The city’s housing bureau has issued a report advocating conservative restrictions on who should and should not be allowed to rent rooms.

In addition to same-sex couples, unmarried couples were also included in the ambiguous report which does not make clear whether the new rules would merely become guidelines or be enforced by law.

Married couples, families and individuals would benefit from the recommendations if enforced.

However, many see economical as well as morally questionable flaws in the report.

Local media have denounced the plan as ‘arrogant’ and unjustifiably targeting the Chinese LGBT community and also the City’s poorer inhabitants.

“This matter in essence… attacks the people who can least afford it” comments the Southern Metropolitan Daily.

Others point to the dubious situation that may arise when students and much needed migrant workers arrive in the city, often renting bunk beds in cramped communal rooms to save costs in a city where property prices and rents have soared in recent years.

Far from living up to its’ colonial-dubbed name of ‘Whore of the Orient’, the People’s Republic’s rising status as a superpower is bringing with it conservative moral values imposed from the top down.

Last year, China banned foreign gay couples from adopting Chinese children in an attempt to stop an influx of foreign nationals wishing to adopt.

Disabled people, unmarried couples and obese people were also included on the list upon which the Chinese authorities cite a desire for children to grow up in “better conditions”

The season is called Hidden Lives Week and programmes range from documentaries to drama.

The BBC say the programmes are intended to raise awareness of the landmark report that led to the legalisation of homosexuality in the UK.

The Wolfenden report was commissioned 50 years ago this coming Monday (3rd September).

The Hidden Lives series will be shown on BBC4 from Saturday 1st September.

A spokesperson for Lion Television Scotland, the producers of Consenting Adults, which forms part of the series, told PinkNews.co.uk:

“The 75 minute special is set against the deliberations of the Wolfenden Committee, established by the then Home Secretary to look into the law relating to Homosexual Offences and Prostitution in September 1954.

“Consenting Adults, the transmission of which will coincide with the 50th anniversary of the report’s publication, follows the diverse members of the committee as they struggle towards their radical conclusions.”

Other programmes in the Hidden Lives series include a profile of Frankie Howard from his early days in South London and early acting jobs, through radio stardom to TV triumphs, depression, money problems and his sex life; Andrew and Jeremy get married: Don Boyd’s acclaimed film follows the lives of a middle-aged English gay couple from wildly different backgrounds as they prepare to get hitched and Gay MPs – Pride and Prejudice in Politics: in which Eddie Mair takes a look at the history of homosexuality in the Houses of Parliament.

Also on offer is an exploration of the life of outrageous Australian fashion designer Leigh Bowery with contributions from Damien Hirst and Boy George and Breaking the Code, with Derek Jacobi starring as Alan Turing, the mathematical genius who cracked the Enigma Code, but who was persecuted for being homosexual.

The Shout OUT campaign will encourage the LGBT community to have their say about gay life in Wales and will tackle issues such as hate crimes, health care, education and employment.

Cardiff’s Lesbian and Gay Mardi Gras is set to draw massive crowds this weekend.

Now in its ninth year, it has grown into one of the biggest free gay and lesbian events in the UK.

Liz Morgan of Stonewall Cymru Director told PinkNews.co.uk:

“Life for lesbian, gay and bisexual people in Wales has changed immeasurably in recent years.

“We want to hear from people whose lives have been changed by recent legislative changes, such as civil partnerships and the new ‘goods and services’ regulations.”

“We also recognise that not everyone shares the same experiences and some people may still be experiencing harassment or discrimination.

“Shout OUT is about giving a voice to lesbian and gay people. These shared voices will help us target our work in areas where we can make a real difference.”

Stonewall Cymru is asking people to visit its stall at Mardi Gras to fill out a Shout OUT form, fill out a form online at stonewallcymru.org.uk, or complete the Stonewall Cymru Facebook group.

Cardiff’s Lesbian and Gay Mardi Gras takes place this Saturday in Coopers Field, Cardiff.

Sue Thomas, Co-Chair of Cardiff Mardi Gras, told PinkNews.co.uk:

“We wanted to ensure that we continued to raise awareness that Mardi Gras is about much more than one day a year.

