Editor Brian Harrod Provides Comprehensive up-to-date news coverage, with aggregated news from sources all over the world from the Roundup Newswires Network
Corporate boycott of New York event grows after campaign by LGBT rights activists
The Financial Times has pulled its involvement in an event honouring Brazil’s far-right president, Jair Bolsonaro, after a campaign by LGBT rights activists against the celebration of the self-declared homophobe.
The recently elected South American leader is due to be honoured at the Brazilian-American Chamber of Commerce’s person of the year gala dinner, which is scheduled to take place in New York later this month.
Judicial harassment and rise in arrests under anti-sodomy law add to climate of tension and fear
One of the Arab world’s most visible advocacy groups defending the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex people is facing closure following legal threats by the government.
Association Shams has been officially operating in Tunisia since 2015, helping the country’s LGBT community repeal article 230 of its penal code, a French colonial law, which criminalises homosexuality with up to three years in jail.
Three-day event makes late move to secret location in wake of row between LGBT and feminist groups
A pornography festival in London this weekend has been forced to relocate after protests.
Faced with the prospect of a picket, organisers of the London porn film festival, which describes itself as “celebrating queer, feminist, radical and experimental porn”, pulled screenings from the Horse Hospital, an arts venue in Bloomsbury. The three-day event will instead be held at a new location disclosed only to ticket holders.
Landmark parliamentary address on LGBTI discrimination challenges reformist agenda of post-revolution government
Armenia’s first registered transgender woman has received death threats after making a historic speech in her country’s national assembly.
Lilit Martirosyan became the first member of her country’s lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) community to take to the parliamentary podium, speaking out against discrimination at a session of its committee on human rights. A video of the speech has been shared around the world.
Campaigners react strongly to Brazilian president saying he was opposed to gay tourism
Brazil’s far-right president, the self-declared homophobe Jair Bolsonaro, has been accused of inciting hatred towards LGBT people after declaring the South American country should not become a “gay tourism paradise”.
“If you want to come here and have sex with a woman, go for your life,” Bolsonaro reportedly told journalists in the capital, Brasília. “But we can’t let this place become known as a gay tourism paradise. Brazil can’t be a country of the gay world, of gay tourism. We have families,” Bolsonaro added, according to the Brazilian magazine Exame.
After reports of transgender people being refused treatment, a new centre offers specialised services – and respite from discrimination
Vivek Sharma has travelled 20km from his home to the congested eastern suburb of Mumbai for his HIV treatment. But the journey is no hardship for the 23-year-old student.
“My file was shifted to this clinic. I am so happy that this has finally happened.”
Kingdom’s mission to bloc calls for tolerance and understanding over penal code
Brunei has written to the European parliament defending its decision to start imposing death by stoning as a punishment for gay sex, claiming convictions will be rare as it requires two men of “high moral standing piety” to be witnesses.
In a four-page letter to MEPs, the kingdom’s mission to the EU called for “tolerance, respect and understanding” with regard to the country’s desire to preserve its traditional values and “family lineage”.
Pete Buttigieg, the mayor of South Bend, Indiana and Democratic presidential candidate, was heckled by a protester at a rally in Des Moines, Iowa. The person shouted: 'Remember Sodom and Gomorrah' – a reference to two biblical cities – to which Buttigieg responded: 'The condition of my soul is in the hands of God but the Iowa caucuses are up to you'
Analysis from Grattan Institute says government ‘probably’ on right trajectory for next year but deficit likely later. All the day’s events, live
Does Scott Morrison think he is popular in Victoria, given he has spent two days campaigning there?
There will be two choices after May 18 - there’s myself and Bill Shorten. Both of our parties have changed our rules. Not before time, but we both have. And those rules mean that whoever you elect as prime minister on May 18 - they will be your prime minister for the next three years. So if you vote for Bill Shorten, you’ll get Bill Shorten.
And if you vote for me, and the Liberal and National parties, you will get me to serve you as your prime minister for the next three years, and to pursue the stronger economy that guarantees rely on for essential services.”
On whether Sam Dastyari has any connection to Labor’s pathology announcement:
Well, this would seem to be the suggestion today - that Sam Dastyari was on Bill Shorten’s campaign bus at the last election and the suggestion now is he’s on Bill Shorten’s gravy train when it comes to this latest announcement. Let’s just see what happens there, I suppose. I mean, I have no knowledge of that. But it’s something for Bill Shorten to explain - from the campaign bus to the gravy train - that’s quite a passage for Sam Dastyari. But, you know, if anyone was gonna be able to do it, I suspect it was him.”
