Marriage agency DUO surveyed attitudes of South Koreans towards dating foreigners and found that the vast majority were open to dating non-Koreans and that a significant proportion even prefer to do so.
88.9% (men) / 85.8% (women)
South Koreans who are open to relationships with foreigners
30% (men) / 37.2% (women)
South Koreans who prefer pursuing relationships with foreigners rather than other South Koreans
Lagos state bans out-of-court settlement for sexual and domestic violence cases
The Lagos State Domestic and Sexual Violence Response Team announced that cases of rape, defilement, and violence against women would no longer be able to be settled out of court.
The team coordinator met with tribal leaders to discuss ways of effective intervention when women come to them for advice on how to handle such cases.
Officials have been trying to reroute cases from traditional settlement to judicial settlement through state legal structures.
Image Credit: Leonardo Angelucci/AFP/Getty Images, via The Guardian
Childish Trading and Manufacturing founder Maite Makgoba hopes her Mommpy Mpoppy doll will help change the way young black South African children look at themselves. In a market overwhelmed by whiteness, her dolls feature dark skin and natural-looking hair, giving black children an opportunity to insert images of themselves into their play fantasies. The Guardian takes a look at the toy and the uphill market challenges Makgoba faces.
The Moscow Times delves into the intricate process of adoption in Russia, highlighting the legal and psychological challenges faced in a country that sees relatively high levels of adoption, but also high failure and dissolution rates. Couples discuss their attempts to celebrate their families and increase the visibility of adoption in Russia as the nation closes many of its doors to international adoption.
Myanmar president signs bills perceived as targeting Muslim minorities, interfaith couples, and the unmarried into law
President Thein Sein signed four “Race and Religious Protection Laws” into being in the lead-up to November elections.
The laws include one criminalizing polygamy and unmarried cohabitation and two laws restricting religious conversion and interfaith marriage.
Buddhist nationalists in the country have promoted the laws as the latest in a series of measures restricting the activities and practices of the country’s Muslim minority.
“They set out the potential for discrimination on religious grounds and pose the possibility for serious communal tension.”
Afghan police investigate gas poisoning at girls’ school in Herat province
More than 100 girls were taken to the hospital in Herat province for toxic gas poisoning at their school in the village of Enjil.
While police investigate whether the incident was intentional, politicians suspect it was the work of conservative factions who oppose education for girls in the country.
Most of the girls were discharged the same day as their hospitalization.
Austria announces it will check migrants’ asylum status at border with Hungary
Hundreds of migrants discovered on an overcrowded train from Budapest at the Austrian border will have their status checked by Austrian authorities.
If migrants are discovered to have applied for asylum in Hungary, they will be barred from further movement and returned to Hungary.
Migrants with no asylum application in progress will be given two weeks to decide whether to apply for asylum in Austria, or be returned to their last country of transit.
Four journalists affiliated with VICE News –two British, one locally based, and one unknown–were detained by Turkish anti-terrorism forces for covering the conflict between the government and the Kurdistan Worker’s Party (PKK).
The journalists had their equipment seized after they filming clashes between police and PKK supporters.
Because Turkey considers the PKK a terrorist organization, the government has obstructed the work of journalists attempting to contact or cover the group.
“It is completely proper that that journalists should cover this important story. … The decision to detain the journalists was wrong, while the allegation of assisting Islamic state is unsubstantiated, outrageous and bizarre.”
President Obama announces tallest North American mountain will have native name officially recognized
Denali (“the high one” in Athabaskan) is the native name for Mount McKinley, the tallest mountain in North America, and has now become federally recognized as the official name of the mountain.
In 1896, the mountain was renamed Mount McKinley during President William McKinley’s second election campaign despite Ohioan McKinley having no connection to the mountain or Alaska.
President Obama will announce the change as he becomes the first sitting president to visit the Alaskan Arctic, where he will meet with Alaskan Native leaders to discuss cooperative measures.
Venice mayor says no Pride parades for city during his tenure
Recently elected mayor Luigi Brugnaro was elected on a center-right ticket and has made his opposition to LGBT rights clear previously.
Rights group Arcigay, which hosts numerous Pride events throughout Italy, condemned the statement, having last hosted a parade in Venice just last year.
Brugnaro’s statement is the latest in anti-LGBT moves to come from his office, including a blanket ban on books featuring same-sex couples from Venice schools.
“There will never be a gay pride in my city. … Let them go and do it in Milan, or in front of their own homes.”
Situated in the Boeing neighborhood of the Central African Republic capital Bangui, a Muslim cemetery that was long the stronghold of Christian anti-balaka militants found itself in need of repair. RFI highlights how the situation provided a unique opportunity for the city’s Christian community to help their Muslim brethren clear not only the weeds of the burial plots, but the divisions between their communities as well.
« Nous sommes en train de désherber sur le cimetière musulman de Boeing. Je suis un chrétien. Ce qui m’a poussé à venir travailler, main dans la main avec les musulmans, c’est la cohésion sociale. Si nous sommes réunis, c’est parce que nous voulons que la paix revienne dans notre pays et pour éviter les problèmes qui se posent encore dans notre pays »
Translation: “We’re pulling weeds in Boeing’s Muslim cemetery. I’m a Christian. What pushed me to come to work, hand in hand with Muslims, is social cohesion. If we’re gathered, it’s because we want peace to return to our country and to avoid the problems that still come up in our country.”
A new documentary featuring renowned British drag queen Asifa Lahore (Asif Quarashi) highlights struggles of Britain’s gay Asian and Muslim drag queen communities. Probing the complexities at the intersection of an at times violently opposed faith community and a gender and sexual minority community that often whitewashes its population, Muslim Drag Queens premieres today in celebration of Britain’s vibrant Gaysian community.
Rohingya politician barred from re-election as hundreds of thousands find themselves struck from voting rolls
Lawmaker U Shwe Maung, a member of Myanmar’s governing party, was informed by the country’s electoral commission of his ineligibility to run for re-election.
The commission claimed Shwe Maung was not a citizen, the result of Myanmar’s recent invalidation of the identity cards held by the majority of the country’s Rohingya population.
The mass disenfranchisement of Rohingya has compromised the integrity of the upcoming November elections, which will be the first to include a democratically led party to compete with the military-backed governing party.
“This is the government really stripping them of their last right. … It suits the government’s long-term plan of compelling them to leave.”
Outlas 