“A mixture of events and issues has been highlighted in the last six months in line with the colours and their meanings and these will now culminate together to form the rainbow under which our main event will be held.”

With expectations high when it comes to numbers attending, this year’s Mardi Gras is set to descend on Wales bringing with it numerous hot acts including Faye Tozer from Steps, singer Sonia and Llanelli band The Mams.

The celebrations started in 1999 with around 5,000 people and has grown to attract approximately 40,000.

Community issues are just as important as those of the individual for LGBT people, as Liz Morgan says:

“Mardi Gras creates an exciting buzz within the lesbian and gay and community so it’s the perfect time to launch a campaign that involves the whole community.”

The celebration of Cardiff’s sexual diversity, will be accompanied by that of Cardiff’s diverse religious and spiritual communities.

Sue Thomas added:

“We have a new reflection area which will be a space that will include representation from many faiths and beliefs including Buddhist, Christian, Jewish, Pagan.”

“Its not only going to be a fantastic day out, but also forms a vital part of a wider strategy to combat homophobic hate crime and make Wales a safe place for all.”

The event was set up to celebrate the LGBT community, to ensure a sense of belonging and build strong and positive relations between people of different backgrounds, whilst working towards equality and inclusion in Reading and its surrounding areas.

Elaine Burroughs, Chair of BeYou, Berkshire’s lesbian and gay information network, told PinkNews.co.uk:

“Pride has always been a much anticipated part of the LGBT event calendar.

“Representing a safe environment in which communities can get together to celebrate their diversity without fear, it is great to see Reading Pride becoming such an established event.

“I would encourage anyone thinking about attending Reading Pride to come along – you really are guaranteed a fun day out”

BeYou volunteers will be showcasing the organisation’s helpline, drop-in and other support services.

Ms Burroughs added:

“Reading Pride 2007 represents a valuable opportunity for the local community to meet the team of trained volunteers who man BeYou’s services to ensure the ongoing success of the organisation.

“Primarily, the BeYou stand will be used to promote the organisation’s core services, including the helpline it runs every Tuesday from 7:30pm to 9:30pm and the drop-in service, held every last Thursday of the month at the Global Café in London Street, Reading from 7:30pm to 9pm.”

A host of other local LGBT community groups will also be attending the festival.

The Reading Pride festival began in 2004, attracting 6,000 people.

Last year organisers estimated a record 10,000 to 15,000 to have attended and the numbers are set rise even further this year.

It was the first Pride event ever to have a drag act on the main stage. Historically it was also the first Pride event held in a town and not a city.

This year’s highlights include entertainment from The Sheilas (from the Sheila’s Wheels advert).

Reading Pride’s chairperson (and now trustee) Lorna McArdle told BBC Berkshire: “Last year’s weather didn’t do us any favours and the bomb scare in the station behind the festival site added to our work load, but this year will be our landmark Pride – our first pride festival as a charity and our first pride parade.”

As well the tents below, there will be a Karaoke Tent, a Game Show Beer Tent plus a Youth Zone.

Live Stage:

Blue Beyond

Grey Matter

Vadershandbag

Yes Miss No Miss

Nicolette Street

Jess Gardham

Diane James

Karen Jones

Keith Anderson

Jamie Watson

Envy

Code5

Cabaret Stage:

The Sheilas

Amber Dextrous

Fanny Dazzle

Miss Kitty

Davina Sparkle

Sandra

Drag With No Name

Miss Jason

Wilma Fingadoo

Miss Thunderpussy

Miss Bridey

Matt Sebastian

Dance Stage:

DJ Gary H

DJ Chris Reardon

Women’s Tent

Axe Girl

Onepercubicle

Vadershandbag

Lyndsy Dolbear

Grey Matter

Nina Mccann

Yonni

Reading Pride will commence on Saturday 8th September from 12-8pm in King’s Meadow Park.

BeYou Lesbian and Gay Information Network is a Berkshire-based charitable provider of support services to the local community.

The BeYou helpline is a confidential phone service, run by highly experienced trained volunteers and offering information on a wide range of issues – from sexual health to ‘coming out’.

