British male soldiers may have sexually tortured male Iraqi prisoners of war, London’s Telegraph reported June 1.

One soldier has been arrested, after dropping off incriminating film for processing back in Britain, and the other seven members of his unit are under investigation by the Special Investigation Branch of the Royal Military Police.

According to the Telegraph, “[One] picture showed a pair of white legs and the head of an Iraqi. The hand of a man behind the Iraqi’s head appeared to be forcing him to perform a sex act. [Another] picture showed a pair of bare bottoms with an Iraqi on his knees on the floor and his body bent. Another man was pressed behind him in what seemed to be a sexual position. [Another] picture appears to show two naked Iraqis cowering on the ground.”

London’s subway system — the Underground, or Tube — has banned further ads by a chain of Caribbean resorts that bars gay couples, the Guardian reported June 5.

Ads for the Sandals chain state that the resorts are for “mixed-sex couples only.”

London Underground took action after Mayor Ken Livingstone denounced the ads as discriminatory.

“I am pleased to say London Underground agreed that it is not acceptable for a company with such an openly discriminatory policy to advertise on public transport in this city,” he said.

Openly lesbian French tennis champion Amelie Mauresmo, 23, has become the first tennis player on display at a wax museum in Paris, the Grevin Museum.

Mauresmo was on hand as her likeness was unveiled in late May.

She also recently posed topless for the cover of Paris Match and announced, “I’ve found the woman of my life.”

In the accompanying article, Mauresmo said she was “wounded” in 1999 when fellow player Martina Hingis called her “half a man” and competitor Lindsay Davenport made fun of her “guy” shoulders.

For a while, Mauresmo said, she refrained from showing her shoulders in public.

Two male members of Aberdeen, Scotland’s, City Council announced May 30 that they will marry each other, The Scotsman reported.

Liberal Democrats John Stewart, 30, and Neil Fletcher, 38, who represent neighboring districts, have been together 10 years. They were elected to their seats in May.

“We are very much in love and would like to have some type of marriage,” Fletcher said. “It would be great to have some kind of legal acknowledgement of our relationship.”

Stewart added: “We have never hidden the fact that we are a couple. We take our careers on the council seriously and it seemed like an appropriate time to make our relationship perfectly clear. We name each other as respective partners on the Lib Dems’ website, so it is not rocket science to find out.”

Salam Pax, the gay Iraqi blogger who captivated Web surfers with his reports from inside Iraq before and during the war, was not an Internet hoax as some people had speculated.

In early June, journalists identified him as a 29-year-old, multilingual, middle-class architect who worked as a translator for freelance journalist Peter Maass during the war.

“He’s a lot like us but he’s not us,” Maass told the Los Angeles Times June 4, after learning of his translator’s other identity. “Salam sees what’s happening around him — the tragedy or the absurdity, and he communicates it in a human voice that most journalists don’t have.”

Slovakia’s parliament passed a law forbidding employers from asking an employee his or her sexual orientation, the Slovak Spectator reported June 2.

Gay groups and European Union officials said they would continue to push for a total ban on workplace discrimination based on sexual orientation.

Slovakia is scheduled to join the EU in May of next year.

“It is progress but it is not enough,” said Onno Simons from the European Commission’s Bratislava delegation. “The EC definitely looks forward to [Slovakia approving] an anti-discrimination law.”

Governments will rescue Toronto Pride, 365Gay.com reported June 2.

The parade has lost sponsors and faces increased liability-insurance premiums. Worst of all, however, SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) has caused thousands of canceled hotel reservations for Pride weekend, suggesting attendance could plummet.

Toronto has more SARS cases than any city outside of Asia, and has seen a resurgence of infections and quarantines in recent weeks.

Federal, provincial and city governments will infuse about $250,000 (U.S. $182,500) to keep the parade afloat, the website said.

Japanese transsexuals who have sex-change operations cannot switch their gender in their family register, the Supreme Court ruled June 2.

The register determines one’s fundamental legal identity in Japanese society.

According to the Mainchi Daily News, the plaintiff, a former woman, argued that without the change, he would not be unable to get a job or get married, which, he said, violates his constitutional right to the pursuit of happiness.