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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
May 1,2020

Washington, May 1:The novel coronavirus, that has killed over 230,000 people globally so far and has shattered economies, emerged from a virology lab in the Wuhan city of China, US President Donald Trump claimed Thursday with a high degree of confidence.

"Yes, I have. Yes, I have," Trump told reporters at the East Room of the White House when asked if he has seen anything at this point that gives him a high degree of confidence that the Wuhan Institute of Virology is where the virus originated.

The president, however, refuse to provide any details, except for saying that investigations are on and it would be out soon.

Asked what gave him a high degree of confidence that the virus originated from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, he said, "I can't tell you that. I'm not allowed to tell you that."

The president, however, did not hold his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping responsible for this. "I don't want to say that, I don't want to say that, but certainly it could have been stopped. It came out of China and it could have been stopped and I wish they had stopped it and so does the whole world wish they had stopped it."

Reiterating that this is something that could have been contained at Wuhan ground zero, he said that China could have contained it. "They were either unable to, or they chose not to. And the world has suffered greatly."

One of two things happened, he reasoned. "They either didn't do it and you know they couldn't do it from a competent standpoint or they let it spread and I would say probably it got out of control."

"But there's another case that how come they stopped all of the planes and all of the traffic from going into China, but they didn't stop the planes and the traffic from coming into the United States and from coming into all over Europe," he said, citing the example of Italy, the hardest-hit European country.

"This country (the US) is very lucky and I'm very lucky that I put the ban on China, as you know, very early on. In January, we put the ban on China and that was a very early day. That wasn't a late day, that was an early day. Then, we later put the ban on in Europe," he said.

Before holding them accountable, Trump said he wants to find out what happened. "I think we'll be able to get a very good -- a very powerful definition of exactly what happened. We're working on it strongly now and I think it's going to be very powerful," he said.

"But they could have stopped it. They are a very brilliant nation, scientifically and otherwise. It got loose, let's say, and they could have capped it. They could have stopped it, but they didn't. And they stopped the planes from going to China, but they didn't stop them from going to the rest of the world. What was that all about?” he asked.

"We should have the answer to that in the not-too-distant future and that will determine a lot how I feel about China," Trump said.

When asked if President Xi misled him, Trump said, "Something happened. I don't say misleading or not. I'll let you know that. I mean, I'll be able to give you that answer at some point in the hopefully not-too-distant future."

The entire world has suffered as a result of this, he said.

"We have had tremendous death and tremendous sorrow, sadness, and nobody's ever seen anything like it. So, have most of the countries of the world. They've suffered tremendously. It's something that is going to have to be dealt with. We'll have to see," said the president.

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News Network
July 1,2020

Tehran, Jul 1 As many as 19 people have been killed in an explosion and fire at a medical facility in Tehran.

A total of 19 people, including 15 men and 4 women, were killed in the explosion, the emergency services confirmed, RT reported citing KhabarOnline website.

According to a regional official, a gas leak caused the incident. Sputnik quoted a deputy head of Tehran police as saying to YJC news outlet that oxygen tanks exploded in the semi-basement of the clinic.

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Agencies
July 28,2020

Sydney, Jul 28: Nearly 3 billion koalas, kangaroos and other native Australian animals were killed or displaced by bushfires in 2019 and 2020, a study by the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) said on Tuesday, triple the group's earlier estimates.

Some 143 million mammals, 2.46 billion reptiles, 180 million birds and 51 million frogs were impacted by the country's worst bushfires in decades, the WWF said.

When the fires were still blazing, the WWF estimated the number of affected animals at 1.25 billion. The fires destroyed more than 11 million hectares (37 million acres) across the Australian southeast, equal to about half the area of the United Kingdom.

"This ranks as one of the worst wildlife disasters in modern history," said WWF-Australia Chief Executive Officer Dermot O'Gorman in a statement.

The project leader Lily Van Eeden, from the University of Sydney, said the research was the first continent-wide analysis of animals impacted by the bushfires, and "other nations can build upon this research to improve understanding of bushfire impacts everywhere".

The total number included animals which were displaced because of destroyed habitats and now faced lack of food and shelter or the prospect of moving to habitat that was already occupied.

The main reason for raising the number of animal casualties was that researchers had now assessed the total affected area, rather than focusing on the most affected states, they said.

After years of drought made the Australian bush unusually dry, the country battled one of its worst bushfire seasons ever from September 2019 to March 2020, resulting in 34 human deaths and nearly 3,000 homes lost.

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