Running alongside BeYou is BeHere, a weekly drop-in session presenting clients with the opportunity for face-to-face interaction.

Under the category of ‘Best Pop Artist in association with TV Hits’, the Beirut-born singer will be up against Natasha Bedingfield, Simon Webb, Lil Chris and The Hoosiers for the award.

The 24-year-old’s hit single Grace Kelly spent weeks at the top of the charts and his debut album Life In Cartoon Motion has sold half a million copies since it was released in February this year.

His camp performances have sent gay pulses racing, but he refuses to be drawn, which led to speculation that he may be gay or bisexual, leading some commentators to coin descriptive phrases like ‘ambisexual’ and ‘gaybe’.

Despite speculation about his sexuality, in an interview with the Guardian Mika dismissed the issue of his sexual orientation as the “million dollar question”, but stopped short of giving a million dollar answer.

He insists that people should be more concerned about his material than his sexuality.

“I never talk about anything to do with my sexuality. I just don’t think I need to. People ask me all the time. But I just don’t see the point,” he said, according to contactmusic.com

“In order to survive I’ve kind of shut up different parts of my life, and that’s one of them, especially this early in my career.

“I don’t really feel that it’s necessary to know in terms of my music. Some people make records that are defined by their sexuality but mine really are not. It does play a lot with campness. It has a theatricality to it. Why not? It’s pop music!”

Mika, real name Mica Penniman, was educated at the exclusive Westminster School, where politician of the moment Ruth Kelly also studied.

He was clasically trained at the Royal College of Music and has been favourably compared to Freddie Mercury, George Michael, Scissor Sisters, Rufus Wainwright, and Sir Elton John.

The annual BT Digital Music Awards is an annual awards ceremony where consumers are encouraged to log on and vote on the official website: www.btdma.com.

There are 20 prestigious awards up for grabs this year with 12 voted for by the public.

This year, the slogan of the ceremony is “The digital revolution is upon us”.

The revealed results and official award presentations will be televised on Channel 4.

The woman, referred to as AB, completed her surgery to become female in April 2002.

AB, from Victoria, appealed to state’s Federal Court in July 2005 to have her birth certificate changed from male to female.

The south-eastern state of Victoria’s Registrar of Births, Deaths and Marriages subsequently rejected her request on the grounds that she was married leading to a massive legal dispute that set commonwealth law against Victorian law.

Under Victorian law, a person can legally have the sex recorded on their birth registration altered only before marriage, a law put in place to avoid conflict with commonwealth law over same sex marriages, which the federal government opposes.

AB took legal action, claiming that Victorian law contravenes the Commonwealth Sex Discrimination Act and that the initial dismissal of her appeal by the courts discriminated against her on the grounds of marital status and her being a woman.

Her initial court action was rejected by a single Federal Court justice.

On appeal at the same court in Melbourne, justices Michael Black, Susan Kenny and Roger Gyles dismissed her case by a two to one majority, ruling that Victorian and Commonwealth laws are not inconsistent and that all married persons – both male and female – are treated equally under the current legislation.

The Keep It Clean action day is set to take place in London this Sunday 2nd September.

GaydarRadio and THT are teaming up with LGBT police liaison officers and volunteers to promote the event.

Hampstead Heath and Clapham Common are famous cruising locations among gay men, as was popularised by the recent TV drama Clapham Junction.

However,as GaydarRadio’s Commercial Director David Muniz points out, cleanliness and safety continue to be a major issue affecting the area.

He told PinkNews: “Both Hampstead Heath and Clapham Common are shared public spaces.

“As an integral part of the community, we have a responsibility, both environmentally and socially when it comes to keeping these areas as clean and as safe as possible.”

“We also want to support the message about choosing safer sex to men who have sex with men.

“Not only do we want to promote the use of condoms but also their hygienic disposal afterwards, especially in public areas.”

The Terrence Higgins Trust has warned that HIV is now the fastest growing serious health condition in the UK with gay men and the African community most at risk.

