A South African man has won the 2010 Mr Gay World pageant, beating rivals from Australia, Hong Kong, China and Spain, the organisers said on Sunday.
Charl Van den Berg, 28, who runs a restaurant in Cape Town, won after four days of competition finished with a walk down a fashion runaway in an Oslo nightclub dressed in skimpy swimwear and various costumes.
The competition is aimed at "finding a leader who can take on the responsibility of being a spokesman for the community and who can also speak out on equality and human rights on the world stage," a statement said.
Xiaodai Muyi, 26, from China and who took fourth place, competed despite Beijing's attempts to prevent him doing so.
The Chinese authorities blocked China's own first gay pageant, in which contestants were vying for the right to represent China at Mr Gay World, last month.
Xiaodai's identity had been kept secret in the run-up to the competition in which some 20 men from around the world vied for the Mr Gay World title.
Homosexuality was a crime in China until 1997 and it was officially considered a mental illness until 2001. Since then, however, an increasing number of visible gay and lesbian events has taken place.
Australia's Byron Adu, 25, who works for the Australian government, was in second place followed by Rick Dean Twombley, 33, a dancer from Hong Kong while Spanish entrant Sergio Lara, a 26-year-old psychologist, came fifth.
The first Mr Gay World competition, held last year in Whistler, Canada, was won by an Irish man.
The bisexual penguin at the center of a much-reported love triangle is gravely ill.
Harry, a Magellan penguin at San Francisco Zoo, made headlines in 2003 when he set up home with another male penguin to incubate an egg. He later left his partner for a female penguin.
Zoo officials told the San Francisco Examiner that he was suffering from a respiratory infection that can be fatal to birds.
Harry is being cared for by the female bird he left his partner Pepper for.
They split up this summer, with the break being featured in Time Magazine's top ten break-ups of 2009.
Harry and Pepper lived a peaceful existence together until Linda, a recently-widowed female bird, befriended Harry.
However, Pepper became jealous and violent at her arrival and had to be separated from the other two.
Harry and Linda have been moved to a special pool while zookeepers keep an eye on his progress.
Harrison Edell, the zoo’s curator of birds, told the newspaper: "Linda’s just there for companionship. Penguins are such social animals and we don’t want Harry feeling more stressed from being alone in addition to the stress of being sick."
He added that Harry was suffering from aspergillosis.
"It is a serious veterinary concern," he said. "But his appetite this week is a lot better than it was last week, and he’s moving around better. It seems like he may be feeling a little better."
Singer George Michael has split up with his long-term partner Kenny Goss.
Goss, 50, reportedly walked out on the star at Christmas but the split has been kept secret until now.
The couple had been together for 13 years but Goss was said to have become sick of Michael's behavior. According to reports, the final straw came when Michael, 46, was arrested in public toilets on Hampstead Heath and charged with drug possession last year.
Friends said the former Wham! singer had been holed up in his Highgate mansion all year smoking cannabis and playing computer games.
One said: “Kenny had given George many chances. But after the Hampstead Heath incident he said he couldn't take any more. Kenny never agreed with George's urges to cruise for other men, or with his excessive use of cannabis.”
The number of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) characters on broadcast TV is again on the rise, according to a new report from The Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD). The group’s 14th annual TV study found that 18 LGBT characters will account for 3% of primetime scripted series regulars in the 2009-2010 broadcast TV season. That’s up from 1.3% in 2006, 1.1% in 2007 and 2.6% in 2008.
New LGBT characters include bisexual Ella on Melrose Place, Southland’s gay police officer John Cooper, Modern Family’s gay couple Mitchell and Cameron, and coming-out high schooler Kurt on Glee.
ABC continues to lead the networks with eight LGBT characters, or 5% of its 168 total series regulars. Fox, which had no regular LGBT characters two years ago, now has 4 characters (4%). NBC has 3 characters (3%), The CW has two (3%), but CBS had no LGBT characters out of its 132 regulars.
A parl near Amsterdam has unveiled information signs pointing out spots where officials say gay men are known to have sex - so no visitors are taken by surprise.
The signs "clearly indicate what is happening in each zone; also those where gay men are known to practice 'cruising'," municipal spokeswoman Manon Koffijberg said.
Cruising is a slang word used to describe the act of trawling for casual sex.
"If you don't want to be confronted by a vision of that sort, the signs allow you to avoid specific areas," said Ms Koffijberg.
The De Oeverlanden park in Slotervaart, southwest of Amsterdam, is known as a place where homosexuals from all over the Netherlands and elsewhere in Europe go in search of sex partners.
Ms Koffijberg said that while having sex in public was against the law, the park has been used for this purpose for so long that it has become "gedoog", a Dutch word for tolerating unwanted behaviour.
The sexual activities of cruisers, she said, kept mostly to the bushes in the park, and the new signs sought to ensure that they stayed there.
"There are various groups of users of the park; people with small children who bathe on the beaches, those who walk their dogs, gays cruising and nature lovers," said Ms Koffijberg.
"Things are arranged so that each group can relax in their own area without intruding on each other."
There had been recent complaints of gay bashing in the Slotervaart area, populated by a large group of immigrants of Muslim origin, with reports of robberies and violence against gay men in De Oeverlanden park.
A South African man has won the 2010 Mr Gay World pageant, beating rivals from Australia, Hong Kong, China and Spain, the organisers said on Sunday.
