TAIWAN’S legislature has voted to legalise same-sex marriage, a first in Asia and a boost for LGBT rights activists who had championed the cause for two decades.
Legislators pressured by LGBT groups approved most of a government-sponsored bill that recognises same-sex marriage and gives couples many of the tax, insurance and child custody benefits available to male-female married couples.
That makes Taiwan the first place in Asia with a comprehensive law both allowing and laying out the terms of same-sex marriage.
President Tsai Ing-wen, a supporter of the law, tweeted: “On May 17, 2019 in Taiwan, LoveWon. We took a big step toward true equality, and made Taiwan a better country.”
MEANWHILE, the Council of Europe has adopted a declaration that allows Russia to start voting again at the continent’s main human rights body after a spat related to its annexation of the Crimea peninsula from Ukraine in 2014.
Foreign ministers from the council’s 47 member states voted overwhelmingly to support a declaration that says all members should be “entitled to participate” in the council’s two main organs “on an equal basis”.
Moscow will now have to accredit a delegation to the council before it can start voting on motions.
The council – which is based in Strasbourg, France, and is open to all European countries regardless of whether they are in the European Union – suspended Russia’s voting rights after the annexation of Crimea, which Ukraine and most of the world viewed as illegal.
Russia, a member since 1996, then stopped paying its membership fees in protest.
IN the United States, Donald Trump has said he hopes the nation is not on a path to war with Iran amid fears that his two most hawkish advisers could be angling for conflict.
Asked if the US was going to war with Iran, the president replied “I hope not”, a day after he repeated a desire for dialogue, tweeting: “I’m sure that Iran will want to talk soon.”
The tone contrasted with a series of moves by the US and Iran that have sharply escalated tensions in the Middle East in recent days.
For the past year, national security adviser John Bolton and secretary of state Mike Pompeo have been the public face of the administration’s “maximum pressure” campaign against Tehran.
FINALLY, in Egypt, President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi has pardoned 560 prisoners, including a prominent journalist who had criticised the establishment.
The pardons coincide with the Muslim holy month of Ramadan when authorities traditionally release detainees as a gesture of goodwill.
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