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world briefs
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AFRICA
At least 65 percent of army hospital beds in
Uganda and Zaire are filled by soldiers with
AIDS, and half the fighting forces in Zimbabwe
and Angola are HIV positive, says the World
Health Organization.
“Combat killed 500,000 Angolans; the first
years of peace may kill 1 million,” WHO’s Dr.
Eben Moussi told the Associated Press. “Psycho
logically, physically, economically— Angola is
not prepared for a disease that will hit with epi
demic force.”
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BRAZIL
More than 300 delegates from 60 nations
attended the 17th World Conference of the Inter
national Lesbian and Gay Association, from June
18 to 25 in Rio de Janeiro, which concluded with
Rio’s first gay pride march, along Copacabana
Beach.
The parade featured samba bands and a two-
block-long rainbow flag.
Delegates approved ILGA campaigns against
the governments of Chile, Ecuador and Nicara
gua, which criminalize gay sex.
The conference also endorsed a same-sex-
marriage bill pending in the Brazilian legislature.
A poll released June 24 showed that 60 percent of
Brazilians favor legal recognition of gay and
lesbian couples.
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ILGA elected new secretaries general, Jordi
Petit from Spain’s Coordinadora Gai-Lesbiana
and Inge Wallaert from Belgium’s Homophile
Workgroups Federation.
In June, ILGA announced it was broke and
might have to shut down after the Rio conference;
there was no immediate update on the group’s
finances.
BRITAIN
London’s 14-year-old weekly newspaper Capi
tal Gay shut down last week.
"The advertising has just dropped off to the
extent where we can’t carry on,” owner Michael
Mason said July 4.
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In lesbian and gay journalism circles. Capital
Gay was widely considered to be among the five
best gay publications in Europe.
Germany’s glossy national newsmagazine
Magnus also recently ceased publication, blam
ing a “financial crisis” and leaving writers unpaid.
FINLAND
Finland has banned discrimination based on
sexual orientation nationwide, reported London’s
The Guardian.
The new law, which takes effect Sept. 1,
makes unfair treatment of gay men and lesbians a
criminal offense.
RUSSIA
Post-Communist gay life is a far cry from what
Russian gays expected, says Yuri Yureyev, presi
dent of St. Petersburg’s Tchaikovsky Foundation.
Speaking to The New York Times, Yureyev
explained: "We got all excited, and then we woke
up and realized we are a deeply hated minority. Of
course there is a lot of anger and disappointment.
Maybe like every other group in this country we
expected too much from the West and too much
from ourselves. We had no models of how to be a
community. Nobody knew how to do it. So we put
on leather and opened bars like they have in San
Francisco and in New York. It was foolish. It will
take decades before we can be that open. Maybe
it will never even happen here.”
SOUTH AFRICA
The government here will distribute 97 mil
lion male condoms and 90,000 female condoms
free, reported the Reuter news service.
It will also erect 300 AIDS-prevention bill
boards around the country.
Health Minister Nkosazana Zuma said the
moves stem from his fear that the skyrocketing
rate of HIV infection could undo post-apartheid
gains in health care, welfare services, economic
development and education.
More than 600,000 of the nation’s 39 million
people are HIV positive. The 1995 AIDS budget
is $23.4 million.
UKRAINE
T he In te rn a tio n a l L esbian and Gay
Association’s recent 10th annual conference for
former Eastern bloc nations was a “grandiose
scandal,” reported the M oscow newspaper
Segodnia.
When the 100-plus delegates arrived at the
end of May in Kiev, Ukraine, no one was there to
meet them. And when they finally found the
conference site the next day, one hour out of town,
they were evicted.
The organizers, the straight chairman of the
Ukrainian Catholic Youth
frien d , ap p aren tly
made off with the reg
istra tio n fees, a
$10,000 grant from
the World Health Or
ganization, and a do
natio n from the
L ifestyles condom
company.
Immigration offi
cials detained and interrogated two British del
egates, both named Peter Norman, for failure to
register with the Department of Visas and Regis
tration of Foreigners. One of the Normans was
believed to have signed a letter guaranteeing
payment to the conference site, a spa.
ILGA’s one employee, Andy Quan, a Cana
dian who works in ILGA’s Brussels office, was
horrified at the mess and promised to sue the
organizers. He also promised, despite ILGA’s
financial quagmire, to make efforts to reimburse
the stunned delegates.
At the conference’s end, the exasperated at
tendees voted to agree that the conference had
never taken place.
Compiled by Rex Wockner