After dawn in a small eastern Indonesia town, a young man holds an ornate umbrella over non-binary priest Puang Matowa Nani, as they walk barefoot to a nearby pond to perform the annual ritual of Mappalili.. - A 'floating soul' - At the pond, bordering a lush green rice field, Nani led the Mappalili ritual and chanted a prayer as other Bissu in bright silk blouses, headdresses and embroidered skirts walked behind in a parade.
This year will be the fourth year running that Seyi Anne Moses has had to decide against going home to see her parents at Christmas.. "I have decided again that I won't travel home this year due to the insecurity, the murders, the kidnappings and the rapes," she said.
China said Wednesday that not a single person had died of Covid-19 the previous day, after changing the criteria for recording virus deaths to mean most are no longer counted.. Previously, people who died of an illness while infected with the virus were counted as a Covid death.
Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky will meet US leader Joe Biden and address Congress in Washington on Wednesday, during a visit the White House said will send Russia a strong message of Western unity.. The visit will send Putin "a strong message of unity and resolve from the White House, from Washington, from the free world, on behalf of all the nations supporting Ukraine," the official added.
The European Vega-C rocket was lost shortly after lift-off from French Guiana on Tuesday with two Airbus satellites on board, the company behind the launch said.. "The mission is lost," Stephane Israel, head of commercial launch service provider Arianespace, said from the Kourou Space Center in French Guiana.
New Zealand's government on Wednesday outlined changes to controversial plans to tax the farts and burps of livestock, but a leading farmers group said it was still opposed to the emissions reduction scheme.. The head of New Zealand's leading agriculture advocacy group said the amended plans still stink and criticised the government's "unrealistic timelines".
Kneeling in front of a turbanned judge in a tiny room at the Ghazni Court of Appeal in eastern Afghanistan, an old man sentenced to death for murder pleads for his life. . But the old man in Ghazni who was sentenced to death says he had no lawyer, and his appeal lasted less than 15 minutes.
Millions of Argentines who crammed the streets of Buenos Aires to celebrate an unforgettable moment with Lionel Messi and his World Cup winning teammates instead found themselves at a giant party bereft of its hallmark bus parade.. It was an unprecedented party with an estimated five to six million people taking to the streets of Buenos Aires.
Apurimac, a poor, Indigenous-majority region in Peru's rural south, is the birthplace of the country's brand new president, Dina Boluarte.. - 'Peru, I love you' - Castillo, who has Indigenous roots, is popular in poor, marginalized regions where the former rural school teacher and union leader embodies an antithesis to the political and economic elites in Lima.
Elon Musk said Tuesday he would resign as chief executive of Twitter once he finds a replacement, in apparent response to a poll he launched that suggested users wanted him to step down.. "I will resign as CEO as soon as I find someone foolish enough to take the job!"
