Argentina will delete a law that makes it a crime for same-sex members of the military to engage in sex.

In late August, the national government will submit to Congress its plan to abolish the entire Military Justice Code and create a new military justice system. Among scores of changes, the new laws will not prohibit same-sex relationships.

“[The ban] was nonsense,” said Colonel Judge Advocate Manuel Lozano, a member of the legal commission designing the new system. “It’s a matter of people’s private lives.”

An Irish lesbian couple married in Canada want their marriage recognized in Ireland for income-tax reasons, among others.

The case is expected to be heard by the High Court in October.

Katherine Zappone and Ann Louise Gilligan argue that the government’s refusal to honor their marriage violates their right to marry and the right for their family life to be respected, as guaranteed by the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms.

They also say they’re being discriminated against based on their gender and/or sexual orientation.

The couple was married in Vancouver in 2003. Canada is one of five nations where same-sex couples have access to traditional marriage.

Twenty men were arrested at a “wedding party of two men” in Jizan, Saudi Arabia, according to an Aug. 16 report in the newspaper Al-Watan.

An additional 200 of the total 400 attendees were detained but then released, the report said.

The paper said police accused the arrestees of pretending to be women.

Some 24,000 delegates from 170 nations attended the 16th International AIDS Conference Aug. 13-18 in Toronto.

In an opening-session address, Microsoft billionaire Bill Gates and his wife Melinda, co-chairs of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, called for increased focus on women, accelerated research on microbicides, and stepped-up global prevention and treatment efforts. Other celebrity attendees included Bill Clinton and Richard Gere.

“These are the things that I think we have to do as we leave here,” Clinton said. “Money. Money spent more effectively. Prevention. More testing – not compulsory but voluntary and empowering. Lifting the status of women. Continuing the search for medical answers through microbicides and vaccines. Reaching the hard-to-reach population. Developing the infrastructure. And getting treatment out to every single soul who needs it.”

More than 4,500 scientific abstracts were presented. Key areas of focus included vaccines, new types of treatment, pre-exposure prophylaxis (giving HIV drugs to HIV-negative individuals at high risk for infection) and the connection between HIV and tuberculosis. Much attention was paid to the vast disparities in prevention and treatment across the planet.

“There are still far too many instances where punitive laws, stigma, gender inequities and lack of access to needed prevention and care services conspire to fuel the HIV pandemic,” said conference co-chair Dr. Mark Wainberg, director of the McGill University AIDS Centre.

Dr. Julie Overbaugh of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle highlighted accumulating evidence that HIV-positive individuals who engage in unprotected sex risk becoming reinfected with a different strain of the virus that could be more aggressive or drug-resistant.

At the same time, Dr. Julio Montaner of the British Columbia Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS cited emerging evidence that HIV-positive people whose viral load is undetectable due to successful antiretroviral therapy are “very unlikely” to transmit the virus during unprotected sex.

Other scientists quickly responded that such transmission does happen nonetheless.

On Aug. 17, members of South Africa’s Treatment Action Campaign physically attacked the South African government’s exhibit booth, which suggested garlic, olive oil, lemon and beets are HIV treatments. They chanted, “Fire Manto now.”

South African Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang has been under sustained fire from activists for several years for promoting unorthodox HIV “treatments,” suggesting that standard HIV drugs are poisonous, and questioning whether HIV is the cause of AIDS.

About one-seventh of South Africa’s 47 million citizens are believed to be HIV positive.

Around 30 skinheads attacked marchers in the third Pride parade in Tallinn, Estonia, Aug. 12. They beat them with sticks, threw rocks at them and bombed them with eggs.

At least 15 marchers were injured. Three of them were transported to hospital emergency rooms. Police made at least six arrests for public-order violations.

Pride spokesman Lisette Kampus said there were not enough police along the parade route.

“[The skinheads] attacked the middle of the march – and first, the women,” she told GayRussia.Ru. “[Y]oung Estonian men attacking young Estonian women – it is completely shocking for us. There are no words. It is something extremely shameful.”

Indeed, Tallinn’s previous Pride marches have been trouble-free, but this year has seen a rash of anti-gay actions directed at Pride parades in the region, with marches being banned, attacked or both in Russia, Poland, Latvia, Lithuania and, now, Estonia.

“I think that we are seeing what kind of impact such situations that took place in Riga, Krakow or Warsaw can have on neighboring countries,” Kampus said. “Latvia is exporting its homophobia. Things in Riga were an encouragement for stupid people in Estonia.”

About 500 people took part in the Tallinn march, which started 20 minutes late because of a bomb threat. Police didn’t find any bombs.

Assistance: Bill Kelley