Global Quickies: Black Mambas Against Poaching, Street Harassment in Costa Rica, and Pork Politics

INDONESIA
“Strict laws against homosexuality have come into effect in the conservative Indonesian province of Aceh. Gay sex between Muslim men or women, both locals and foreigners, can now be punished with 100 strokes of the cane.”

CHILE
“Dozens of same-sex couples in Chile have been celebrating as a new law recognising their unions came into effect.”

AUSTRALIA
Controversy over an asylum seeker at Australia’s detention camp in Nauru, who became pregnant after being raped was flown to Australia to have an abortion. The government says she changed her mind. She says she never even spoke to a doctor.

SOUTH AFRICA
“Meet the Black Mambas, the mostly-women anti-poaching squad that is the scourge of South Africa’s poachers”(autoplay video)

SOUTH AFRICA
“The wife of a Danish man who is accused by South African police of mutilating women and keeping genitalia parts in a freezer has been shot dead in Lesotho. Anna Matseliso Molise, a key witness in the case, was due to testify against her 63-year-old husband at his trial. “

COSTA RICA (From Courtney)
“More than 100 people wearing white and carrying signs marched in the Costa Rican capital San José on Sunday morning to protest against sexual harassment in public places, or street harassment. They also marched in solidarity with the family of Gerardo Cruz, a young man who was stabbed shortly after publicly shaming another man for lewd behavior in the street.”

CANADA
“A pair of devout Jehovah’s Witnesses have been ordered by a B.C. provincial court judge not to talk about religion in front of their four-year-old granddaughter.”

FRANCE (From Filias)
“After years of French controversies over headscarves, pork has become the new battleground in the nation’s uneasy debate over national identity and the place of Islam. Bacon and sausage school dinners are being used by rightwing politicians to hammer home what it means to be French.”

SWEDEN
“A masked man who killed a teacher and a pupil at a school in Sweden had “racist motives”, police believe.”

INDIA
“India’s Sahitya Akademi, which bestows literary honours, has condemned recent attacks on writers and rationalists. It came as 100 writers protested outside the council, demanding it take measures to protect freedom of speech.”

Featured image: Lindsay Fendt/The Tico Times