Saddam Hussein's Iraq quarantined all AIDS patients and their families at 'a prison of shame and death,' Agence France-Presse reported May 4.
'The patients and their families were treated like prisoners in guarded secret locations because the government decided that there was no AIDS in the country,' said Dr. Karim Nada, director of the quarantine facility. 'The families remained locked up until the death of their relatives.'
The Ibn Zuhur 'hospital' was located 'on the ragged outskirts of Baghdad,' the AFP report said.
BATHHOUSE
TO AIR ADS
A gay bathhouse in Melbourne, Australia, is set to begin advertising on over-the-air television.
' [ The ad ] is for men who like men and want a venue to explore that,' Damien Kimber, manager of Wet On Wellington, told the Melbourne Herald Sun. 'The biggest hidden market we have is men who do not identify with the gay community. That is clearly where the advert is directed.'
The ad shows two men and two women in a bar. When the women leave, the men give each other the eye then depart for the bathhouse.
The Australian Family Association is unhappy about the ad.
'It seems like it is really almost a recruitment drive,' said Vice President Bill Muehlenberg. 'They are trying to get new recruits, fresh blood almost, into the community.'
CROATIAN GAYS GATHER
Gays in Zagreb, Croatia, staged a six-day 'Queer Zagreb' conference April 25-30 that attracted people from Australia, Austria, Britain, Bosnia, Croatia, Germany, Serbia, Slovenia, Sweden, the U.S. and elsewhere.
Well-known academics Dennis Altman of Australia and Jonathan Katz of the U.S. were among the presenters.
Three live cultural performances played to full theatersalthough police and security guards were required to protect attendees, at a cost of thousands of euros.
The opening-night performance and one day of the conference were picketed by evangelical Christians. News coverage of the events was balanced, participants said.
BASQUE REGION EXTENDS
MARRIAGE RIGHTS
The parliament of Spain's Basque region extended the legal rights of marriage to unmarried same-sex and opposite-sex couples May 7.
All matrimonial rightsincluding those related to adoption, taxation and healthcare were included.
A majority of European Union nations now extend most or all marriage rights to same-sex couplesand The Netherlands and Belgium let same-sex couples marry under the ordinary marriage laws.
TRANSSEXUAL ELECTED IN JAPAN
An open transsexual was elected to the Municipal Assembly in Tokyo's Setagaya ward April 27.
Aya Kamikawa, 35, came in sixth among the 72 candidates for the assembly's 52 seats.
'I am overjoyed,' she told reporters. 'I will proudly attend the assembly as a woman.
'As long as we keep silent, nothing is going to change,' she added in an interview with Australia's Sydney Morning Herald. 'We need the courage to make a society which respects diversity.'
15,000 AT
BRUSSELS PRIDE
About 15,000 people turned out for Brussels, Belgium's gay-pride festival May 3.
This year's slogan was, 'We want more.'
On June 14, Belgium will become only the second nation in the world to let same-sex couples marry under the exact same laws as straight people.
But the law change did not extend adoption rights or the right to marry a foreigner. So Belgian gays 'want more.'
BELGIUM WEDDINGS HIT SNAG
Belgium this year became the second nation in the world to let gays and lesbians marry under the same marriage laws as straight people do, and the law comes into effect June 14.
City Hall is prepared to conduct the first weddings at midnight June 14 in its ornate, gothic wedding hall, but activists have been unable to find a couple willing to get married in the glare of an international media frenzy.
'No couple has been found that is willing to subject themselves to a lot of worldwide publicity,' said a reliable source who preferred not to be named.
When The Netherlands became the first nation to allow full gay marriage, on April 1, 2001, four couples tied the knot in the City Council chambers at the stroke of midnight with the mayor officiating.
Belgium's first groundbreaking same-sex weddings may take place without any hoopla at all.
t.A.T.u. PLEDGE
MARRIAGE
The two Russian teenage girls who make up the international smash pop duo t.A.T.u say they will marry each other if they win the Eurovision Song Contest on May 24.
'If we win Eurovision we even want to get marriedpreferably in Germany,' Lena Katina told a German newspaper according to a May 1 report by Sky News.
'We want to move in together nowinto a former brothel,' said Julia Volkova. But they will not be monogamous. 'We were never faithful to each other,' Katina said. 'We also had lots of sex with boys.' Actually, 'We don't have time for sex anymore,' she added.
t.A.T.u hit No. 1 in several nations with their controversial lesbian-themed song 'All The Things She Said.' The video, in which the girls passionately make out, was banned in Britain by both the BBC and ITV1.
Russian journalists have claimed that Katina and Volkova are heterosexual but pretend to be gay because it is commercially advantageous to do so.
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ACTIVIST'S SUICIDE
An activist with Seoul, South Korea's Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transsexual Human Rights Federation committed suicide in the group's office April 26.
Okoodang, 19, left a note saying he could no longer live with society's discrimination against sexual minorities. 'How cruel and anti-biblical it is to discriminate against sexual minorities,' he wrote. 'After death, I can proudly say I am gay, with no need to suffer, no need to hide myself anymore.'
Okoodang left his savings, $300, beside the note with instructions that it be used 'for the liberation of sexual minorities.'
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