Fridae

After a 17-year wait, ILGA, which was the first international LGBTI organisation to get ECOSOC consultative status in 1993 but only to lose it the following year, has finally regained its status.

The head of Singapore delegation, Minister of State for Community Development, Youth and Sports, Halimah Yacob reiterated that the government has no plans to repeal the law against male-to-male sex when asked to clarify the status of lesbians in Singapore.

A 3-member team from Sayoni, a queer women's group in Singapore, is in New York to present a report to the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) for the first time.

Ladlad, a LGBT political party, has called the regulation which bans gay and lesbian prison wardens from frisking and conducting strip searches on jail visitors of the same sex “a clear case of discrimination”.

The contributions of slain San Francisco politician Harvey Milk and the Stonewall riots in New York City in 1969 that helped launch the LGBT rights movement will soon be taught in California classrooms alongside well known activists such as Martin Luther King and Rosa Parks who are credited for making a lasting impact on civil rights in the United States.

As China's gay population is hardest hit by HIV/AIDS, senior Chinese health officials, representatives from civil societies and other delegates met to discuss a new five-year strategy to scale-up HIV prevention programmes and treatment, and promote community-based organisation participation.

Loving Parents of LGBT (同志父母愛心協會), Taiwan's first official group for parents of LGBT people, was launched last Friday, Jul 8 at a press conference held at the at the Legislative Yuan. (New audio clip and video added.)

With 103 suspected anti-LGBT hate crime deaths since 1996 including 28 cases during the first half of 2011 alone, the Philippine LGBT Hate Crime Watch has embarked on a public campaign to call for more awareness and legislative change. Fridae speaks to researcher Marlon Lacsamana to find out more.

The Asian Queer Film Festival, which features 13 Asian shorts and feature films, will run for two weekends from Jul 8-10 and 15-17.

Health Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad stunned many on Monday by calling homosexuality "unnatural", and a "disease" which is "spreading fast" in the country.