New gay HIV infections at highest rate ever

The latest figures released today from the Health Protection Agency reveal that the number of gay and bisexual men diagnosed with HIV in the UK is at its highest rate since the start of the epidemic.

2,700 gay and bisexual men were newly diagnosed last year, the highest number ever.

Across the UK 1 in 20 gay and bisexual men are now living with HIV and estimates suggest this figure is as high as 1 in 10 in London.

The increase in diagnosis comes at a time when the National AIDS Trust claims funding for HIV prevention is inadequate.

In the past 10 years the number of people being seen for HIV care has more than trebled, but a recent National AIDS Trust survey into Primary Care Trusts revealed that in the same period the amount spent on HIV prevention has decreased.

Deborah Jack, Chief Executive of the National AIDS Trust, commented:

"For over ten years the government and health services have been failing to bring HIV in the UK under control and diagnoses among gay and bisexual men continue to rise.

"Funding for prevention and testing must urgently be increased and the Government must make informed policy commitments to control the epidemic.

"But the gay community must also act – gay men, gay businesses, the gay media all must respond to what is in essence a public health crisis for gay men.

"If amongst the general public there was over one in 20 with such a serious infectious disease, it would dominate politics and priorities. If we want wider society to act on HIV, the gay community must take the lead."

7,800 people were diagnosed last year, and the numbers living with HIV in the UK were 73,000 by the end of 2006.

One in three people do not know they are infected.

Nick Partridge, Chief Executive of HIV and sexual health charity Terrence Higgins Trust, said that urgent action was required.

"Twenty five years on from the discovery of HIV this just isn't good enough," he said.

"We need to renew the fight and we need everyone, from the NHS to individuals, to join us.

"One in 20 gay men are now living with HIV, and levels of STIs are at their highest for 20 years. That's why we’re launching a Call to Action to improve gay men's sexual health.

"Gay men, businesses, politicians, media and the voluntary sector all need to play their part, and act now."

THT has outlined five action points for each group and suggestions range from asking politicians to make sex and relationships education part of the core curriculum to asking gay men to have regular tests for sexually transmitted infections.

In 2006, an estimated 31,100 men who have sex with men (MSM) were living with HIV in the UK and there were approximately 2,700 new diagnoses. Around a third of people with HIV don’t know they have it.

Howard upbeat as Australians go to the polls

Just hours before Australians go to the polls in a federal election, it looks like the predicted landslide win by Labour could turn out to be a close-run thing.

The opposition party, out of power since 1996, has seen a consistent lead over the incumbent Liberals halve in one recent poll to 4%.

Prime Minister John Howard, seeking a fifth term in office and widely expected to suffer a catastrophic defeat, was upbeat today.

AFP quotes him as telling reporters in Melbourne:

"I believe the coalition can win this election. I believe that there is a bit of a tide coming back. I sense it in the streets."

A poll of 2,600 Australian voters, to be published tomorrow in The Australian, shows Labour on 52% against 48% for the government.

However, other polls show Labour as much as 14% ahead, meaning it is still likely that Kevin Rudd will become Australia’s 26th Prime Minister.

Gay rights have been a theme in this race.

The announcement of a general election prompted evangelical groups in the country to begin campaigning against gay equality.

The Labour party took the line that marriage is for heterosexuals only, and would grant legal concessions to homosexuals, but not the legal status of marriage.

"On the institution of marriage itself, our view is between a man and woman and it's just been our traditional, continuing view," Mr Rudd said in October.

When asked if in the future this position would look as closed-minded as racist beliefs of the past, Mr Rudd said it was what he believed in.

However, Labour will support changes to the law to remove inequities in the tax and benefits system that discriminate against same-sex couples.

A report in June by Australia's Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission (HREOC) recommended that 58 laws need to be changed to grant gay, bisexual and lesbian Australians equal rights.

These include key changes in the way that gay couples receive benefits from their relationships.

The 68-year-old Prime Minister is a despised by many in Australia's LGBT community.

In 2004 he passed federal legislation banning same-sex marriage and earlier this year said that HIV positive immigrants should not be allowed into the country.

Mr Rudd has led the Labour party since December 2006, and recent revelations that he visited a strip club in New York while on official business did much to endear him to Australians who previously viewed him as grey and boring.

Environment Minister Malcolm Turnbull will be defending the Sydney seat of Wentworth, which after boundary changes now includes gay districts such as Darlinghurst and Kings Cross.

Employment and Workplace Relations Minister Joe Hockey is seeking re-election in North Sydney, another constituency with a high concentration of LGBT voters.

Both seats have seen fierce campaigning and attempts to get out the gay vote.

Tatchell to celebrate 40 years of activism

One of the best-known gay rights advocates in Britain will soon be celebrating his 40th year of human rights campaigning.

Peter Tatchell began his first campaign in 1967 in his native Australia against the death penalty and opposition to conscription and the Australian and US war against the people of Vietnam.

"It is a great honour and privilege to have been part of the international human rights movement," said Mr Tatchell.

"Over the last four decades, I have been involved in campaigns that have contributed to many spectacular human rights achievements: the fall of the dictatorships in Spain and Chile, independence for East Timor, an end to apartheid in South Africa, peace in Vietnam and the north of Ireland, and the transition to democracy in the former Soviet bloc states of Eastern Europe and the Baltics."

He will celebrate 40 years of human rights campaigning on
10 December 2007, Human Rights Day, by staging a protest.

