• We're not sure what's funnier - the fact that a bird took a shit on President Bush or that ABC News actually used the word "poop".

• HX Media's Boston rag, In Newsweekly., found itself in the papers this week when associate publisher Bill Berggren's criminal past came back to haunt him. It seems Berggren has been arrested for a number of incidents and some questioned his role as leader for Boston's Pride Committee. Rather than cause a stink, Berggren stepped down voluntarily. And Berggren ain't the only one on Innews' stepping down. From Boston's Weekly Dig:

In the last few weeks, their masthead has gotten a lot lighter in its loafers—editor James Lopata has left the building, as have distributor Thomas Kilduff and associate editor Alexander Sliwinski... We hear grumbling in the streets, too, that their freelancers haven’t been paid in eons.

The blurb goes on to suggest euthanasia. Ouch.

• You know what would help the African continent's millions of AIDS patients? Doctors. Too bad there's a shortage.

• Jenny Bailey can now call herself the United Kingdom's first trannie mayor, thus crushing our life long dreams...

• South African hooker outs celebrities, media refuses to pass names along.

• Mitt Romney doesn't hate gays:

I oppose discrimination against gay people. I am not anti-gay. I know there are some Republicans, or some people in the country who are looking for someone who is anti-gay and that’s not me.

Wait, isn't trying to stomp gay marriage discriminatory?

African leaders have gathered this week to discuss the continent's human rights situation, but Ghanaian deputy attorney general, Kwame Osei-Prempeh made sure his people know that gays don't count as human.

Employing an especially quaint term - "homosexualism" - Prempeh insisted that while other countries may coddle the queers, Ghana's not reversing its anti-gay ways:

He explained that charters and international conventions that recognize homosexualism do not override national laws. For that reason the Criminal Code of 1960, which outlaws homosexualism is incontrovertible.
...
Prempeh said unnatural carnal knowledge is an illegal act under the Criminal Code as per section 104, and homosexualism, without any equivocation, is a form of unnatural carnal knowledge.

Section 104(2) explains, "Unnatural carnal knowledge is sexual intercourse with a person in an unnatural manner or with an animal."

Prempeh's statements echo the Ghana government's declaration last year, in which they claimed: "[The] government does and shall not condone any such activity which violently offends the culture, morality and heritage of the people of Ghana." Yet, they continue to speak the colonial tongue: English. How queer...

Ghana: No Room for Gays And Lesbians [All Africa]

Mankind may have originated on the African continent, but homophobia certainly didn't. That's what South African gay activist Nonhlanhla Mkhize said in a statement commemorating International Day Against Homophobia.

Mkhize definitely has a point. The idea of homosexuality came from the West, a special colonial social import. So, too, are declarations of homosexuality's sinfulness and, thus, homophobia. Indigenous or not, homo-hating sure did stick...

CONTINUED »

African queers of all colors will gather in Johannesburg, South Africa to discuss the continent's homophobic pandemic. The International Lesbian and Gay Association in Africa will address the thirty-eight African nations that still legally prohibit homosexuality and plan on releasing a comprehensive report on the matter. An ILGA press release remarks:

Although many of the countries listed in the report do not systematically implement those laws, their mere existence reinforces a culture where a significant portion of the citizens need to hide from the rest of the population out of fear.
...
Whether imported by colonial empires or the result of legislations culturally shaped by religious beliefs, if not deriving directly from a conservative interpretation of religious texts, homophobic laws are the fruit of a certain time and context in history. Homophobia is cultural.

It's no coincidence the group has chosen South Africa for its first conference - the "Rainbow Nation" has the world's most progressive constitution, including the right to same-sex marriage. Hopefully this conference will help spread the love.

In what could well become one of the most notorious gay scandals in Zimbabwe's history, gay activist and HIV/AIDS crusader Dumisani Dube has become a hunted man after presenting the nation's oppressive leadership an ultimatum: do something to turn the tide of the disease in this nation or I'll out six of your ministers and cabinet members.

Gay activist goes into hiding, threatens to expose Mugabe's six gay ministers ["ZimDaily]

A little over a month after issuing a call against British gay activist Peter Tatchell, a group of African gay do-gooders maintain that Tatchell and his group, Outrage!, are still meddling in their business.

They claim that their British counterparts inadvertently brought Nigeria's anti-gay bill back from the dead, thus leading to more oppression. Dorothy Aken'Ova of Nigeria's International Centre for Reproductive Health and Sexual Rights insists:

Press attention to the bill, even if it is as mild as reporting that it is presumed dead as a result of political tension will be dangerous. Right now, we want silence.

If Aken'Ova truly feels that way, then why did she even speak to the press?

CONTINUED »

Remember all the hoopla about Madonna swinging on over to Malawi to get a kid? Well, apparently it amounted to nothing but a big pile of hooey. According to Madge's faithful publicist, Liz Rosenberg, "She has not adopted a bady..." Well, that solves that. But, we can't help but wonder, what did Malawian governmental mouth-piece Adrina Michiela mean when she said, "She asked us to identify boys only, which we have done after visiting four orphanages in Lilongwe." Maybe she meant, "I'm lying. This is not true. Lies are coming out of my mouth. Why are you listening? I'm lying." But, then again, probably not.

Rosenberg, meanwhile, thinks all the lies are swell, and thinks her boss does, too:

I think that anything that brings attention to the country is fine with her, even if it's information that's not correct... She wants people to pay attention to Malawi and to the one million children who don't have parents and don't have care there.

