Contents:

Africa migrants thrown overboard

UN 'slow' to stop DR Congo abuses

Singapore retains its gay sex ban

Africa migrants thrown overboard
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/africa/7058248.stm
Published: 2007/10/23 13:27:36 GMT
© BBC MMVII

Sixty six African migrants are dead or missing after being forced overboard by people traffickers off the coast of Yemen, the UN refugee agency says.

The incident involved two smugglers' boats that left the Somali coastal town of Bossaso on Saturday with 244 people aboard, mostly Somalis and Ethiopians.

Survivors say the victims drowned when they were forced into deep water after reaching the Yemen coast on Sunday.

More than 20,000 people have made the crossing from East Africa this year.

But more than 400 have died while crossing the Gulf of Aden to Yemen and with as many again missing and feared dead, the UNHCR says.

UN 'slow' to stop DR Congo abuses
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/africa/7057950.stm
Published: 2007/10/23 13:41:58 GMT
© BBC MMVII

All sides in the conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo are guilty of murder, rape and forcing children to fight, Human Rights Watch says.

The New York-based human rights group says the UN has been slow to react to the worsening crisis in the east which is developing into a Hutu-Tutsi war.

The Congolese army has threatened an all-out offensive against both Tutsi and Hutu militias in the region.

Refugees have been streaming across the border into Uganda in their thousands.

More than 370,000 villagers have been displaced by the fighting in the Kivus since the start of this year and an estimated 8,000 have crossed the border since the weekend.

The BBC's East Africa correspondent Karen Allen says observers fear the fighting could develop into a proxy war between Hutus and Tutsis on Congolese soil.

Dissident Gen Laurent Nkunda accuses the Congolese army of receiving backing from Rwandan Hutus - the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR) - who fled into DR Congo after the genocide in 1994. 

Singapore retains its gay sex ban
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/asia-pacific/7059300.stm
Published: 2007/10/23 23:45:47 GMT
© BBC MMVII 

Singapore's parliament has voted against a proposal to decriminalise sex between men, despite receiving a petition signed by thousands of people.

The plan was part of a wider reform of sex laws, many dating from the British colonial era half a century ago.

The chamber passed a bill legalising oral and anal sex for the first time, but only between heterosexuals.

Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said the government did not consider gays to be a minority with minority rights.

In a rare speech to parliament, he said Singapore was a conservative society, and he wanted to keep it so.

Tuesday's vote means Singapore's anti-gay law 377A remains, although prosecutions are rare.

Under the legislation, a man caught committing an act of "gross indecency" with another man could be jailed for up to two years. -End-

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