PARIS: France yesterday became the 14th country to legalise same-sex marriage after President Francois Hollande signed the measure into law following months of bitter debate and demonstrations. Hollande acted a day after the Constitutional Council threw out a legal challenge by the right-wing opposition, removing the last obstacle to passing the bill into law. The legislation also legalises gay adoption.
Opponents of the law have vowed not to give up. They have called a major protest rally for May 26 in Paris. Previous demonstrations have drawn hundreds of thousands of people marching through the streets of the French capital.
Zambia frees detained students
LUSAKA: Zambia police yesterday freed the 31 university students detained on the president’s orders after they staged protests against the government’s decision to scrap staple food subsidies.
“All the students have been released after paying an admission of guilty fee of 22,500 kwacha (about $4),” police spokeswoman Elizabeth Kanjela said. She did not specify what they were guilty of.
Hundreds of students from the University of Zambia had marched to President Michael Sata’s office on Friday, demanding an audience with him. But Sata, who was away from the capital, ordered the police to arrest them. He also told the minister of education to expel the students from the university.
Lecturer jailed for Mugabe insult
HARARE: A lecturer at a government university in Zimbabwe has been jailed for three months for labelling veteran President Robert Mugabe “a rotten old donkey,” in the latest such case, lawyers said yesterday.
Chenjerai Pamhiri, 38, a lecturer at Great Zimbabwe State University in Masvingo city, was convicted and jailed on Friday by a magistrate on Friday, Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights said.
Prosecutors alleged that Pamhiri, while doing his shopping at a local supermarket last week, shouted that Mugabe was “dirt which should be discarded, a rotten old donkey”.
He is also said to have urged people not to vote for him in elections expected sometime this year. Police arrested him as he left the supermarket.
AFP
