“Choose Love,” read one banner in the about 100-strong crowd outside Chancellor Angela Merkel’s office and near the Reichstag building housing the lower house.

Champagne corks popped and whoops, cheers and whistle blasts went through the crowd braving summer rain as news broke that lawmakers inside the chamber had passed the historic bill.

Among those celebrating from the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community was Soeren Landmann of the “Marriage for All” initiative.

“I got married one year ago in Scotland because we were not allowed to do it in Germany,” he told AFP.

“I am inconceivably happy that a couple that would like to get married won’t have to go abroad for it anymore, and that they can now get married here in a very normal way.”

Inside the chamber, where supporters threw confetti, the 393-226 vote spelt a victory especially for Greens party politician Volker Beck, 56, a veteran gay rights campaigner who was ending a 23-year career as a lawmaker Friday.

“Today a bastion has fallen,” he told German news agency DPA on the move to allow full marriage rights rather than the civil unions introduced in 2001.

He greeted the speedy vote, which was forced by leftist parties three months before September 24 elections, saying it “spares us an election campaign fought on the backs of lesbians and gays”.

– ‘Vote for love’ –

===================

The law was pushed by centre-left Social Democrats, Greens and the far-left Linke party but also supported by 75 conservative lawmakers after Merkel allowed them to vote their conscience.

Merkel herself said she voted against the measure, based on the belief that a marriage is between a man and a woman.

The view was shared by Berlin Archbishop Heiner Koch, who voiced regret about the “watering down” of a sacred institution.

Marriage as enshrined in the German constitution aimed to protect those “who as mother and father give life to their children”, he said.

Most Germans however favour the change, which follows similar laws in many western democracies, with about three-quarters of Germans support, according to recent surveys.

The Lesbian and Gay Association, which has pushed for the reform since 1990, greeted the outcome, declaring that “Germany has voted for love”.

“This is a historic day!” it said in a statement. “Not only for lesbians and gays, but also for a more just and democratic society.”

Marriage would from now be based “not on gender but on love, committment and the promise to be there for each other in good times and in bad”.

The next step would be to achieve full societal acceptance that guarantees everyone the right to “be different, at any time, in any place, without fear and the threat of hostility”.

Klaus Wolter, 48, who lives in Singapore, went missing last Wednesday after telling the hotel he was staying at that he wanted to trek up Mount Sibayak, an active volcano in North Sumatra province.

Scores of rescuers began scouring the volcano — which last erupted over a hundred years ago — the day after he set off, in a frantic search which lasted eight days, and at one point included a helicopter.

Wolter’s body was found on Thursday near a waterfall several kilometres away from where he was last seen.

The rescue team took hours to retrieve the body due to the rough terrain, the head of the local search and rescue mission office, Budiawan, said.

“The wife of the victim has confirmed that it is her husband,” Budiawan, who goes by one name, told AFP.

There have previously been fatalities among tourists climbing volcanoes in Indonesia.

In 2010, an Italian tourist was killed after falling into a ravine when climbing Mount Rinjani, the second-highest volcano in Indonesia.

First lady Peng Liyuan has made headlines for her dress sense and charm as she meets members of the public, while Xi is sticking to more formal visits, including a massive military parade and a meeting with police trainees.

The couple arrived in the bustling financial hub Thursday to mark 20 years since the city was handed back to China by Britain, at a time when tensions are high over Beijing’s encroaching influence on the semi-autonomous city.

Peng’s curated image shows Beijing’s desire to boost its soft power on the global stage, with state media lauding her “public diplomacy” as spreading “kindness and goodwill”.

The wives of Chinese presidents have traditionally been far less prominent publicly than their counterparts overseas, particularly US first ladies.

Xi is not scheduled to meet regular citizens during the three-day trip to Hong Kong, a task that has been taken on by his celebrated soprano singer spouse who visited a kindergarten and elderly home in the first two days.

She has received a warm welcome on social media, even on traditionally sceptical forums.

“Although I’m not a fan of Xi, his wife is definitely more than presentable,” one user commented on the website of the usually anti-China Apple Daily website.

Others called her “dignified and noble” and “a real beauty.”

Peng emerged from the plane Thursday holding hands with Xi, wearing a high-collar white striped jacket paired with a beige skirt and an upswept hairstyle.

Later that day she visited kindergarten students and handed out gifts as they played.

