Quezon City - Two bosses of a gay pay for sex house that presented live shows have been arrested by agents of the Philippines National Bureau of Investigation.

Sixto Comia, chief of the NBI Intelligence Special Operations Division, said the raid followed information that a house in Cubao had been turned into a sex den where male dancers performed before a crowd of gay customers.

Arrests was made as soon as the “live show” started.

Apart from the two suspects, four young male dancers were also taken into custody by the NBI. The male dancers claimed they were recruited by the suspects and were paid 500-800 pesos a night excluding commissions.

Charges of violating Republic Act 9208 (Anti-human Trafficking in Persons Act of 2003) were filed against the two suspects.

Penang - Anti-vice police launched a raid on a gay sauna on Saturday evening, following a surveillance operation.

Police detained 14 men. George Town OCPD Asst Comm Azam Abd Hamid said six men, all naked, were caught in three toilets. The other men were detained for being on the premises.

He said the detainees, aged between 20 and 30, had been remanded to assist in investigations into immoral activities at the centre.

He said police raided the premises after keeping it under surveillance for a while.

“This was the third time the centre was raided since last November.”

Officers also claimed to have found 1800 condoms.

On Nov 5 last year, police raided the centre and discovered it was used to host a sex party. They rounded up 34 men, aged between 22 and 55. Among those arrested was a Briton.

ACP Azam said the raid was part of an on-going operation codenamed Operation Rose aimed at curbing immoral activities and “cleaning” up places like Leith Street, Penang Road and the Esplanade frequented by transvestites.

In a country where homophobia is common, raids such as this are not unusual.

Hong Kong - A High Court judge yesterday described the Broadcasting Authority’s censure of an RTHK program on homosexuality as “an impermissible restriction on freedom of speech.”

In ordering the authority to quash its official reprimand, Michael Hartmann said it was “plainly wrong” to believe the TV program Gay Lover promoted gay marriage.

“It is now recognized in our law that the prohibition against discrimination on the basis of sex refers not only to gender but also to sexual orientation,” the judge said.

As Hartmann viewed it, the 2006 program in which judicial review applicant Cho Man-chit - along with his gay partner and a lesbian couple - had featured was a study of the human condition.

The authority, after receiving a number of complaints, concluded the show failed to be impartial as it did not present opinions of those against gay marriage.

The judge rejected that argument, saying impartiality could be interpreted in a different way.

“RTHK did no more than faithfully record the fears, hopes, travails and aspirations of a person who happened to be gay,” he said. “It did so faithfully, in an unprejudiced manner.”

Hartmann was surprised that all programs dealing with controversial issues are required by the authority’s code of practice to be impartial, pointing to issues such as the fight against bird flu and child slavery. He said the Broadcasting Authority’s misunderstanding of the code resulted in a restriction on freedom of speech, being founded on the discriminatory factor that homosexuality may be offensive to certain viewers.

But the judge did support the authority’s contention that the program should have been shown after 8.30pm. It was shown during family viewing hours at 7.35pm and 7.10pm on the Jade and Pearl channels.

The authority had argued in a letter that children and young viewers watching the program might have no knowledge of homosexuality and be adversely affected by its partial contents if parental guidance was not provided.

Kathmandu - Nepal’s historic election in April that dethroned its king and gave power to the former Maoist guerrillas will also see a social revolution with the first gay representative nominated to the new constituent assembly.

Sunil Babu Pant, 35, a crusader for gay equality who founded the first organisation to protect the rights of the sexual minorities, has been chosen by a minor communist party to represent it in Nepal’s 601-member constituent assembly.

“We are honoured to send Pant as our representative to the constituent assembly,” said Ganesh Shah who’s Communist Party of Nepal-United has won five seats in the assembly under the country’s proportional representation system.

“We hope it will improve the lives of a people who are the most repressed in Nepal, disowned both by society and their own families,” he added.

Pant founded the Blue Diamond Society in 2002, which is now one of the best known gay rights groups in South Asia. The Society fights for molested and detained gays, promotes HIV/AIDS awareness, runs a hospice for terminally ill gay patients, and provides training and jobs to members of the community.

Singapore - The City-State recorded 422 new HIV infections last year, the highest number in a single year since records started in 1985, the government said.

More than half of the new cases already had late-stage HIV infections when they were diagnosed, as happened in previous years, the Health Ministry said. It urged people who are at high risk of contracting the virus to go for tests.

“There is thus an urgent need for persons who engage in high risk behavior such as unprotected casual sex, sex with prostitutes, and intravenous drug abuse to go for regular HIV testing,” the ministry’s Web site said in an update of the HIV/AIDS situation in the prosperous Southeast Asian country.

Ninety-three percent of the new infections were among men and 95 percent were transmitted through sex, it said.

Nearly two-thirds of the sexual transmissions occurred during heterosexual sex, the update said.

It said the number of intravenous transmissions fell last year to seven, half of the number recorded in 2006.

The new cases bring the total number of known HIV-infected Singaporeans to 3,482 as of the end of last year, the ministry said. More than 1,100 of them have died.

The ministry also noted that Parliament last week passed an amendment to the law to tighten regulations on HIV transmissions.

The existing law penalized anyone who knows he or she is infected with HIV but is found to have failed to tell a partner about it before sex. The amendment includes individuals “who have reason to believe” that they have been exposed to a significant risk of contracting HIV or AIDS.

The amendment says those individuals must take “reasonable precautions” — such as using condoms or being tested — to protect their sexual partners. Otherwise, they must inform their partner of the risk of contracting HIV from them and leave it to them to accept the risk if they wish. If the partner accepts, no legal offense is committed.

A person found guilty of not informing a partner or of failing to take such precautions faces a maximum penalty of a S$50,000 fine and 10 years’ imprisonment.