France 2 A bid to make all sex outside marriage illegal was rejected by a top Indonesian court Thursday, in a ruling that surprised many as concerns grow about rising intolerance in the world’s biggest Muslim-majority country. Five out of nine judges on the Constitutional Court in the capital Jakarta narrowly rejected the push to criminalise extramarital relations, including gay… Read more »
As a member of the United States Department of State, I played the role of a spokesperson and a negotiator throughout the simulation. Before the first session, I felt prepared due to my previous research about the position of the current United States administration despite being unsure of the exact procedure of an international relations simulation. Although our class did… Read more »
UBUD, Bali — His taxi was parked nearby, but Wayan Yanjun was sitting on the sidewalk along the main street in Ubud on the resort island of Bali. It might be some time before anyone needed a ride: He’d had only three passengers in the past week, he said, ever since the eruption of Mount Agung, in Bali’s northeast. The volcano… Read more »
The persecution of Rohingya by Myanmar’s security forces may amount to genocide, the UN human rights chief Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein has said. Addressing the Human Rights Council on Tuesday, Zeid said UN investigators have received “concordant reports of acts of appalling barbarity committed against the Rohingya” during a military crackdown in Rakhine state in August. These included allegations of security forces “deliberately burning people to… Read more »
“The stakes for New Caledonia are considerable,” French Prime Minister Édouard Philippe said on Saturday at his first press briefing in the Caledonian capital Nouméa. Residents must decide by next November whether the archipelago will opt for full sovereignty, the result of an almost 30-year-long process. Both Britain and France laid claim to parts of New Caledonia during the first half of… Read more »
In my personal opinion, I think that this whole issue with the drone landing in China is just another excuse for the politicians of their respected countries to make untrue rants back at one another to say that “their country is not the bad guy, the other country is the one everyone should be hating, we did absolutely nothing to… Read more »
Same-sex marriage has been officially signed into law in Australia, a day after MPs overwhelmingly approved a historic bill. Australia’s Governor-General Peter Cosgrove signed off on the law on Friday – a formality required to enact the legislation. The vote on Thursday set off rarely matched celebrations in parliament, including cheers, hugs and a song. Supporters celebrated across Australia, many… Read more »
www.cnn.com (CNN)A senior United Nations official arrived in North Korea Tuesday for the first visit of its kind in six years, as US and South Korean military drills inflame tensions in the region. Jeffrey Feltman, the UN’s undersecretary-general for Political Affairs, will meet with officials and discuss “issues of mutual interest and concern,” the UN announced. The visit comes just… Read more »
www.cnn.com (CNN)Democrats have placed a hold on the nomination of KT McFarland to be ambassador to Singapore until she answers their questions about her knowledge of communications between former national security adviser Michael Flynn and Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak, a Democratic source told CNN. McFarland told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in written comments that she “was not aware” of… Read more »
www.bbc.com An Indian drone has “invaded China’s airspace and crashed” on its territory, Chinese state media said. Zhang Shuili, deputy director of the western theatre combat bureau, said the incident took place in “recent days”. He did not give an exact location. He was quoted in Xinhua news agency as saying that India had “violated China’s territorial sovereignty”. The Indian… Read more »