Australia celebrates 'day for love', allows same-sex marriage

SYDNEY - Australia became the 26th nation to legalize same-sex marriage on Thursday, prompting cheers and singing from a packed parliament public gallery in a country where some states ruled homosexual acts to be illegal until just 20 years ago.

Lawmakers, who had cast aside a conservative push to allow religious objectors to refuse service to same-sex couples, waved rainbow flags and embraced on the floor of the chamber, where earlier in the debate a politician had proposed to his same-sex partner.

Fewer than five of 150 MPs voted against the law.

"What a day. What a day for love, for equality, for respect," said Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull. "...It is time for more marriages."

The laws, which will also recognize same-sex marriages solemnized in foreign countries, take effect from Saturday. Because a month's notice is required for the state to recognize a marriage, the first legal same-sex unions will be in January.

Australians had overwhelmingly endorsed legalizing same-sex marriage in a postal survey run by the national statistics agency.


The bill cleared the upper house last month and had been expected to pass on Thursday after Turnbull's Liberal-National coalition government and the main opposition Labor Party had previously said they wanted to pass it by Dec. 7.

But religious organisations and conservative lawmakers had voiced strong opposition and proposed dozens of amendments.

During parliamentary debate, they pressed for broad protections for religious objectors, among them florists and bankers, to refuse service to same-sex couples.

"These amendments, rather, are a shield for people and organisations that hold to a traditional view of marriage. They are not a sword to be wielded in the service of bigotry," government MP Andrew Hastie said in parliament.

Amendments to permit lay celebrants to decline to solemnise same-sex marriages and businesses opposed to the unions to refuse service at wedding receptions were all defeated, one after the other, during three days of debate.

"Love has won, and it's time to pop the bubbly," Greens MP and same-sex marriage supporter Adam Bandt said.

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Surfing Santas set Guinness Record in Australia

It may not be a white Christmas for Australians but they sure welcome the idea of a wet holiday.

Here's a video of a group of 320 surfers, all in Santa costumes, making Sydney's famous Bondi Beach a sea of red and white.

This act successfully created a new Guinness World Record for the largest surf lesson.

-ANC's News Now, December 16, 2015

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com

Why Australians see the Philippines as a paradise

An Australian news site has listed nine of the most beautiful places in the Philippines.

The list, published on News.com.au, includes the majestic beaches of Boracay, Camiguin, Siargao and Caramoan; the rock formations in El Nido, and the rolling hills of Bohol.

"FROM lush, thick jungle to dramatic mountain ranges and glistening white sand beaches, the Philippines is home to more than 7000 idyllic islands, waiting to be explored," the report said.

Here nine destinations that make the Philippines a paradise for Australians:

Mobile users can view the desktop version of the slideshow here.

1. Boracay

"This once secluded island has quickly become a tourist hotspot." Photo from the Department of Tourism

 source: www.abs-cbnnews.com

Solidarity for Australian Muslims after Sydney siege

SYDNEY, Australia - One of the bouquets left on Tuesday in a sea of flowers at the site of the Sydney siege read "I will ride with you." It was as much a wholehearted message to Australia's Muslim community as to the incident's victims.

Those words are the theme of a Twitter campaign of solidarity, offering to accompany any Muslims who fear venturing onto public transport at this time, in case of a public backlash after Monday's deadly cafe siege by an Iranian-born extremist.

The campaign has raised hopes that Australia, a nation forged by waves of immigration down the decades, will be drawn together by the tragedy and not torn apart.

Mirella Rigo, overcome with emotion, rushed through the crowd of people paying their respects on Tuesday morning to embrace a Muslim woman at a makeshift memorial near the Lindt cafe in downtown Sydney's Martin Place.

"It's heartfelt," she said. "I feel for these people. I think to make them see they are not responsible for this."

Mariam Veiszadeh, from the Islamophobia Register which collates reports of anti-Muslim sentiment, told AFP she had been touched by the reaction from ordinary Australians.

"The tragedy that unfolded in Sydney yesterday has really brought Australians together -- irrespective of our backgrounds, religious or racial identities," she said after placing flowers at the Martin Place memorial.

