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Defying Protests, Israeli Cabinet Votes No Confidence in Attorney General

People protest a outside the Knesset, Israel's parliament, in Jerusalem on Sunday, March 23, 2025. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)
People protest a outside the Knesset, Israel's parliament, in Jerusalem on Sunday, March 23, 2025. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)
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Defying Protests, Israeli Cabinet Votes No Confidence in Attorney General

People protest a outside the Knesset, Israel's parliament, in Jerusalem on Sunday, March 23, 2025. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)
People protest a outside the Knesset, Israel's parliament, in Jerusalem on Sunday, March 23, 2025. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)

Israeli protesters took to the streets for a sixth day on Sunday as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's cabinet approved a motion of no confidence motion on the attorney general in its latest move against officials deemed hostile to the government.
Tens of thousands of Israelis have joined demonstrations in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv over the past week, as fears for Israeli hostages after a resumption of the bombing campaign in Gaza and anger at moves to sack the head of the domestic intelligence agency have brought different protest groups together.
The removal of Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar, approved by cabinet last week, was followed by a vote of no confidence against attorney general Gali Baharav-Miara, who has frequently clashed with the current government.
After the vote, Justice Minister Yariv Levin called on Baharav-Miara to resign, saying "substantial and prolonged differences of opinion" prevented effective cooperation between the government and its chief legal adviser.
He said he would consult with a committee responsible for appointing the attorney general and bring a proposal for her dismissal.
Final dismissal of Baharav-Miara, a former district attorney appointed under previous prime minister Naftali Bennett, could be months away. But the moves against the two officials have drawn accusations from protesters and the opposition that Netanyahu's right-wing government is undermining key state institutions.
At the same time, families and supporters of the 59 hostages still held in Gaza have vented their anger at what many see as the government's abandonment of their loved ones.
"We are here to make it clear that Israel is a democracy and will remain a democracy," said 46-year-old Uri Ash at a protest in Tel Aviv. "We will overtake this government because it is ruining Israel," Reuters quoted him as saying.
Although the protest groups have different priorities, they have built on mass demonstrations before the Gaza war against the government's moves to curb the power of the Supreme Court.
Netanyahu said at the time the overhaul was needed to rein in judicial overreach that was intruding on the authority of parliament, but protesters said it was an attempt to weaken one of the pillars of Israeli democracy.

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China, Russia May Build Nuclear Plant on Moon to Power Lunar Station, Official Says

The moon is seen over the city of Beijing, China, February 20, 2022. REUTERS/Tingshu Wang/File Photo
The moon is seen over the city of Beijing, China, February 20, 2022. REUTERS/Tingshu Wang/File Photo
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China, Russia May Build Nuclear Plant on Moon to Power Lunar Station, Official Says

The moon is seen over the city of Beijing, China, February 20, 2022. REUTERS/Tingshu Wang/File Photo
The moon is seen over the city of Beijing, China, February 20, 2022. REUTERS/Tingshu Wang/File Photo

China is considering building a nuclear plant on the moon to power the International Lunar Research Station (ILRS) it is planning with Russia, a presentation by a senior official showed on Wednesday.

China aims to become a major space power and land astronauts on the moon by 2030, and its planned Chang’e-8 mission for 2028 would lay the groundwork for constructing a permanent, manned lunar base.

In a presentation in Shanghai, the 2028 mission's Chief Engineer Pei Zhaoyu showed that the lunar base’s energy supply could also depend on large-scale solar arrays, and pipelines and cables for heating and electricity built on the moon's surface.

Russia’s space agency Roscosmos said last year it planned to build a nuclear reactor on the moon’s surface with the China National Space Administration (CNSA) by 2035 to power the ILRS, Reuters reported.

The inclusion of the nuclear power unit in a Chinese space official’s presentation at a conference for officials from the 17 countries and international organizations that make up the ILRS suggests Beijing supports the idea, although it has never formally announced it.

"An important question for the ILRS is power supply, and in this Russia has a natural advantage, when it comes to nuclear power plants, especially sending them into space, it leads the world, it is ahead of the United States," Wu Weiren, chief designer of China’s lunar exploration program, told Reuters on the sidelines of the conference.

After little progress on talks over a space-based reactor in the past, "I hope this time both countries can send a nuclear reactor to the moon," Wu said.

China's timeline to build an outpost on the moon's south pole coincides with NASA's more ambitious and advanced Artemis programme, which aims to put US astronauts back on the lunar surface in December 2025.

Wu said last year that a "basic model" of the ILRS, with the Moon's south pole as its core, would be built by 2035.

In the future, China will create the "555 Project," inviting 50 countries, 500 international scientific research institutions, and 5,000 overseas researchers to join the ILRS.

Researchers from Roscosmos also presented at the conference in Shanghai, sharing details about plans to look for mineral and water resources, including possibly using lunar material as fuel.

The ILRS preceded Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022 but incentives for cooperation between Roscosmos and CNSA have increased since the outbreak of the war, according to Chinese analysts.

With China's rapid technological advances and lunar achievements, and as Western sanctions prevent Roscosmos from many imports of space technology and equipment, China can now "alleviate the pressure" on Russia and help it "achieve new breakthroughs in satellite launches, lunar exploration, and space stations," Liu Ying, a researcher at the Chinese foreign ministry's diplomatic academy, wrote in a journal article last year.