As an additional incentive, the organisers will reward student volunteers who use the website gaydar.co.uk with a free one month’s upgrade on the personals site in return for a couple of hours of their time, so long as they present their Student Union card and their gaydar.co.uk profile name on the day.

The THT is using the event as an opportunity to offer safer sex information and free condoms to men as part of their 25th Anniversary of supporting people living with HIV.

The Trust estimates that currently 70,000 people in the UK carry the virus.

Neil McGuinness, Outreach Manager for the Trust told PinkNews: “As well as being used by openly gay men, cruising areas like Hampstead Heath and Clapham Common are used by a lot of guys who aren’t open about having sex with men.

“Our presence there is important to allow them access to health information and support.

“We’re delighted to be part of this initiative which underlines broader responsibilities in terms of public health and environmental awareness.”

GaydarRadio is calling on anyone who wishes to volunteer for the event to contact them at keepitclean@gaydarradio.com.

Margaret Marabe, a known local activist in the country, told the Agence France-Presse: “I saw three people with my own eyes. When they got very sick and people could not look after them, they buried them.”

She explained that families are resorting to extreme action due to both feelings that they can no longer look after the sufferer and fears that the infection will spread to others.

Ms Marabe told Agence France-Presse that one of the five people whom she saw being buried alive was her cousin.

“I said, ‘Why are they doing that?’ And they said, ‘If we let them live, stay in the same house, eat together and use or share utensils, we will contract the disease and we too might die’.”

Ms Marabe was speaking to reporters in the capital, Port Moresby, where she appealed to the government and aid agencies to ensure that HIV/Aids awareness programmes reached rural areas, where ignorance about the disease was widespread.

Papua New Guinea is currently facing a situation that the United Nations AIDS Agency has described as “really getting out of hand”.

Diagnoses have increased by 30 per cent each year since 1997.

In a recent report, the UN said Papua New Guinea accounted for 90 per cent of all HIV infections in the Oceania region.

At the country’s first national summit on HIV prevention last year, Australia’s representative for HIV/AIDS, Annmaree O’Keeffe, predicted that half a million people could be infected over the next two decades.

She suggested a high-intervention strategy to see the infection level drop to around 200,000 people.

Peter Piot, head of the United Nations AIDS agency UNAIDS, earlier this year warned that more than 1.5 million could be infected with the virus by 2015, which he described as an “African-type endemic”.

AIDS is mostly spread in the country through heterosexual intercourse, however an AIDS research group also found that half of the new infections were caused by gay sex.

Foundation executive director Rachael Le Mesurier said the group is concerned that the rise in gay infections is due to men choosing not to wear condoms.

Young women between the ages of 15 and 29 are twice as likely to be infected than young men of the same age range.

Dr Jacqueline Badcock of the United Nations Development Programme told The Advertiser : “Maybe we have the potential to lose the women of Papua New Guinea if we do not take drastic steps to prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS.”

The rapid spread and fear among people is fuelling accusations of witchcraft, with women being tortured and murdered by mobs who hold them responsible for the epidemic.

In the past, church leaders have reported AIDS patients being thrown off bridges and being left to starve in back gardens.

Papua New Guinea’s Prime Minister, Sir Michael Somare, insists that he has brought the issue under his remit and that the government is working with agencies on a co-ordinated approach to tackling the crisis.

Gene Robinson spoke openly about his view on the current controversy surrounding the Anglican Church.

“It’s very painful for me,” he said. “Coming out of the experience of the United States, where we treated people from Africa as less than human, where we used scripture to justify their slavery and their continued bondage.

“It’s very, very painful to have those people in Africa in some sense using the same thinking against gay and lesbian people and against me.”

When it was suggested that he might have stepped aside for the sake of the unity of the Communion, Bishop Robinson attributed a vocational call from God for his perseverance, despite the controversy he knew it would cause.

He hit out at people who accept homosexual people but condemn the practice.

“First, I would question the honesty of their statement that it is OK to be gay in their eyes, because their other actions do not indicate that to me,” he said.

Bishop Robinson also took this opportunity to extend an olive branch to the leader of the conservative ‘Global South,’ the Archbishop of Nigeria.