"And I'm really hoping that we take this feeling throughout the rest of the week."

The 490,000-strong Muslim community has been battling the emergence of Islamic State this year and its growing impact on disenchanted youth, who have been targeted in sophisticated social media drives to radicalise them.

Some have succumbed and fled to Syria and Iraq while more than 70 others have had their passports confiscated, sparking fears over possible attacks on Australian soil, with IS leaders calling online for public beheadings or executions.

After counter-terror raids in September, there was a backlash that saw several mosques vandalised. Anxious to contain any damage from Monday's tragedy, more than 40 Muslim groups quickly issued a statement decrying extremists "who seek to destroy the goodwill of the people of Australia".

- 'A sick individual' -

The hostage-taker was widely identified as a self-styled Islamic cleric called Man Haron Monis. He had displayed an Arabic flag during the siege, and was killed along with two of his 17 hostages as police stormed the cafe early on Tuesday.

Officials said he had no clear links to Islamic State or other jihadist groups, but was rather a mentally unstable man with extremist views and a history of violence.

Australia's race discrimination commissioner Tim Soutphommasane said he was heartened by the Twitter campaign, adding: "Let's not allow fear, hatred and division to triumph."

The mood was set by the Twitter hashtag #illridewithyou, which Tessa Kum tweeted on Monday to counter concern about an anti-Muslim backlash. Tens of thousands have tweeted their support.

Kum said she had been inspired by another commuter.

"She'd done a very simple thing -- she had seen a distressed Muslim woman on a train take off her hijab and had approached that woman at the train station and simply said, "Put it back on, I'll walk with you". That broke my heart a little bit," Kum told ABC radio.

So far, there has been little public criticism of Muslims although the Queensland president of the anti-immigration One Nation party took aim at Islam.

"Already the Islam apologetics on national TV are trying to suck up to Muslims and are telling us this is just a lone gunman, a 'lone wolf' and nothing to do with Islam," Jim Savage told reporters.

Neil Fergus, chief executive of risk consultancy Intelligent Risks, who has been working with the Muslim community, said that of all the Muslims in Australia, an estimated 250 or fewer were considered a concern by authorities.

"The Muslim community has pulled together in a remarkable way and people are expressing sympathy," he told AFP.

"He (Monis) was clearly a risk to the community, but not because he had direct links with Islamic State. He was a sick individual."

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com

Helicopter missing in Papua New Guinea after distress call

SYDNEY—A helicopter which sent out a distress signal in poor weather was feared to have crashed Saturday in Papua New Guinea's rugged highlands, with two Australians and a New Zealander on board.

Hevilift, a Singapore-based air charter company catering to mining and energy operators, said the Bell 206 went missing on Friday afternoon in the mountainous Southern Highlands region with two pilots and an engineer on board.

The chopper had issued a mayday call five minutes after taking off from an InterOil drill rig in conditions of low cloud and reduced visibility.

"Aircraft in the vicinity heard the distress call from the helicopter," Hevilift said. "A localised search using Hevilift helicopters... commenced immediately, but deteriorating weather meant the helicopters were unable to search for long before the weather and last light closed down the search."

Efforts resumed at first light but Hevilift said the helicopter was yet to be found, and no rescue beacon signals had been detected from the "thickly forested" region where it was believed to have gone down.

Seven helicopters were involved in Saturday's hunt along with a Dornier 328 fixed-wing airplane dispatched from Australia which was specially equipped to pick up electronic signals.

PNG and Australian military aircraft, as well as commercial helicopters and aircraft from other local companies like Exxon Mobil PNG, helped with the search. Hevilift said weather conditions were "favourable".

PNG aviation officials said the helicopter was thought to have gone down at Kikori, a densely wooded and oil-rich settlement at the head of the Gulf of Papua, but they were yet to find the wreckage and could not confirm fatalities.

"It was coming in from InterOil, one of the sites, into (Mount) Hagen and halfway through Hagen it actually went down," aviation authority spokesman Yaqub Amaki told ABC Radio of the missing aircraft. "At the moment we don't know the status of the three."