Uh-huh. It seems to us that Rosenberg is saying she and Madonnna had Michiela make up an adoption story so that they could say it's a lie, thus bringing even more attention to the plight of children in Malawi. Plus, as an added bonus, she can drive the message home by making the government look like a bunch of fibbers. Brilliant!

• Do you really want to smell like Derek Jeter? Wait. Which part of Derek Jeter? [Pittsburgh Post-Gazette]

• Tim Gunn must be so proud. And so rich. [USA Today]

• If you're in New York and want to forget you worries, go have a drink with Amnesia at Barracuda. She'll love you forever. [Amnesia Sparkles]

• Lesbian disappointed with the American Legion. Who isn't? [The New York Blade]

• Even the Jews in Russia don't want World Pride in Jerusalem. [Mosnews]

• Things in Uganda can get worse? Fuck. [365 Gay]

• Vancouver's first gay hotel, Farenheit, does more than cater to the man-on-man market: It offers a clothing-optional floor for guests who choose to walk to the ice machine in the nude. [Hotel Chatter]

• The gays came out in droves to audition to be one of Joan Rivers' three co-hosts for her new Bravo show, including Queerty's own Bradford Shellhammer. [NYO]

• Another day, another African nation with a poor gay rights record. This time it's Uganda, criticized by the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission for banning gay marriage — though the the nation's minister of ethics and integrity says the law (to quote the article) "does not discriminate against gay people but at the same time does not encourage." Meanwhile, sodomy remains punishable by life in prison [All Africa]

• To help "celebrate" a year of increased ousting of gays from the military, some queers got together in Roseville, Minnesota, for a sit-in at an Army recruitment office. Photo evidence included. [EAS]

• Cracked, relaunched. [Cracked]

• As much as you love Google, they'd prefer you stop using it as a verb. Actually, they love that you use it as a verb, but their trademark lawyers do not. [Jossip]

• Happy birthday, Madonna. With a new year comes a new image, no? [PITNB]

Months of touring isn't tiring Madonna. Rather than take a break to let the paparazzi trail her as she plays in the park with Lourdes, she's already on to a new project: Malawi. In an interview with Time, the reigning queen of pop says she's making the African nation a priority, donating her time, cash, and, certainly, her celebrity presence. Because Angelina Jolie ain't the only lass in town who can make every third grader and 77-year-old suddenly know where to find an African country on a map.

And being Madonna, she's not arriving in Malawi by halves. She has already committed to raising at least $3 million to fund programs particularly aimed at orphans there. Of Malawi's population of 12 million, about a million are orphans. Ground has just been broken on an orphan care center, which aims to feed and educate as many as 1,000 children a day. She has also formed a partnership with developing-world economic guru Jeffrey Sachs on programs to improve the health, agriculture and economy of a village nearby. She's financing—to the tune of about $1 million—a documentary about the plight of children there. And she has met with Bill Clinton to see if they can work together to bring low-cost medicinesto the area, as well as partnering with several aid organizations. This, mind you, is all before Madonna has ever even set foot in Africa. (She plans to go in October.)

Exclusive: Madonna Speaks About Her "Big, Big Project" [Time]

It might be time for you and your married-in-Canada partner to reconsider that romantic Zimbabwe honeymoon you've been planning. Zimbabwe's Parliament this week passed a "sexual deviancy" law that forbids same-sex kissing, hugging, or handholding. We don't know if the new law applies to fathers and sons as well.

The law of course is only the latest in Zimbabwean Prime Minister Robert Mugabe's series of assaults on gay people. At 82, we wonder how someone so full of hate can even keep on kicking, but Mugabe keeps churning out more venom than men half his age.

Same-Sex Handholding Now Illegal In Zimbabwe [365 Gay]

Two weeks ago, we told you about the Top 10 worst countries to visit if you're gay. Without even reading the post, you could see from the map that four of them – that's a full 40 percent, based on math even you Melanie Griffith could perform – are in Africa: Uganda, Egypt, Nigeria, and Cameroon topped the list.

Having just returned from a jaunt to West Africa, we've got first-hand knowledge that, at the end of the day, we're going to have to add Ghana to the list of no-fly zones. No, Ghana is probably not one of the worst nations out there for queers (in Iran, after all, they can kill you for the "crime"), but our intimate talks with Ghanaians during our stay revealed a single general theme: they don't like the gays.

"It's a disease," was one comment. "[Gay people] are ignored," was another. And because so much of the country is rooted in strict Christian and Muslim beliefs, "it's a sin" became an all too a regular remark.

Since the educated classes in Ghana all speak English from an early age, we were able to have some pretty in depth conversations about their feelings toward gays. Most threw out the concept that gay people are born with a sexual preference, joining so many American conservatives with the belief that homosexuality is a choice. Still others made God's will paramount, concluding that the Lord (whether it's Jesus, God, or Allah) will punish the gays, so society shouldn't condone them. (All this, of course, differs from our experience in Tanzania, where homosexuality is a crime and punishable, to our knowledge, by imprisonment.)

So are the feelings of Ghanaians toward gays a reason not to visit? Certainly not. We found plenty to do – shopping in the largest open-air market in West Africa, walking among the tree tops on a canopy walk, visiting a village built on stilts over a lake, tasting some amazing (and, sometimes, pretty terrible) food, and simply mingling among the locals – that didn't touch upon sexual orientation.

But one thing did strike us: As we wrapped up our conversation with a new friend who spoke thoroughly about gays in Ghana, he remarked how, if nothing else, he'd at least like to talk to a gay person. And as we all know, progress begins with communication.

Earlier: Top 10 Worst Countries For Gays