Apr 14, 2006   | COMMENTS     

DUBLIN, Ireland (AP) — Ireland will soon offer civil partnerships for gay couples, Prime Minister Bertie Ahern pledged April 3 as he opened new offices for the country’s main gay rights group. Civil partnerships allow gay couples the same rights to inheritance, government benefits and other financial rights held by married heterosexual couples. "Sexual orientation cannot, and must not, be the basis of a second-class citizenship. Our laws have changed, and will continue to change, to reflect this principle," Ahern told an audience at Ireland’s Gay & Lesbian Equality Network. Ahern said civil partnerships would be more difficult in Ireland than the United Kingdom, which approved them in December. Ireland’s constitution has a clause requiring the predominantly Roman Catholic state to protect the institution of marriage, whereas the U.K., which includes neighboring Northern Ireland, has no written constitution. "This challenge, however, is one that the government is determined to meet," said Ahern, who noted that government-appointed experts would recommend options in a report expected in November.

PHILIPSBURG, St. Maarten (AP) — Police have appealed to the public for help in the investigation into an attack on two New York journalists who were beaten with tire irons outside a bar on the Dutch side of St. Maarten island. Investigators in St. Maarten published a newspaper advertisement April 10 seeking witnesses or other information about the attack, which left the two Americans with serious head injuries. Dick Jefferson, 51, and Ryan Smith, 25, who work for CBS, were outside a bar with several friends early April 6 when three men attacked them and started hitting them with tire irons. Jefferson, a senior broadcast producer for "The CBS Evening News," said the attackers yelled anti-gay slurs at his friends earlier in the evening. Jefferson said Smith is in intensive care and may have suffered brain damage. Jefferson faulted St. Maarten authorities for not collecting witness testimony on the night of the crime or pursuing other leads. The Human Rights Campaign in Washington, D.C., has issued a public appeal to the Dutch government, which oversees St. Maarten, to intervene in the matter.

KIGALI, Rwanda — The rate of HIV infection among Rwandans ages 15 to 49 is 3 percent, far less than the number predicted by AIDS researchers for the past two decades, the Washington Post reported April 6. The 3-percent level is enough to qualify HIV as a major health problem, but not the national catastrophe once predicted, the paper reported. The study, conducted by Rwandan governmental health officials, along with similar efforts in 15 other countries, show that southern Africa is the epicenter of the so-called AIDS Belt. The disease is ebbing in much of East Africa and has failed to take off as predicted in most of West Africa.

SEOUL, South Korea — Korea will revise or repeal military laws that stipulate punishment and discharge of gay soldiers, Defense Minister Yoon Kwang-ung told the Chosun Ilbo on April 4. The plan, which reflects a January recommendation by the National Human Rights Commission, is opposed by senior officers who say it will cause discipline problems, the newspaper reported. Under the military penal code, soldiers who engage in homosexual acts face imprisonment of up to one year. The ministry will establish a committee to study the entire question of exemption from, and alternatives to, military service, from conscientious objectors to sportsmen.

LONDON — An appeals court in London has confirmed a ruling April 6 granting primary care of two young sisters to the female ex-partner of their biological mother, United Press International reported April 6. The mother had defied an earlier order giving the former partner shared contact with the 7-year-old and 4-year-old daughters, the Times of London reported. "We have moved into a world where norms that seemed safe 20 or more years ago no longer run," Justice Mathew Thorpe, who headed the three-judge panel, said in his ruling. The Times reported that one panel member, Justice Heather Hallet, hesitated before setting a precedent for future same-sex couples in custody battles. "I am very concerned at the prospect of removing these children from the primary care of their only identifiable biological parent who has been their primary carer for most of the young lives and in whose care they appear to be happy and thriving," Hallet said.