Elton John to wed longtime boyfriend

Pop superstar Sir Elton John has announced his plans to marry longtime partner David Furnish and said they plan to hold a civil partnership ceremony in December or in early 2006 in Windsor, west of London, where Prince Charles and the Duchess of Cornwall were married earlier this month.

"Meeting David has been the greatest thing to happen to me," The 58-year-old told British tabloid the Daily Mirror of his 42-year-old boyfriend of eleven years.

The union became possible when the United Kingdom legalised civil partnerships in December of last year.

This will be Sir Elton's second marriage. He married German music engineer Renate Blauel in 1984, and the couple divorced four years later.

Sir Elton will be touring North America and Europe until late this year, beginning on April 28th in Kansas City, Missouri. Acknowledging his busy schedule, the singer said, "There will be no honeymoon. I'm on tour."

Officials block gay Beijing film festival
A gay and lesbian film festival due to be held at China's Beijing University last weekend was forced to move to a disused factory after campus officials banned the event.

Beijing's second gay and lesbian film festival however still fared little better than the first. On its first afternoon, Beijing officials arrived at the university library where the event was being held to close down the screenings.

Organiser Yang Yang said they objected to the theme - gays and lesbians - of the festival. She admitted they had originally sold the idea to the university as an event to educate people about safe sex and AIDS prevention. She said the university had discovered the deception through one of the promotional posters on campus.

After a scramble of desperate phonecalls, the festival was shifted to a gallery in the funky Da Shan Zi art district with ticket holders told through late night text messages and emails. Although it was messy, only half the number of people with tickets could squeeze into the gallery, at least the event suffered no further harassment.

The festival featured nine films from mainland China, mostly low budget affairs with gay love themes, a Taiwan comedy, two Hong Kong lesbian dramas and two non-gay French movies.

NZ haven for gay immigrants
New Zealand is earning an international reputation among prospective immigrants in same-sex relationships as a gay-friendly country as the country's new relationship laws will join immigration rules in treating everyone the same.

The laws, which took affect on Tuesday, will consider applications for residency on the basis of relationships "akin to a marriage", whether they are same-sex or heterosexual couples.

The authorities will now judge whether a relationship between people aged 18 or more is "genuine and stable" on factors including its duration, common residence or property ownership, sexual relationship, care and support of children, shared household duties, commitment and public reputation of the relationship.

Previously, same-sex couples were required to prove a relationship of two years, while heterosexual couples were required to prove a one-year relationship. Now the one-year requirement applies to all couples.

Australia's Minister for Immigration and Multicultural Affairs Amanda Vanstone recently said that her office has no plans to change the law although she conceded that same-sex couples entering Australia on temporary visas are treated differently from heterosexual couples under immigration laws as same-sex couples are not recognised as a family unit.

Immigration rules in Britain, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, South Africa, Finland, Spain and the Netherlands recognise same-sex relationships, but they are not always given equal treatment while the United States does not permit immigration on the basis of same-sex relationships.