A senior opposition politician withdrew his statement that people with HIV should be banned from marriage, after he was criticized by AIDS activists, a report said yesterday.
Mohammad Nizar Jamaluddin, of the conservative Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party (PAS) and chief minister of the northern state of Perak, said people with HIV should be allowed to marry and have children.
“No one is out to sideline HIV carriers,” he was quoted as saying by the New Sunday Times newspaper.
However he also said that people with HIV should be housed in special isolated wards when in hospital and when marrying should be required to prove to their future spouse that they are receiving medical treatment.
Nizar appeared to change his stance after last week when he was quoted as saying by the New Straits Times newspaper: “I think it is a gross error to allow somebody very sick like that, an HIV carrier, to marry.”
“If there’s any breeding — sorry for having to use that word — the embryo will also carry the same virus. It’s very unjust to the child,” he was quoted as saying.
Malaysian Deputy Prime Minister Najib Razak had earlier said that all Muslim couples would have to undergo mandatory HIV screening before they wed — a test so far only applied in certain states.
Irene Fernandez, director of the women’s group Tenaganita, said the government “should not be making such choices for people.”
“It is a screwed-up perspective. After so many years of HIV/AIDS education they [the government] come up with such views. This is very worrying,” she said.
“If a couple gets married and one partner is found to be HIV positive, does it mean they will have to divorce? This clearly does not make sense,” she said.
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
Armed with 4,000 eggs and a truckload of sugar and cream, French pastry chefs on Wednesday completed a 121.8m-long strawberry cake that they have claimed is the world’s longest ever made. Youssef El Gatou brought together 20 chefs to make the 1.2 tonne masterpiece that took a week to complete and was set out on tables in an ice rink in the Paris suburb town of Argenteuil for residents to inspect. The effort overtook a 100.48m-long strawberry cake made in the Italian town of San Mauro Torinese in 2019. El Gatou’s cake also used 350kg of strawberries, 150kg of sugar and 415kg of
RSS