On Friday, as Xi oversaw a massive military parade in rural Hong Kong, Peng visited an elderly home wearing a dark-coloured belted dress adorned with a flower brooch as residents praised her for being “smart” and “pretty”.

But some observers criticised the visits as exploiting more vulnerable members of society to stage a show.

“Little children don’t understand what’s happening, only that a stranger auntie is giving them presents,” one social media user commented on Facebook.

“Brainwashing starts from kindergarten. How scary,” another said.

Peng was a well known folk singer and rose to superstardom performing at gala shows belting out patriotic lyrics.

She has rarely performed since Xi rose to the presidency, instead accompanying him on trips abroad and speaking at events on health and philanthropy within China.

She performed in Hong Kong at the celebration of the 10th anniversary of the 1997 handover, wearing a lavish pink and red gown.//AFP

Cai Guo-Qiang is best known for designing the 2008 Olympic Games “giant footprints” – the amazing fireworks display that lit up the Beijing sky during the opening ceremony. Two billion people around the world witnessed the spectacle.

But it isn’t his only claim to fame.

In the semi-biographical documentary film “Sky Ladder: The Art of Cai Guo-qiang”, the 59-year-old New York-based artist reveals his dream project.

The “Sky Ladder” is one of Cai’s Projects for Extraterrestrials. Courtesy of Cai Studio/Netflix

The film shows Cai – in a fishing village in his hometown of Quanzhou in Fujian province – igniting a 500-metre ladder of rope and gunpowder. The structure shimmers as it’s carried into the sky by a huge hot-air balloon.

This is the “Sky Ladder” of the title, one of his Projects for Extraterrestrials begun in 1990. Using fireworks, Cai is exploring the links between humankind and an unseen world.

The “Sky Ladder” stayed grounded three times before it finally rose above that fishing hamlet. Bad weather and security concerns prevented planned launches in Beijing, Bath in England and Los Angeles in the United States.

“People tried to persuade me to quit, but I persisted because this was a tribute to my 100-year-old grandmother,” Cai said at the documentary’s screening during the recent Shanghai International Film Festival.

His grandmother was there to see his dream project take flight. She’d been the first in his family to believe in his abilities. More than 1,000 other people watched the movie with her in its first screening on the Chinese mainland.

The film has been streamed on Netflix to around 190 countries since last October.

One of Cai Guo-Qiang’s massive fireworks creations rises from a river barge to promote the opening

of an exhibition of his art in Shanghai.  Courtesy of Cai Studio/Netflix

The documentary, directed by Oscar winner Kevin Macdonald (“One Day in September”), traces Cai’s journey from his early days in Quanzhou.

In one scene, he has an emotional conversation with his ailing father. There’s also a clip from an old black-and-white movie in which he played the villain.

Cai described the shoot as “amazing, yet confusing”.

“For quite a long time, Kevin couldn’t figure out how to develop the story,” he explained. “He and his crew just followed me around for two years, always asking me questions.”

Cai chose Macdonald from a list of directors the producers provided. “Kevin had never been to China and knew very little about me and my art, so I immediately said I wanted him.

“I didn’t want someone who’d talk too much about my prizes or achievements. I wanted someone to tell my story through the perspective of an ordinary onlooker.”

The documentary idea emerged during a chat with Xiong Xiaoge, a renowned investor and founding partner of IDG Capital, during a flight to Russia in 2014.

Xiong, who was impressed by Cai’s art, brought on board fellow investors Wendi Deng, a Chinese-American businesswoman, and Liu Dejian, chairman of Fujian-based tech firm Netdragon Websoft.

Cai said he’s happy to see the documentary so well received. The Internet Movie Database (IMDb) and ranking site Rotten Tomatoes both give it high scores.

For the future, Cai plans to continue painting and producing his “gunpowder art”. “I feel I’ve been lucky,” he said. “I can do what I want to do.”

Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Lu Kang told a press briefing that Beijing has lodged a formal protest with Washington and urged the US government to “uphold its solemn commitment to the One-China principle”.

“Taiwan is an indispensable part of China’s territory and we firmly oppose this arms sale to Taiwan,” Lu said.

His comments come after China’s embassy in the United States slammed the sale, saying it was a “wrong move” that would hurt relations between the two countries.

“The wrong move of the US side runs counter to the consensus reached by the two presidents in Mar-a-Lago and the positive development momentum of the China-US relationship,” the embassy said.

