 The UN General Assembly has passed a resolution calling for a ceasefire in Gaza. What happened during this vote? Taiwan is going to the polls in a month to elect a new president. Who are the candidates and what is its take? This is the Daily Debrief. These are your stories for the day. And before we go any further, if you're watching this on YouTube, please hit the subscribe button. The UN General Assembly has passed a resolution calling for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza. The resolution was backed by 153 countries while 23 abstained and 10 countries were in opposition. Now unsurprisingly among those who opposed the ceasefire was the United States. The UK, Germany and Italy were among those who abstained. This once again shows the decisive sentiment among countries across the world for a ceasefire and an end to Israeli brutality. However, the vote is non-binding and will of course not be heeded by Israel. We go to Abdul for the details. Abdul, thank you so much for joining us. Yet another discussion at the UN General Assembly. Very much on expected lines, but before we go into some of the details and who said what does the resolution say? Resolution has a very clear cut position. It is similar to what was proposed in the Security Council on Friday. Basically saying that there should be an immediate humanitarian ceasefire and there should be release of all the hostages. And it also, by the way, talks about access to humanitarian aid, which of course is one of the major points. So these are the three basic things with the resolution talks about. Basically, during the discussion, there was an attempt by Austria and US to basically put some amendments to these three points. Primarily to indicate that there should be some mention of Hamas, both the incident on October 7 and related to the hostages. But both the amendments proposed by Austria and US were rejected by the majority of the people because it required two-third majority and they did not get that required number. Abdul, in the context of course, what are the kind of positions that various, I think key countries have taken. Let's start with the United States, of course, which everyone was sort of looking at. I mean, we knew what the US position would be, but nonetheless, it's essential to sort of, I think also for history's sake, to sort of have it out very clearly. Well, no matter what Biden has said after the session, the UN General Assembly session got over and which is reported widely in the media that he has apparently called Israelis to listen to the world community because apparently they are losing support and so on and so forth. Of course, this is the strongest so far in the last more than two months. This is the strongest which the US has taken a position in public when it comes to Israeli war in Gaza. But in the General Assembly, they have stuck to what their position has been so far. They claimed that their concerns about rising civilian casualty and apparently they are upset about it. But at the same time, they want to kind of balance it by saying that we need to criticize Hamas. We need to acknowledge the Israeli right to self-defense and so on and so forth. On those similar lines, the US has taken the position. So it's voting against the resolution again, basically was with the similar statement that it does not fulfill the resolution does not fulfill. Basically, it does not reflect the reality on the ground and we need to criticize Hamas before we talk about ceasefire and so on and so forth. So this has been the position as far as the other. So in a way, there was an attempt to basically block the resolution in some way or another which failed, of course. Abdul, what about some of the other key powers that I think are important to register at this point of time? Well, most of the other countries voted in favor of the resolution as they did so including the permanent members except for UK. Even UK in this resolution in the General Assembly basically abstained instead of voting in support of the resolution. So the position has remained the same. But when it comes to China, Russia and other countries, they have basically, it seems they have been quite consistent. In fact, the Arab countries, which basically were behind this resolution, behind this emergency session, while invoking the United for Peace resolution, Egyptians, which basically represented the Arab groups, group inside the General Assembly, talked about how the so-called arguments of Israeli right to self-defense is bogus is hypocritical. It does not because Israel is an occupying power and as an occupying power, it does not have that right. So invoking that right, which of course is not there in international law is basically an attempt to seek legitimacy for war crimes. It is an attempt to justify the killings of civilians. And these are the words which basically were uttered by the Egyptian ambassador in the General Assembly. And others, of course, most of them did not speak because the session got suspended for until Friday. It will resume again. But their voting and their earlier statements in the Security Council, during the Security Council debate in the Security Council basically remains by and large the same. That they do not agree with this invocation of Israel's right to self-defense. They do not agree that there is any kind of possibility of bargaining whether the condemnation of Israel should come first or the ceasefire should come first. They have completely kind of stated that the ceasefire is an immediate need. And there is a humanitarian situation which is getting just deteriorated every day, every minute, and that need to be taken care of first. And that's the position that most of the other countries have taken. Abdullain, finally, of course, you mentioned Biden's comments. Does it look like the US is also feeling the pressure which is leading to these comments? Although like you said, the votes on the ground, the supply of weapons, all of them convey a different message. But at least rhetorically, does it look like the US has sort of is much more on a shaky wicket, so to speak? Exactly. There is a pressure, of course. There is a pressure not only by the world community, but also the people inside the United States. Election is coming and they're worried about the popular mood, which can, particularly the Democrats are worried about the popular mood. So both the popular pressure from within the United States and the global, it seems that more than 80% of the UN members have kind of are in favor of ceasefire at this moment without any doubt. That basically, of course, creates a pressure. Most of their close allies, some of the European allies have also kind of started speaking about the need of ceasefire. And they do not want to invoke as US has been invoking the right Israel side to self-defense anymore at this hour. So given the changes and given across the globe and of course the popular pressure created from within the United States, the US government, Biden government is under pressure. And this statement by Biden on Tuesday is a reflection of that pressure which is building up. Well, thank you so much for the analysis. We'll come back to you as developments for the take place. Taiwan is said to go to the polls to elect a successor to Tsai Ing-wen, who has been in power since 2016. Lai Chang-tae, the direct candidate of a democratic progressive party, is leading in the polls. The elections come at a crucial time when Taiwan