Leo Varadkar elected Catholic Ireland’s first gay prime minister

LONDON: Leo Varadkar, the son of a Mumbai-origin doctor, was on Wednesday confirmed as Ireland’s first gay and the youngest prime minister following a vote in Parliament.

Varadkar, 38, who was earlier this month elected leader of the ruling Fine Gael party, secured 57 votes to 50, with 47 abstentions.

Addressing the Dáil — the Irish Parliament — Varadkar said: “I’ve been elected to lead but I promise to serve. The government that I lead will not be one of left or right because those old divisions don’t comprehend the political challenges of today.

“The government I lead will be one of the new European centre as we seek to build a republic of opportunity.”

Varadkar later met President Michael D Higgins, who gave him the seals of office to officially confirm his appointment.

As prime minister, Varadkar will deal with the implications of Brexit on Ireland — which is still part of the EU — and the yetto-be formalised coalition arrangement between the Democratic Unionist Party of neighbouring Northern Ireland and the ruling Conservative Party in London. BEIJING: South Korea on Wednesday rejected Pakistan’s claim that the two Chinese nationals abducted and killed by Islamic State in Balochistan were preaching Christianity under the guise of learning Urdu at a school run by a South Korean.

A South Korean foreign ministry official told HT there was no evidence to say the two were involved in preaching under the guidance of a south Korean.

China on Wednesday said it would cooperate with Pakistan to verify whether the duo was involved in illegal preaching activities. The murders put question marks on the security of Chinese workers in Pakistan, central to China’s ambitious Belt and Road Initiative. The centerpiece of the new Silk Route plan, the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, passes through insurgencyhit Balochistan.

Chinese state media had just stopped short of blaming the Chinese citizens, identified as Lee Zingyang and Meng Lisi, for their own deaths. “The kidnapped couple was part of a group of 13 Chinese nationals brought to Quetta in November by a South Korean who runs a school. Language education was merely a front for conducting religious activities,” the Shanghaiist website quoted a Global Times report as saying.

But the South Korean official rejected the allegations. “With regard to the two Chinese confirmed to have been killed by the Islamic State, nothing has so far been found to verify the suspicion that they were involved with a Korean missionary group,” the official told HT.

The official confirmed that 12 Chinese nationals were taking Urdu lessons in a school run by a South Korean in Quetta. “Nevertheless,