“It will harm the mutual trust and cooperation between China and the US.”

Chinese President Xi Jinping met with his US counterpart Donald Trump at the billionaire’s luxury resort in Florida in April.

Relations between the two countries had appeared to improve since the talks, with Trump hailing an “outstanding” relationship with Xi.

But there are signs the honeymoon might be over with Trump criticising China for not doing enough to get North Korea to abandon its nuclear ambitions and the US slapping sanctions on a Chinese bank accused of laundering North Korean cash.

The Trump administration says the temporary ban is necessary to block terrorists from entering the country, but immigrant advocates charge that it illegally singles out Muslims.

The 90-day ban on visitors from Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen, and 120 day ban on refugees, will allow exceptions for people with “close family relationships” in the United States.

But activists said the government has defined that too narrowly, excluding relationships with grandparents and grandchildren, aunts and uncles and others.

And many were concerned about a possibly chaotic rollout of enforcement of the ban, like that in January when it was first announced.

Immigration rights activists and lawyers were waiting to help arrivals at New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport and other airports to be sure those from the six countries with valid US visas were allowed in after the ban went into effect at 8 pm Thursday Eastern time (0000 GMT Friday).

The Department of Homeland Security, which was heavily criticized for mishandling many arrivals when the ban was first attempted in January, promised a smooth rollout this time.

They stressed that anyone with a valid visa issued before the ban begins would still be admitted, and that all authorized refugees booked for travel before July 6 will also be allowed.

“We expect business as usual at the ports of entry starting at 8 pm tonight,” said a DHS official. “Our people are well prepared for this.”

The Trump administration insists the ban was necessary to protect the country from terror threats, and to give immigration authorities more time to tighten vetting of travelers and refugees.

“As recent events have shown, we are living in a very dangerous time, and the US government needs every available tool to prevent terrorists from entering the country and committing acts of bloodshed and violence,” a senior administration official told reporters Thursday.

– Trump claims political victory –

==================================

But implementing it, even with exceptions, was also claimed as a political victory by Trump, after Federal appeals courts twice blocked his order saying it violated Constitutional protections of religion and overshot his own presidential powers.

Immigrant rights groups and Democrats in Congress continued to label trump’s order “illegal” and said the exemptions provided in a Supreme Court ruling on Monday remained unfair.

According to guidelines issued by the State Department, people with “close family relationships” would be exempt from the ban. It defined that to include parents, spouses, children, sons- and daughters-in-law, siblings and step- and half-siblings.

But “close family” does not include grandparents, grandchildren, aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews, cousins, brothers-in-laws and sisters-in-law, fiances and any other “extended” family members, the guidelines say.

People with formal relationships with a US entity — who have for instance been offered a job or been accepted to study or lecture at a university — will also qualify for visas during the ban. But a hotel reservation, even if already paid for, does not qualify.

– ‘Redefining family’ –

=======================

Democratic legislator Bennie Thompson blasted the government for a “lack of preparation and transparency” in putting into place the ban.

“Just hours before the president’s unconstitutional and misguided travel ban takes partial effect tonight, administration officials briefing Congress were unwilling or unable to provide meaningful answers about how they determined whom the ban would affect,” said Thompson, the senior Democrat on the House Homeland Security Committee.

Rama Issa, executive director of the Arab American Association of New York, said the government is redefining what a family is.

“I was raised by my grandparents, so the idea of grandparents not being part of a family is very foreign to me,” she said at Kennedy International, preparing to help arrivals after the ban takes effect.

“I’m engaged to get married. I have family who lives in Syria today — not only my father, but my aunts and uncles who I would love to be at this wedding, and unfortunately are not going to be able to be here.”

Analysing satellite photographs, the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative said Beijing’s Fiery Cross Reef base in the Spratly Islands now has 12 hardened shelters, four more than seen in February, with retractable roofs that can house missile launchers.

At Fiery Cross, Subi and Mischief Reef bases, China has expanded its communications and radar arrays with multiple radar towers on each.

And new construction of “very large underground structures, four at each reef, is underway, which AMTI said a likely designed to house munitions and other essential goods.

“Major construction of military and dual-use infrastructure on the ‘Big 3’ … is wrapping up, with the naval, air, radar and defensive facilities that AMTI has tracked for nearly two years largely complete,” the group said.

