Author: admin@primenews

Greece has become the first Christian Orthodox-majority country to legalise same-sex marriage. Same-sex couples will now also be legally allowed to adopt children after Thursday’s 176-76 vote in parliament. Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said the new law would “boldly abolish a serious inequality”. But it has divided the country, with fierce resistance led by the powerful Orthodox Church. Its supporters held a protest rally in Athens. Many displayed banners, held crosses, read prayers and sang passages from the Bible in the capital’s Syntagma Square. The head of the Orthodox Church, Archbishop Ieronymos, said the measure would “corrupt the homeland’s social…

The top prosecutor in the Georgia election case against Donald Trump took the stand to vigorously defend her relationship with a fellow prosecutor during a combative hearing on Thursday. Mr Trump’s lawyers alleged that Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis’s relationship with Nathan Wade, who she hired, proved a conflict of interest. The claims could upend the election-subversion charges against Mr Trump. Over two hours of heated testimony, Ms Willis looked increasingly aggravated. “It is a lie, it is a lie,” she said at one point in response to questions, prompting a visibly perplexed Judge Scott McAfee to call a…

To sell water and make his living, Steve relied completely on his donkeys. They pulled him in his cart loaded with its 20 jerry cans to all his customers. When Steve’s donkeys were stolen for their skins, he could no longer work. That day started like most others. In the morning, he left his home in the outskirts of Nairobi and went to the field to get his animals. “I couldn’t see them,” he recalls. “I searched all day, all night and the following day.” It was three days later that he got a call from a friend telling him…

The Lunar New Year is traditionally a time for gathering with family and friends to eat and drink. And for hundreds of years the drink of choice in China for these celebrations has been baijiu – a clear spirit made with fermented grains which packs a potent punch. Baijiu is also often drunk straight and at social events such as weddings and birthdays. Its Alcohol-By-Volume (ABV) can top 60% – in comparison spirits like scotch whisky and tequila typically have an ABV of around 40%. “Baijiu certainly still has its place in Chinese liquor consumption, even among young consumers,” says…

On an autumn day in 1576, a Mughal princess led a cohort of royal women on an unprecedented voyage to the holy cities of Mecca and Medina. It was the first time in Mughal India that a woman had gone on the sacred pilgrimage called the Hajj that is considered to be one of the five pillars of Islam. At the age of 53, Gulbadan Begum – daughter of Babur, founder of the Mughal empire – and 11 women from the royal household – left the confines of a harem in Fatehpur Sikri to set off on a journey that…

The US has warned that Russia could seize Ukraine’s key eastern town of Avdiivka – the scene of some of the fiercest fighting in recent months. “Avdiivka is at risk of falling into Russian control,” National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said, citing Ukraine’s ammunition shortages. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky vowed to do everything to “save as many Ukrainian lives as possible”. Russian troops have made gains in Avdiivka, threatening to encircle it. The town – which has been almost completely destroyed – is seen as a gateway to nearby Donetsk, the regional Ukrainian capital seized by Russian-backed fighters in…

Students pre-drinking and not going out mid-week is to blame for nightclubs closing, the boss of the UK’s biggest club chain has said. Earlier this month, Pryzm and Atik owner Rekom announced the closure of 17 venues with the loss of 500 jobs. Its boss Peter Marks said students hit by the cost of living crisis were cutting back on clubbing. But experts said young people drinking less and a more diverse choice of night time entertainment also had an impact. It comes as new data suggests close to 400 clubs permanently shut down between March 2020 and December 2023,…

A Pakistan politician who won a seat in last week’s controversial national elections has given it up because he says the vote was rigged in his favour. Hafiz Naeem ur Rehman of the Jamaat-e-Islami party had been named the victor of the provincial assembly seat PS-129 in the city of Karachi. But this week he claimed the candidate backed by Imran Khan’s PTI party had secured far more votes and that their tally had been reduced. As such he would relinquish the seat. “If anyone wants to make us win in an illegitimate manner, we will not be accepting that,”…

The apparent victory of Prabowo Subianto in Indonesia’s presidential election is a dramatic moment in the country’s history. Even though polls put him as the front-runner for many weeks before polling day, the margin by which he beat his two opponents, according to the usually accurate early vote counts, was much higher than expected. They all project he will be comfortably over the 50% threshold needed to win outright in the first round. The final count still needs to be officially confirmed, but most Indonesians will now accept that the next five years will be under a President Prabowo. So…

Two Chinese fishermen have drowned while being chased by the Taiwanese coastguard off Taiwan’s northernmost Kinmen archipelago. Taipei said the fishing boat trespassed into Taiwanese waters on Wednesday. The four fishermen on board resisted an inspection and the boat capsized when authorities gave chase. Beijing “strongly condemned” the incident, saying it “seriously hurt the feelings of compatriots on both sides of the Taiwan Strait”. Kinmen lies just 3km (1.86 miles) away from China’s south-eastern coast, placing it on the frontline of tensions between China and Taiwan. China sees self-ruled Taiwan as a breakaway province that will, eventually, be part of…