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SYDNEY: Gay and lesbian couples will have the same rights as
heterosexuals under new Australian laws, but marriage will remain
off-limits, Attorney General Robert McClelland said Wednesday.
McClelland announced that the Labor government would introduce
legislation next month to remove same-sex discrimination from some
100 laws, including those related to health and pension
entitlements, social security and tax.
-- AFP
BEIJING: An outbreak of a lethal intestinal
virus that started in March in east China’s Anhui province had
killed 20 children and befallen 1,884 others by Tuesday noon, an
official said here on Wednesday. Yang Weizhong, deputy chief of the
Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, said, “No new
death cases had occurred over the past five days.” The outbreak
happened in Fuyang City.
-- Xinhua
JAKARTA: Timor Leste is keen to join the
military exercises conducted by the Association of Southeast Asian
Nations, Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao said in Jakarta Wednesday.
Accompanied by Foreign Minister Zacarias Aibano Da Costa and
Military Chief Brig. Gen. Taur Matan Ruak, Gusmao proposed that his
country make its initial presence as an inspecting team before fully
getting involved with the joint exercises of the regional grouping.
Timor Leste is also interested in cooperating with its neighbors in
joint military exercises intended for disaster emergency responses.
-- Xinhua
KUALA LUMPUR: The first debate in Malaysia’s
new parliament descended into noisy name-calling Wednesday as a
newly emboldened opposition took on the government. Monkey and
Bigfoot were two of the epithets used in a rowdy session during
which lawmakers shouted and gesticulated in heated exchanges across
the floor of the chamber. The scenes, broadcast live on television,
were an indicator of the new shape of Malaysian politics after Prime
Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi’s governing coalition suffered its
worst election results last month.
-- AFP
KATHMANDU: Former rebel Maoists warned Wednesday
they would form a new government in Nepal with or without the help
of the mainstream political parties they resoundingly defeated in
landmark elections. “If the other parties don’t want to join us
in a coalition, we will form the government by ourselves,”
Spokesman Krishna Bahadur Mahara told Agence France-Presse. In
coming weeks Nepal’s constituent assembly is set to abolish the
world’s last Hindu monarchy in its first meeting, and then go on
to write a new constitution for the impoverished Himalayan country
sandwiched between China and India.
-- AFP
HARARE: US President George W. Bush piled the
pressure on Zimbabwean leader Robert Mugabe to step down on Tuesday,
as United Nations chief Ban Ki Moon warned of “a serious
humanitarian crisis.” “The will of the people needs to be
respected in Zimbabwe,” Bush told a White House press conference
as the UN Security Council prepared to discuss the month-long
election turmoil in Zimbabwe. Bush said the people of Zimbabwe had
voted for change in the March 29 parliamentary and presidential
elections “because their president has failed the country” after
28 years in power.
-- AFP
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