“I believe that Peter Akinola believes he is following his call to God as best he can. I just wish he could believe that I am following my call as best I can.”

In an interview with The Times last month, Archbishop Akinola also said it was not his intention not to divide the Church.

“That has never been on my mind,” he claimed.

However, Global South has recently announced they would boycott next year’s Lambeth Conference.

At a meeting in Tanzania in February, conservative bishops gave the North American churches until September to declare a moratorium on ordaining gay clergy and blessing same-sex unions. No such cessation has occurred.

Likewise no such moratorium has occurred in response to the demands of Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, leader of the worldwide communion, by African primates to halt the consecration of dissident bishops, such as Martyn Minns who now leads a Nigerian church in the United States.

Despite the worldwide controversy that threatens to split the Anglican church, Bishop Robinson has stated how church life in New Hampshire diocese is remarkably normal, casually remarking: “I’m just the bishop.”

The 2.4 million-strong US Episcopal Church’s ordination in 2003 of Bishop Robinson, the first gay bishop in the 450 year history of the Anglican church, led to a divide between the liberal and conservative camps in the 77 million member Anglican Communion.

Despite the divisions, Bishop Robinson told the BBC that he wants to continue his service.

“I love the Anglican Church, and I value the Communion, and I will do everything short of standing down to benefit the Communion, but I will not reject God’s call to me.”

After 78 hours of partying at the Big Weekend, a solemn candlelit vigil was held to remember all those whose lives have been affected by HIV/AIDS yesterday.

The opening event of the weekend was a civil partnership ceremony for ten couples at Marriott Victoria Albert Hotel.

130 police officers from forces around the country took part in the Pride parade on Saturday in a show of solidarity with the LGBT community.

PC Darren Haslam, chairman of Greater Manchester Police’s Lesbian and Gay Staff Affiliation, commented:

“We want to show that we are both representative and supportive of all the communities we serve.”

The University of Manchester’s LGBT society also broke new ground in orchestrating their first-ever joint staff and students Pride parade group.

The main stage at the Big Weekend saw performances from The Gossip, Belinda Carlisle and Gareth Gates.

Manchester Pride is a fundraising opportunity for local HIV and LGBT charities.

Operation Fundraiser, working with Manchester Pride, has raised nearly half a million pounds in the past four year.

The money has been shared between more than eighty local LGBT and HIV groups and charities.

Manchester Pride was called the Ab Fab Weekend, GayFest and Mardi Gras in previous incarnations.

In response to a lawsuit brought by six same-sex couples seeking to wed, Judge Robert Hanson wrote in the ruling:

“Couples, such as plaintiffs, who are otherwise qualified to marry one another may not be denied licenses to marry or certificates of marriage or in any other way prevented from entering into a civil marriage pursuant to Iowa Code Chapter 595 by reason of the fact that both persons compromising such a couple are of the same sex.”

The couples were previously denied marriage licenses and made an appeal that such treatment violates the Iowa constitution’s guarantees of equal protection.

Court documents show that the decision was based on state constitution’s guarantee of equal treatment.

Hanson launched a stinging attack on the establishment law on marriage as defined between a man and a woman describing it as “the most intrusive means by the state to regulate marriage. This statute is an absolute prohibition on the ability of gay and lesbian individuals to marry a person of their choosing”.

According to Lambda Legal, a gay and lesbian legal organization representing the six couples, the case will be advanced onto the Iowa Supreme Court where the final decision will be made.

According to Lambda: “Three of the couples are raising children, others are planning families, and all want the responsibilities of marriage and the protections only marriage can provide”

Polk County Attorney John Sarcone, however expressed his opposition to the ruling. According to CNN, he said:

“We respectfully disagree with the court’s decision, and we’re going to ask for a stay”

He is considering the option of filing a motion to reconsider, but in any case is set to appeal the ruling.

Dennis Johnson, co-counsel for the plaintiffs along with Lambda Legal, issued a statement declaring the ruling:

“a significant step forward in recognizing the constitutional rights of all Iowans”

Mr Johnson described it as “an amazing day for same-sex couples and their families all across Iowa.”