In the evening he will attend the Human Rights Awards 2007, which is
jointly organised by Liberty and Justice.

After moving to London in 1971, aged 19, he became a leading activist in the Gay Liberation Front (GLF); organising sit-ins at pubs that refused to serve "poofs", and protests against police harassment and the medical classification of homosexuality as an illness.

Recently he was assaulted while taking part in a Pride demonstration in Moscow, and was detained by Russian police.

As well as his campaign work he also regularly writes for The Guardian and hosts a weekly current affairs programme broadcast on internet channel 18 Doughty St, entitled Talking with Tatchell.

He is the Green Party parliamentary candidate for Oxford East, and party's spokesperson on human rights.

Protests ask Commonwealth to "fight" gays

A group of anti-gay activists has protested in Uganda against gay rights and accused Europeans of trying to change the law to decriminalise homosexuality.

The demonstration by the Rainbow Coalition against Homosexuality took place at Kololo airport yesterday, and was led by Pastor Martin Sempa, who has generated large amounts of publicity through his attacks on gay people in Uganda.

Yesterday Her Majesty the Queen, who is in the African nation to open the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting, praised the country's work on HIV/AIDS during a visit to a clinic.

Pastor Sempa said: : "If Uganda is leading in the fight against HIV/AIDS, it should do the same to fight homosexuality.

"The government is under pressure to legalise homosexuality. Europeans send people money to change the laws in order to legalise homosexuality."

He urged the Ugandan leadership to use the three-day conference, which begins today, to take the fight against homosexuality to other Commonwealth nations.

There were protests from gay rights activists at the decision to hold the international meeting in Uganda.

Last month James Nsaba Buturo, the country's Minister for Ethics and Integrity, told All Africa news agency that the government is committed to stopping LGBT people "trying to impose a strange, ungodly, unhealthy, unnatural, and immoral way of life on the rest of our society."

Members of Parliament in Uganda have urged the country's government to speak out against gay rights at the CHOGM.

One MP, demanding a "clamp down" against lesbian and gay Ugandans, said that the international event, to be held in the capital later this month, would be a good opportunity to "send a clear message that gays are not welcome in Uganda."

Gay sex is punishable in Uganda by life imprisonment, under laws originally introduced by the British colonial administration in the nineteenth century.

The Queen is on her first visit to Uganda since 1954 and today she opened the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in the capital Kampala.

The meeting, held every two years, is expected to be dominated by discussions about the situation in Pakistan.

53 heads of government, among them Prime Minister Gordon Brown, are in attendance.

Norwegian church lifts ban on partnered gay clergy

The Lutheran church of Norway has lifted an outright ban on clergy in same-sex relationships.

However, it will allow each bishop to decide whether or not to employ them.

The decision comes after a week of debate at the churches annual meeting, with the 86 member governing synod voting 50 to 34 to change the rules.

Marit Tingelstad, head of the Bishop's Council for Norway's Hamar distric said on state radio network NRK: "This will create peace in the church, and securing for homosexual clergy."

However not all church members are pleased with the decision.

Bishop Ole D. Hagesaeter, of the Bjoergvin district, said, "This is a sad day for the church. It will be a splitting factor and lead to many feeling homeless in the church."

Under Norwegian law, gay couples have rights comparable to those of married heterosexuals, apart from church weddings and adoption.

The church counts nearly 85 percent of Norway's 4.7 million people as members.

Greens launch campaign for Mayor of London

Sian Berry today launched her campaign to become Green Mayor of London.

Earlier this year the 33-year-old won 45% of the party member's votes to become her party's candidate.

Among the Green pledges unveiled at the launch of her campaign at City Hall was a "living wage" of Ј7.20 an hour for all Londoners working for public employers, cuts to off-peak travel fares and an increase in affordable housing across the capital.

Under the slogan "A Green London is an Affordable London," Ms Berry's said:

"The likes of Gordon Brown who think that you can get people to change their ways without making the alternatives cheaper and easier are living in a fool's paradise, she said.

"And so are people who think social justice and poverty are not 'green issues'. You can't have one without the other."

In 2000 and 2004 the Green party candidate was Darren Johnson, the openly gay London Assembly member.

The election for Mayor of London will be held on May 1st 2008.

Brian Paddick, who as Metropolitan Police deputy assistant commissioner was the most senior gay police officer in the UK, is the Liberal Democrat candidate.

Incumbent Labour Mayor Ken Livingstone is also being challenged by Conservative party candidate Boris Johnson.

Gerard Batten will be the UKIP candidate, Lindsey German has been selected to stand for the Respect party and Richard Barnbrook will be standing for the BNP.

Tabloid journalist Garry Bushell is the English Democrats candidate and the One London party will contest the election but have yet to select a candidate.

In the 2004 election for Mayor of London the Greens came seventh.

UKIP, the BNP and Respect all polled more first preference votes.

Police investigate suspicious death of trans woman

A forty-year-old trans woman has been found dead at her home in south-east London, according to reports.

Kayiode Dexter Telesford, who had been living for several years under the name of Kellie Telesford, died of strangulation at her home on Leander Road in Thornton Heath.

The police are treating the death as suspicious, and have asked anyone who saw Telesford between the 15th and 21st of November to contact them immediately.

One neighbour told thisislocallondon.co.uk "There's been a lot of police activity round here. I can't believe something like that has happened.

"I heard the police breaking in through the door the other day but I didn't know why. Now I've heard what's happened, it's made me feel very uneasy." he added.