6 ▼ February 2 1 , 1997 ▼ ju s t out
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BRAZIL
One hundred twenty-six gay men, lesbians
and transvestites were murdered in Brazil in 1996
because o f their sexuality, according to data col­
lected by Grupo Gay da Bahia.
That is a 12 percent increase over 1995.
Eighty-five o f the victims were gay, 37 were
transvestites and four were lesbians.
M eanwhile, a day after GGB issued its report,
an actor known as Sandro, who plays a gay man
on a popular television show, was gay-bashed in
Rio de Janeiro, said GGB spokesm an Luiz Mott.
No details were available at press time.
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Brazil’s new official A ID S-inform ation cam ­
paign will teach children aged 7 to 9 how to use a
condom, Reuters reports.
The governm ent will also distribute 250 mil­
lion rubbers to groups perceived to be at high risk
for HIV infection.
Brazil is believed to have one o f the w orld’s
highest AIDS rates.
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BRITAIN
ISRAEL
A gay man has won his fight to receive an
Israeli Defense Force spousal pension.
A Tel Aviv District Court Appeals Committee
ruled Jan. 8 that the military engaged in illegal
gender-based discrimination when it withheld
benefits from Adir Steiner after his male lover,
Col. Doron Meisel, died of cancer in 1991.
Israeli businesses are required to provide equal
benefits to lesbian and gay em ployees’ families,
but the military was not covered by that law.
ppigip
AZT alone brought '
in $400 million last year, f f ;
while 3TC generated in-
com e o f $260 million. .
Most o f the world’s
H IV -p o sitiv e p e o p le B ^
c a n n o t a ffo rd th e o
com pany’s drugs, and
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even in the United States
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the cost of anti-HIV drugs has bankrupted some
local government assistance programs— and some
uninsured HIV-positive people go without.
Meanwhile, as was publicized late last year,
Glaxo W ellcome Chief Executive Officer Richard
Sykes takes home a salary o f $2.3 million a year.
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INTERNATIONAL
The International Lesbian and Gay Associa­
tion announced a boycott o f Romanian wine Jan.
23 to protest against the nation’s continued penal­
ization of homosexuality.
Gay sex in private apparently is now permitted
in Romania, but in the process o f passing the
decriminalization measure, legislators created new
laws banning gay bars, gay organizations, gay
media, and gay sex that creates a “public scan­
dal”— defined as anything two or more people find
offensive. Violators face up to five years in prison.
W ine is Rom ania’s most visible consumer
export. Twenty-five million liters are sold abroad
annually.
Bri tish-basedGlaxo W ellcome, m akersof3TC,
AZT and other anti-HIV drugs, now controls over
50 percent o f the global $1.3 billion HIV-drug
m arket, according to % / 'X
Business Week.
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orientation.
One new law criminalizes any action that
humiliates, degrades, slanders or defames an in­
dividual or group based on sexual orientation. A
second law makes it a crime to deny a service or
commercial transaction based on sexual orienta­
tion.
Lothian Health Authority in Edinburgh, Scot­
land, has told area doctors to stop prescribing
combi nation anti-HI V drugs for the next two months
because there is no money budgeted to pay for
them, reported the B BC’s Radio 5 Live.
The nucleoside analogue/protease inhibitor
combos can cost up to $20,000 a year.
CANADA
AIDS-related deaths in British C olum bia have
plummeted thanks to the new protease inhibitor-
based combination anti-HIV therapies.
The death rate in the last three months o f 1996
was 23 per 1,000 people with AIDS com pared to
70 per 1,000 in early 1994.
COSTA RICA
The assistant director o f Costa R ica’s nation­
alized health care system, Dr. Julieta Rodriguez,
told 25 HIV-positive people Jan. 22 that the
system will not pay for anti-HIV drugs.
In a meeting held in the offices o f the agency,
the Caja C ostariccense de Seguros Sociales,
Rodriguez said the drugs are too expensive and do
not cure AIDS anyway.
O ne o f the 25 attendees, who called him self
Antonio, told reporters afterward: “Since we
started meeting three weeks ago, two members of
our group have died. But the authorities here
d on’t care. We are young, productive members o f
this society who have contributed [via mandatory
payroll deductions] to this [health care] system as
workers during many years. But they w on’t give
us anything. It is a horrible situation.”
ICELAND
Six months after becom ing the fourth nation to
legalize marriage-like same-sex partnerships, Ice­
land has banned mistreatm ent based on sexual
ITALY
“The idea that attributing homosexuality to
someone is an insult to the honor, in the sense of an
assault on the dignity of their person, must be
rejected decisively.... Calling someone homo­
sexual cannot constitute in i tself a di mini shment of
the person.
>P
V j
So ruled an Italian court in mid-January, in a
case brought by the Brescia Blues wom en’s soc­
cer team.
Club members sued for defamation after am a­
teur league Chairman Michele de Caminata dis­
banded the team, charging that the players had
become distracted by lesbian sex.
THE PHILIPPINES
The Philippines will see its first national gay
conference in May.
The event, organized by the Progressive O rga­
nization o f Gays, known as PROGAY, is ex­
pected to draw delegates from 11 provinces.
M eanwhile, on Jan. 14, PROGAY members
staged a public protest against government plans
to issue citizen ID cards.
PROGAY head Oscar Atadero labeled the
scheme “one dangerously small step away from
encrypting in magnetic code the privately kept
gender orientation, sexual preferences and HIV/
AIDS status o f gays.”
THAILAND
Thai Education M inister Sukavit Rangsitphol
said Jan. 24 he will not back down from the
nation’s new ban on lesbian and gay students at
teacher colleges.
"The ministry has not violated human rights,”
Rangsitphol said. "The ruling is only aimed at
banning people with improper personalities from
being models for youngsters.”
Compiled by Rex Wockner