“Beijing can now deploy military assets, including combat aircraft and mobile missile launchers to the Spratly Islands at any time.”

AMTI, part of the Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank in Washington, said the air bases on the three islands, and a fourth on Woody Island in the Paracel Islands, allow Chinese military aircraft to operate over almost the entirety of the South China Sea.

In December AMTI reported that large anti-aircraft guns and other defense systems had been installed ont he islands.

China claims nearly all of the South China Sea despite partial counter-claims from Taiwan, the Philippines, Brunei, Malaysia and Vietnam.

But the United States has warned it against militarizing the region or threatening international sea lanes.

“We oppose China’s artificial island construction and their militarization that features in international waters,” US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said in Sydney in early June.

Nguyen Ngoc Nhu Quynh, whose pen name derives from her daughter’s nickname “mushroom”, was arrested in October 2016 and later charged with anti-state propaganda over critical Facebook posts about politics and the environment.

Vietnam’s one-party state keeps a tight clamp on dissent and routinely jails activists, bloggers and lawyers who speak out against the communist regime.

The 37-year-old blogger faced a maximum of 12 years in prison, and her lawyer said the heavy sentence she received at the closed-door trial was “harsh”.

“I am not happy with the result of the trial today,” Nguyen Kha Thanh told AFP, adding that Quynh would likely appeal.

AFP was barred from attending the one-day trial in south-central Khanh Hoa province Thursday, which was heavily guarded by police, according to images on social media.

Thanh said Quynh was calm throughout the trial. In a pre-sentence statement she admitted no guilt and instead used the opportunity to send a message to her two kids and mother, the lawyer added.

“She apologised to her mother and the two kids for what effect this has had on them, but she said they must be very proud of her,” Thanh told AFP.

– Woman of Courage award –

==========================

Quynh was charged under Article 88 of Vietnam’s criminal code and held incommunicado with no access to lawyers until June 20, according to Thanh.

She has been a vocal critic of Vietnam’s human rights record, civilian deaths in police custody and the government’s handling of a toxic leak that killed tonnes of fish last year.

She was arrested in Nha Trang on October 10 as she was visiting a fellow activist in prison.

In the verdict, the judge said Quynh had defamed the government, harmed national unity, eroded popular trust of the government and undermined national security.

She was also convicted for publishing inaccurate information to humiliate the police and erode public trust in them, based on her reports about police brutality.

Human Rights Watch earlier decried the trial as “outrageous” and demanded her release.

“The scandal here is not what Mother Mushroom said, but Hanoi’s stubborn refusal to repeal draconian, rights-abusing laws that punish peaceful dissent and tarnish Vietnam’s international reputation,” Phil Robertson, HRW deputy Asia director said in a statement Wednesday.

The United States, Britain and the European Union have all called for Quynh’s release.

Vietnam’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokeswoman Le Thi Thu Hang said Thursday “all acts that violate the law will be seriously punished in accordance with Vietnamese laws” when asked about the case.

Quynh received an International Woman of Courage Award from the US State Department in March, which Vietnam said was “not appropriate and of no benefit for the development of relations between the two countries”.

In 2015, she was awarded the Civil Rights Defender of the Year by a Sweden-based international advocacy group.

Brussels will give 10.8 million euros ($12 million) to 14 EU countries to boost their cyber response teams following this week’s massive global cyberattack, Security Commissioner Julian King said.

“We’re living through an attack right now. That attack, the recent WannaCry attack and other recent attacks serve graphically to illustrate that the cyber threats we face are growing very seriously” King told reporters.

“Our current dependence on the internet and connected devices and technology is at the moment currently greater than our ability to protect ourselves, and we need to do something about that,” King said.

The latest series of cyberattacks began in Ukraine on Tuesday, hitting government and corporate computer systems across the world as the so-called Petya virus spread to western Europe and across the Atlantic.

The British commissioner to the European Union said that cyberattacks were becoming “more strategic because they endanger critical infrastructure and indeed our democratic processes.”

In addition the extra funding for national cyber response centres, he said there should also be extra support for the EU police agency Europol’s cybercrime department.

Europol said Wednesday that the latest cyberattacks were similar to last month’s WannaCry ransomware havoc but “more sophisticated”.

Nato warned on Wednesday that cyberattacks could potentially trigger the 29-nation military alliance’s mutual defence guarantee, while making a similar call to strengthen cyber defences.