and the entire region has a huge geopolitical significance. The results could have a huge impact on tensions in the region. We go to Anish to understand more. And very crucial time, of course, Taiwan has probably become one of the most controversial regions in the world, a lot of tension building around it. So first of all, who are the candidates? What are the antecedents and where do they sort of, you know, what are the positions? Well, let's begin with the ruling party candidate. What we have here is William Lai. He's the vice president right now and has been a longtime supporter of the Tsai Ing-wen government, obviously, at her policies as well. So he pretty much belongs to that group of the DPP, the Democratic People's Party, that who are inclined towards, you know, trying to create this new Taiwanese identity as separate from the Chinese identity, which is not something that most of the population in Taiwan are keen of. No matter how they feel about the communist rule in mainland, they definitely do not identify as a separate nationality. Most of them are completely averse to any such position, but definitely they have always tried to soften it with, you know, by playing up anti-communist tendencies, which is also widespread in many ways because of various propaganda machines that exist in the islet. And then we have the Kuomintang, the former ruling party in Taiwan, who is presenting Hu Yue. He is somebody who has promised a more peaceful coexistence with the mainland. He has criticized the government and Kuomintang right now, while, you know, using the platform of trying to go back to status quo or, you know, the status quo between the cross-grades relations that have existed before came to power, they are trying to focus more right now on the failures of the current government in, you know, controlling the cost of living crisis and also their failures during the pandemic, because even though the pandemic actually came quite late on the island, it did have a massive impact in later years and that there was a, you know, very strong allegation of mismanagement at the time, especially with not having procured enough vaccines and so on. And then you also have another set of proposition party, Taiwan People's Parties, who has always been there, who has always been the significant third candidate in the past two elections and have often, you know, taken away a lot of anti-incumbency votes. So there has always been, you know, this concern that the core and the TPP might, you know, spoil the election for the Kuomintang, who has been very recently on the rise and have, you know, taken back the discourse from just the sort of anti-China drum beating that has been quite prominent over the past few years, especially with their victory in the recent local elections. So they are on the rise and they are trying to gain power this time around. But we need to wait and see how significant, because opinion polls are saying something, which shows that the ruling party is significantly ahead of both of them. But there was supposed to be a coalition between these two opposition groups, which did not materialize. So it is becoming a more, you know, three-cornered election than what happened before any of the elections in Taiwan right now. Anish, also important to note that what is the sort of global impact, or not global impact, but global influence on this election, because clearly Taiwan is not isolated, the United States also playing a key role as far as Taiwan is concerned. Definitely. You can actually already see, you know, both sides actually trying to play up a lot of, you know, this allegation of the foreign hand being involved. And in many ways Taiwan is one of those places where, you know, candidates stand on international matters do have a strong and significant weight when it comes to elections. In this case, we have the United States trying to militarize the region, trying to militarize the island with multiple military aid and weapons programs and, you know, arms deals that, you know, contravene existing policies and, you know, even international policy customs of, you know, trying to not interfere in matters which essentially is China's sovereign matter, the matter of whether or not China holds whichever China would be the Republic of China or the people's Republic of China holds sovereignty over the whole of the region which includes mainland and Taiwan. And the United States is often trying to present Taiwan as a sort of separate country, separate entity, which does not sit well, it has, you know, created tensions in the region. And obviously, as we have talked about on this show as well, it has become this, you know, new, it's not new, but it has become this very sensitive flashpoint in the tensions between China and the U.S. And has become this sort of tool for U.S.'s new Cold War policies against China as well. So in many ways you're, and you have all other players being dragged in as well. We have Japan and South Korea and, you know, the governments there, the presidents, prime ministers there, talking about Taiwan very often these days. For the past year or so, the three countries combined have actually legislated quite a lot in terms of the, and even, you know, brought off defense papers that have focused on Taiwan. And that is something that is quite unprecedented because even though U.S. has always tried to play up Taiwan against Taiwan, China, when it comes to South Korea and Japan, it tried, they tried to keep away from the matter as much as possible. But as we have seen recently, that is not something that current governments, especially conservative, very, you know, more right-wing governments that they have right now are quite inclined to. So these foreign players are also playing a hand. On the other hand, you have the Taiwanese government trying to use, you know, any kind of anti-communist tendencies, trying to, you know, term opposition candidates as, you know, agents or, you know, proxies of the Communist Party of China, which is quite funny because Kobentang was their mortal enemies of the, during the, of the Communist Party during the Civil War. Nevertheless, that is being used quite a lot. Every, almost every day, the government is coming up with reports that there has been incursions into the area to the island, which we do not know how much of it is exaggerated. There is no second or third hand, you know, second opinion on this because there is literally no verification happening on that front. So nevertheless, they are trying to play up the regional tensions a lot and trying to turn away focus from their own domestic failures on many issues. And that is something that, that is quite normal. We have seen very many of the anti-China government and like how anti-China sentiments have been whipped up very often to take away heat from their own failures. And this is nothing new. Nevertheless, we have seen some level of traction on that because, and because of the existing anti-China tendencies that have always existed that both parties have supported. So this is something, this is a kind of cross situation that we are at right now. We are like, wait and see how things move forward in the next month or so. Right, so much an issue for that. And that's all we have in today's episode. We'll be back tomorrow with a fresh episode. In the meanwhile, do visit our website, peoplesdispatch.org and follow us on all the social media platforms. 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