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Hard Numbers: Mexicans warm to abortion, Israeli settlement push, Saudis ban series, Kazakh election “landslide”

January 11, 2021
Carlos Santamaria
and
Alex Kliment
Mexican women rally for abortion rights in Mexico City. Reuters

48: Support for decriminalizing abortion in Mexico rose 11 points in 2020, reaching 48 percent of those polled in the the majority Catholic country. At the moment, elective abortion is legal only in Oaxaca state and Mexico City. Just weeks ago, Argentina became the first large country in Latin America to legalize abortion.

800: Israel has announced the planned construction of around 800 new Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank. The move may strain ties with the incoming Biden administration in the US, but Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hopes it'll gain him right-wing support ahead of the crucial March election.

4: Saudi authorities have banned 4 episodes of a controversial new television series called "Dhahaya Halal" (Halal Victims), over its portrayal of a marriage between a woman and a 15-year old boy. Cancelling the series — which was carried by MBC, the Arab world's largest media conglomerate — throws a fresh light on the contentious process of social liberalization that the Saudi government has embarked on in recent years.

71: Kazakhstan's ruling Nur Otan party, headed by "strongman emeritus" Nusrultan Nazarbayev, took a whopping 71 percent of the vote in legislative elections over the weekend. Hardly surprising, given that no opposition parties participated in the vote, which the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe said wasn't free nor fair.

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Israel-Hamas war: Who is responsible for Gaza's enormous civilian death toll?

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Ian Bremmer's Quick Take: On the back of the Israeli Defense Forces strike killing seven members of aid workers for the World Central Kitchen, their founder, Chef Jose Andres, is obviously very angry. The Israelis immediately apologized and took responsibility for the act. He says that this was intentionally targeting his workers. I have a hard time believing that the IDF would have wanted to kill his workers intentionally. Anyone that's saying the Israelis are only to blame for this—as well as the enormous civilian death toll in this war–I strongly disagree.

Biden puts Bibi on notice

President Joe Biden pauses during a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to discuss the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, in Tel Aviv, Israel, Wednesday, Oct. 18, 2023.
Miriam Alster/REUTERS

Biden told Netanyahu that the humanitarian situation in Gaza and strikes on aid workers were “unacceptable,” the White House readout of the call said.

Japanese troops in the Philippines?

Commander Shingo Nashinoki, 50, and soldiers of the Japanese Ground Self-Defense Force's Amphibious Rapid Deployment Brigade (ARDB), Japan's first marine unit since World War Two, take part in a military drill as U.S. Marines observe, on the uninhabited Irisuna island close to Okinawa, Japan, November 15, 2023.
REUTERS

Given the ugly World War II history between the two countries, that would be a startling development.

Sonko takes the reins in Senegal

Senegalese opposition leader Ousmane Sonko listens to the presidential candidate he is backing in the March 24 election, Bassirou Diomaye Faye, as they hold a joint press conference a day after they were released from prison, in Dakar, Senegal March 15, 2024.
REUTERS/Zohra Bensemra

Newly inaugurated Senegalese President Bassirou Diomaye Faye, in his first act in office, appointed his mentor Ousmane Sonko as prime minister on Wednesday.

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