Lieutenant Colonel Richard Taylor, PNG advisor to the New Zealand Defence Force, said the search would be difficult due to the rugged terrain, which he likened to "a jungle version of the Southern Alps".

"To the best of my knowledge there's been no word received from the crash site that would indicate survivors," Taylor told the APNZ news service.

Taylor said there were a large number of aircraft in the area transporting ballot boxes, papers and officials for the ongoing national elections and "some of those will be able to be used for searching for the wreckage."

Australia's foreign office said it was "aware of reports of a helicopter that went missing in Papua New Guinea with two Australians onboard on the afternoon of 6 July".

"We understand the third person is a New Zealand national," a foreign office spokeswoman told AFP.

Australia's high commission in Port Moresby was liaising with Hevilift and the families of the missing, she added.

Aviation accidents are common in Papua New Guinea, where rugged terrain and lack of internal connecting roads make air travel crucial for its six million citizens and the growing numbers of oil, gas and mining workers.

More than 20 planes have crashed in PNG since 2000 including a fiery Airlines PNG accident which killed 28 people in October, when a Bombardier Dash 8 ploughed into a dense forest in poor weather.

The impoverished South Pacific nation has only had an air accident commission since 2008, established in response to claims that corruption and a lack of funding had led to a sharp decline in safety standards.

source: interaksyon.com

Rising Australian floodwaters force mass evacuation

SYDNEY -- Thousands of Australians were forced to abandon their homes on Sunday as a record deluge swept through areas still reeling from last year's devastating floods, claiming its first life.

Police ordered the 3,800 residents of the town of St George, in northern Queensland state, to evacuate as rising floodwaters raced towards record heights, threatening to cut the one remaining exit road.

In the town of Roma, further north, a woman whose car was swept from a flooded roadway became the disaster's first official victim, with searchers finding her body two days after she went missing.

"Residents of St George are required to evacuate by road before the Moonie Highway is cut by floodwaters, which is expected to occur sometime in the early part of Sunday evening," police said in a mandatory evacuation order.

"Air evacuation to Brisbane is being organized to ensure evacuations can proceed after the Moonie Highway closes."

Police doorknocked every home in town to deliver the order and are permitted to use reasonable force if people refuse to leave, with mayor Donna Stewart warning resident safety could no longer be guaranteed.

"It's pretty panicky here," said St George resident Angela Doran.

"I think everyone just wants to get out now."

The swollen Balonne River, flooding for the third time in less than two years, was expected to peak at 15 meters (50 feet) on Tuesday night, far exceeding the previous record of 13.4 meters set in March 2010.

"This is a very serious situation and I urge people to cooperate," said Queensland Premier Anna Bligh.

Prime Minister Julia Gillard dispatched a military transport plane to airlift patients from the town's hospital to the coast, and the local nursing home was also being emptied.

Eight defense helicopters are already helping search and rescue efforts in the flood zone, winching people to safety and dropping food, bedding, medical supplies and other essentials such as generators.

St George has seen major flooding twice in the past two years, once in March 2010 and again last year during Queensland's flooding disaster, which claimed 35 lives and swamped vast tracts of farmland and tens of thousands of homes.

Deputy Queensland police commissioner Ian Stewart said the situation in the region had "deteriorated" overnight with "very large spikes" in water levels south of Roma, where 200 homes flooded earlier this week.

The woman who died in Roma had managed to save her seven-year-old son from the floodwaters but was swept away before she could be rescued, according to the Courier Mail newspaper. She had been helping neighbors to sandbag.

The Bureau of Meteorology said St George was expected to reach the 2010 flood level by Monday morning and "continue rising, possibly above 14 metres on Tuesday and Wednesday."

Residents scrambled to fortify levees still standing from last year's floods, with some locals saying they were prepared for a peak of 14.5 meters or worse.

"If it does reach the peak that they're talking about, if it goes across into the irrigation area, it's going to knock out thousands of hectares of cotton," local farmer Alex Benn told Sky News.

Flood defenses held overnight in nearby Charleville, where some 600 people were holed up in an evacuation center waiting for the Warrego River to subside.

source: interaksyon.com