organization.
After the failed votes, Arab diplomats said they were considering turning to the UN General Assembly to win adoption for the US-vetoed resolution.
It was the second time that Haley has resorted to US veto power to block a UN measure on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
In December, Haley vetoed a draft resolution that rejected President Donald Trump’s decision to move the US embassy to Jerusalem after all 14 other council members supported it.
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Say what you like about the government, but my opinion is that they have done a great job of keeping what is probably an anadequate ICU system from coming under too much pressure.
@michal heba: oh yeah? So why did they have to close car parks and walkways after a few weeks?
The people of ireland were doing a great job of ignoring social distancing guidelines until they were strictly policed.
@Peter McGlynn: agreed…. but in this instance I think the results have been as positive as we could have hoped for as a people. And that’s not to disrespect people who lost loved ones.. but it could have been a lot worse
@thomas patrick: there is always some element of no cooperation… But in general its people and front staff did all the work. Politicians are still free to travel in government fleet etc.
@Pád: yep . The medical profession provided the advice and the government acted. Not like Mr. Orange across the water.
I’m only trying to inject a little bit of positivity in a place where it’s easy to bash people. Do any of us think we’d do a better job? Or even put ourselves forward for the job in the first place? I dont think so.
And yes, absolute credit to the heroes on the front line more than anyone else
@thomas patrick: On what basis have they done a great job? Only by looking at the media spun faux comparisons of Italy and UK. When you compare with most similar European countries or the likes of New Zealand you see what could have been possible with an effective strategy and some leadership. We fell some way short. We’ve done ok but it’s been in the absence of adequate leadership.
@thomas patrick: What’s the relevance in comparing us to a continent of 330 million people and a totally different social set up? I don’t see it positive to constantly say we are doing somewhat better than the couple countries that have plundered globally and that have much larger denser populations. Why not look at what’s possible in the majority of Western European / Scandinavian countries or other similar island nations like New Zealand and believe we can do much better.
@thomas patrick: we are an island, we could have done way better. We could have achieved the same as NZ or Australia. The “Orange One” has a lower death per capita rate than us, and when this blows over you want someone like the “Orange One” to get your economy going full tilt and roaring again – he has a business head and those types will be nearly as important as the front line workers fighting this crisis in the certain recession ahead.
@Daniel Dunne: Comparing NZ or the Aussies to Ireland is apples and oranges. They have very different flight traffic to a country like Ireland. They could be doing better, but the metric you have there isnt a good one. If you compare us to countries who do have similar traffic were doing pretty well. Equal to Netherlands, better than the UK for example. We’re way behind Germany, but when aren’t they the best at stuff like that in fairness. Credit where credits due.
@Gerald OBrien: Also if you do the math America 328,000,000(population) / 67,000(deaths) = 4,800. So 1 death every 4,800. Ireland 4,900,000(population) / 1265(deaths) = 3873. Last time I checked 3873 is less than 4,800
@Gerald OBrien: Amsterdam and London are major global air travel hubs. How exactly does Ireland have similar flight traffic to the Netherlands and the UK?
And you can bet Australia and NZ have far more frequent flights from China.
You’re talking nonsense.
@Gerald OBrien: your correct in saying we can’t compare to Aus & NZ as it’s been summer over there whilst it’s been winter in this part of the world, also Dublin airport is a major hub with 33 million passing through last year, add to that the school tours to Northern Italy, Cheltenham has effected us and also the Liverpool matches tying us in with the UK more than the rest so we equally can’t be compared to Scandinavia
That’s really good news. Now they need to get the health service back up and running generally, and start treating people in some of the 100s of empty beds.
@Mairead Jenkins: no one is stopping any one from attending the hospital where needed. It would seem in the past that a lot of people attending A&E, don’t need to.
@Jim Buckley Barrett: I agree with you re A and E. What I meant was the horrendous waiting lists. Good chance to start tackling them with so much spare capacity plus very high availability of beds in all the private hospitals.
@Jim O Brien Tech: I think every country is having issues around testing and the availability of staff and resources to do so, but at over 34000 tests per million population, we have actually tested a lot more than most countries.
@Dell: Noted however harris has promised more than once he would get to a level of testing when he has not so why keep telling people different when it is not possible
That’s good. Hoping nurses get the pay rise they were promised last year.
A clap for frontline workers, but an instant pay rise for TDs.
Imagine if nurses held their ground on negotiations during this pandemic, because they’re in demand. That’s capitalism, right? But nurses are not as immoral as businesses or FG’s neoliberal policies.
@Dean: the unfortunate thing Dean is that this government is currently throwing billions of euros at the economy and health system to keep everything afloat. This will have to be paid back. I can’t see any pay rises for anyone in that industry unfortunately. And I’m not looking forward to our next budget.
This is interesting. Does anyone know how many people have died while in ICU? One would assume that if diagnosed with Covid-19 which then became serious resulting in hospitalisation and subsequent transfer to ICU, that most of our 1,200+ deaths should have occurred by that sequence/route. This does not appear to have been the case. It appears that the vast majority of our Covid deaths never made it to ICU and possibly never even made it to hospital. Or I am I missing something somewhere…..
@David Hughes: frail people aren’t put on ventilators in ICU because the outcomes aren’t good for them, i.e. it’s an intervention that doesn’t work. Nothing to do with capacity, it’s the same in normal times. So there’s lots of deaths outside of ICU.
@Hundredth Idiot: Thank you. So those that are deemed to be too frail are not given the chance of life as their possible outcomes are not good – in order to make room for the potential intake of Covid 19 cases? The ICU numbers that have died seem very low in comparison with the national figure
@David Hughes: No, you’re fundamentally misunderstanding. There is no capacity issue, there is no “not being given the chance of life”. ICU isn’t the most appropriate place for many frail patients. It’s a clinical decision. Google “clinical frailty scale” and COVID-19.
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