Hassanal Bolkiah, who believes gay people should be stoned to death, is assisted by leading City auditing firms
The architect of new laws mandating the stoning to death of gay people in Brunei has billions of pounds of property wealth in the UK, shares in a leading tech fund and gets assistance from City auditing firms, a Guardian analysis has found.
Hassanal Bolkiah, the sultan of Brunei, owns a slew of properties in the super-rich enclaves of Kensington and Ascot, including luxury hotels and polo parks. One property alone could be worth an estimated £500m in rent each year.
The vice-president and the Democratic hopeful are both Christian and have worked together but in the age of Trump, they and their fellow Hoosiers sense a looming battle
Both are from modestly sized cities in Indiana. Both were baptised Catholic but came to embrace other branches of Christianity. Both found inspiration in former president John F Kennedy as they launched political careers of their own.
The parallels between Mike Pence and Pete Buttigieg stop there.
Openly transgender people now banned from serving in the military as LGBT groups denounce ‘shameful’ rule
The US military is returning to the era of “Don’t ask, don’t tell” policies, after new rules that ban transgender people from serving came into effect on Friday.
The new policy bars military members who have transitioned or are openly trans from enlisting after Friday, while troops who come out as trans while serving after that day will be discharged.It forces trans soldiers to hide their identity or lose their job and will result in increased stigma and mental health issues, said troops and LGBT groups.
Exclusive: Agency stops staff secondments after unions raise ethical and safety implications
The government’s official health and safety organisation has said it will stop planned staff secondments to Brunei after unions raised concerns about the ethical and safety implications following the kingdom’s decision to punish gay sex by stoning to death.
The Health and Safety Executive (HSE), which was seeking a team of three people to go to Brunei to help the country’s equivalent agency with regulatory work, said all links with the country would be “paused” pending a review.
Nicholas de Jongh suggests withdrawing our troops and Alan Clark says hopes and dreams cannot be stoned out of existence
The news that the sultan of Brunei has made gay sex and adultery into offences punishable by stoning to death has met with silence from Theresa May and only whimpers of dismay from ministers. The Foreign Office, in the same tone that marked its attitude to Hitler during Neville Chamberlain’s premiership, says threatening to remove Brunei from the Commonwealth is not the “best way” to encourage Brunei to uphold its human rights obligations. Really?
Your report (Dorchester hotel loses bookings over Brunei move, 6 April) says the sultan pays the UK for 2,000 British troops to remain in Brunei. Since the agreement does not expire until 2020, what better way of making him feel a little insecure than for Britain to break it and withdraw our troops at once – and to hell with the Foreign Office’s bland mouthings. Nicholas de Jongh London
Politicians in the city are seeking to halt a photography exhibition called Balkan Pride
Plovdiv, one of the 2019 European capitals of culture, has become embroiled in a homophobia scandal as local officials attempt to remove the head of the organising committee over a photographic exhibition featuring LGBT themes.
Officials in the Bulgarian city, which is co-hosting the 2019 edition of the European capital of culture with Matera in Italy, said a “Balkan Pride” photo exhibition due to open in July should be stopped.
Draconian new laws have spread unease rather than outright panic in a population that is used to finding ways around legislation
A day after it became legally possible to be stoned to death for having gay sex in Brunei, 21-year-old Zain* got a bitter taste of the new reality.
Walking down the street in skinny jeans and high-heeled boots, a flamboyant anomaly in the conservative sultanate, the university student became a target.
Protests outside Dorchester hotel in London after Brunei regime passes ‘death by stoning’ law for gay sex
The RAF and Royal Navy are under pressure to cut links with the sultan of Brunei amid a global backlash against his country’s decision to introduce death by stoning as punishment for homosexuality.
The calls came after crowds protesting against the country’s new draconian penal code surged through barriers outside the Brunei-owned Dorchester Hotel yesterday afternoon, forcing the police to stand in front of its doors.
Dozens of protesters descended on the Dorchester Hotel in central London on Saturday to demonstrate against Brunei's anti-LGBT laws. The protest comes amid a global backlash against Brunei's decision to introduce death by stoning as a punishment for homosexuality. The hotel is one among many owned by the Sultan of Brunei Haji Hassanal Bolkiah.