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Australia celebrates 'day for love' as it legalises same-sex marriage

Agencies
December 7, 2017

Sydney, Dec 7: Australia became the 26th nation to legalise same-sex marriage on Thursday, prompting cheers and singing from a packed parliament public gallery in a country where some states ruled homosexual acts to be illegal until just 20 years ago.

Lawmakers, who had cast aside a conservative push to allow religious objectors to refuse service to same-sex couples, waved rainbow flags and embraced on the floor of the chamber, where earlier in the debate a politician had proposed to his same-sex partner.

Fewer than five of 150 MPs voted against the law.
"What a day. What a day for love, for equality, for respect," said Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull. "...It is time for more marriages."

The laws, which will also recognise same-sex marriages solemnised in foreign countries, take effect from Saturday. Because a month's notice is required for the state to recognise a marriage, the first legal same-sex unions will be in January.

Australians had overwhelmingly endorsed legalising same-sex marriage in a postal survey run by the national statistics agency.

The bill cleared the upper house last month and had been expected to pass on Thursday after Turnbull's Liberal-National coalition government and the main opposition Labor Party had previously said they wanted to pass it by Dec. 7.

But religious organisations and conservative lawmakers had voiced strong opposition and proposed dozens of amendments.

During parliamentary debate, they pressed for broad protections for religious objectors, among them florists and bankers, to refuse service to same-sex couples.

"These amendments, rather, are a shield for people and organisations that hold to a traditional view of marriage. They are not a sword to be wielded in the service of bigotry," government MP Andrew Hastie said in parliament.

Amendments to permit lay celebrants to decline to solemnise same-sex marriages and businesses opposed to the unions to refuse service at wedding receptions were all defeated, one after the other, during three days of debate.

"Love has won, and it's time to pop the bubbly," Greens MP and same-sex marriage supporter Adam Bandt said.

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News Network
April 4,2020

Madrid, Apr 4: Spain recorded a second successive daily drop in coronavirus-related deaths with 809 fatalities, official figures showed Saturday.

The total number of deaths in Spain now stands at 11,744, second only to Italy. A record 950 people died on Thursday.

The number of new cases also slowed at 7,026, taking the total to 124,736.

Recoveries over the last 24 hours stood at 3,706, taking that total to 34,219.

The Madrid region was the worst affected accounting for 40 percent of the deaths, 4,723, and 29 percent of the cases at 36,249. The northeastern region of Catalonia was in second place with 2,508 deaths.

Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez is due to decide whether to prolong the emergency measures and confinement declared on March 14 for another two weeks in order to get on top of the outbreak.

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News Network
June 3,2020

Washington, Jun 3: US President Donald Trump's administration on Tuesday announced investigations into foreign digital services taxes it says are aimed squarely at American tech firms.

Following a similar trade investigation against France last year, the US Trade Representative office now is looking into taxes in Britain and the European Union, as well as Indonesia, Turkey and India.

"President Trump is concerned that many of our trading partners are adopting tax schemes designed to unfairly target our companies," USTR Robert Lighthizer said in a statement.

"We are prepared to take all appropriate action to defend our businesses and workers against any such discrimination."

Washington opposes the efforts to tax revenues from online sales and advertising, saying they single out US tech giants like Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon and Netflix.

The US and France have agreed to negotiate till the end of the year over a digital services tax Paris approved in 2019, after USTR found them to be discriminating and threatened retaliatory duties of up to 100 percent on French imports such as champagne and camembert cheese.

Trump has embroiled the US in numerous trade disputes since taking office in 2017, including a months-long trade war with China that cooled with the signing of a partial deal in January.

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News Network
April 11,2020

Apr 11: The number of global coronavirus deaths has increased to 102,753, while the total number of cases worldwide has surpassed 1.6 million, according to the latest update by the Washington-based Johns Hopkins University.

As of Saturday morning, the overall number of infections increased to 1,698,416, while the tally of those who recovered from the deadly disease stood at 376,677, according to the varsity's Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE).

In terms of cases, the US had the highest in the world at 501,301, followed by Spain 158,273, Italy 147,577 and France 125,931.

Italy accounted for the highest death toll at 18,849, with the US in the second place with 18,769 fatalities.

Other countries with more than 10,000 deaths include Spain (16,081) and France (13,197).

Although the pandemic originated in China last December, it now only accounts for 3,343 deaths with 83,003 confirmed cases.

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