Anwar threatens Mahathir with lawsuit after "gay" jibe
Malaysian opposition politician Anwar Ibrahim on Tuesday threatened to file a defamation suit against former premier Dr Mahathir Mohamad if he did not withdraw his comments made to reporters about Anwar being gay.

Dr Mahathir told reporters on Sept. 9 at the sidelines of a human rights conference that he was forced to sack Anwar, who was once his heir apparent, to prevent the predominantly Muslim Malaysia from having a homosexual leader.

"I cannot have a person who is like that in my cabinet who may succeed and become the prime minister. Imagine having a gay prime minister. Nobody would be safe," Dr Mahathir said.

Anwar, who was once Malaysia's Deputy Prime Minister, was jailed on sodomy and corruption charges in 1998 for allegedly conducting a sexual relationship with his official driver after his sacking but the conviction was overturned last year. He was released from jail in September last year.

Acts deemed to be "against the order of nature" including sodomy and oral sex are illegal in Malaysia. In convicted, one faces a jail term up to 20 years and/or whipping under Section 377B of the Malaysian Penal Code.

According to an Agence France-Presse report, Anwar said he was "shocked" to hear of Dr Mahathir's "defamatory" remarks, particularly after the Kuala Lumpur High Court last month ordered the author of the book 50 Dalil mengapa Anwar tak boleh jadi PM (50 Reasons Why Anwar Cannot be PM) to pay Anwar RM4.5 million (US$1.2 million) in damages for making a series of allegations, which included accusations of sodomy. The book, published in early 1998, had allegedly sparked the downfall of Anwar.

"I will not allow this lie and slander to continue," Anwar said in a statement. "Thus I have instructed my counsel to initiate legal action against Mahathir."

Anwar's lawyer said he would ask Dr Mahathir this week to withdraw the remarks or face a civil defamation suit seeking damages of RM100 million (US$26 million).

Last month, Anwar won an apology from the former police chief who assaulted him after his arrest as well as undisclosed damages.

Human rights groups and Anwar himself maintained the charges were trumped up to prevent him from challenging Dr Mahathir, a former medical doctor who became the country's fourth PM from 1981 until he retired in October 2003.

When asked if Anwar, 58, would make a good Prime Minister in an exclusive interview with Singapore-based Channel NewsAsia which aired last month, Dr Mahathir said, "A person who is immoral in that way should not become Prime Minister. We're a different society."

The 80-year-old added: "In Europe, in America, of course sodomy is something everybody practises. Of course, they object to the kind of things that we do in this country because they don't think that it's immoral at all, but we have different values."

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Anglican rift over homosexuality deepens
In a running dispute with other Anglican churches' tolerance of homosexuality, Nigeria's Anglican church has deleted all references to its British "mother" church from its constitution following a deepening a rift over homosexuality but stopping short of a formal split.

The move is the latest development two years after the ordination of a gay bishop in the United States and the blessing of same sex marriages in Canada. More recently, the Church of England announced that priests are allowed to register under the country's new civil partnership law as long as they remain celibate.

The Church of Nigeria, the most vocal critic of liberal Anglicans in Western churches and the second largest Anglican community after Britain, has deleted all reference to 'communion with the see of Canterbury,' the mother church of the Anglican communion, from its constitution. Instead, the constitution affirms its ties with all churches that maintain the "faith, doctrine, sacrament and discipline of the one holy, Catholic and apostolic church."

The newly formed Convocation of Anglican Nigerians in America hopes to accommodate thousands of conservative faithful in the United States who objected to the 2003 ordination of an openly gay bishop, Gene Robinson, in New Hampshire. Anglican bishops in several countries, particularly in Africa, Asia and Latin America, have since denounced that action and have declared they are in broken or impaired communion with the Episcopal Church - the American branch of the Anglican church.

Addressing the plenary session of the 8th General Synod of the Church of Nigeria (Anglican Communion) on Sept. 12, Archbishop of South East Asia, Yong Ping Chung told delegates that the Anglican communion was in a mess because "we have lost the direction and we have listened to the lies of the devil."

"I have no problem relating to your Archbishop, I think he is very orthodox. If you want to preach in my province I will allow you as long as you are from Nigeria. But if it is from America I have to check. Even from England now … I may have to check. I am not going to let my pulpit get defiled by people who don't accept the gospel, he said."

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New York gay penguins break up after 6-year relationship
One of New York's most famous gay couples has split up.

Roy and Silo, two male chinstrap penguins, who have been living together as husband and husband for the past six years at New York's Central Park Zoo, have gone on separate ways.

Featured in numerous newspapers over years including the New York Times on Feb. 7, 2004, under the headline "The Love that Dare Not Squeak Its Name," the pair has been held up as proof that homosexual behaviour exists in nature in the midst of fiery debates about homosexuality and gay marriage laws in the US.

Despite reluctance from experts to extrapolate from animals to humans, some gay activists have argued that if homosexual behaviour occurs in animals, it is natural, and therefore the rights of gay men and lesbians should be protected.

According to Biological Exuberance: Animal Homosexuality and Natural Diversity, one of the first books of its kind to provide an overview of scholarly studies of same-sex behaviour in animals, some 450 species of animals including bottlenose dolphins, rhesus macaques (a type of monkey), Bonobos (apes closely related to humans) have been documented to be in same-sex relationships or engage in same-sex activity.

The penguins, which first came out in 1998, are said to entwine their necks, vocalise to each other and have sex. The pair have successfully hatched and raised an adopted chick, after they tried to incubate a rock.

Things however took a turn when Scrappy, a single female penguin, arrived from Sea World Zoo in San Diego. Silo has since moved in with her. Roy meanwhile has been observed hanging around a few sexually immature penguins, but is said to have no real prospects.

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