Conservatives and other supporters of President Alvaro Uribe Vélez killed a gay civil-union bill in Colombia’s Senate Aug. 26.

They blocked both a vote and further debate on the measure, which would have extended spousal rights to registered same-sex couples in areas such as job benefits, insurance, pensions, social security, alimony, inheritance, health-care decisions and family violence. It also would have banned discrimination based on “sexual identity, gender or orientation.”

The vote to block was 55 to 32 with 15 abstentions.

Senator Piedad Córdoba, lead sponsor of the bill, plans to reintroduce it in a future session.

Three ex-presidents of Colombia spoke in support of the measure. Alfonso López Michelsen, Julio César Turbay and César Gaviria Trujillo, who is now secretary general of the Organization of American States, all lobbied for its passage.

Police officers marching in their uniforms and gay actor Sir Ian McKellen were big hits at the Europride parade in Manchester, England, Aug. 24.

The parade moves to a different European city each year.

“The parade featured jugglers, fire-eaters, stilt walkers, royal look-alikes, Wonder Woman and characters from the Wizard of Oz,” said the Manchester Evening News.

The lead contingent was the world’s largest rainbow flag. Flag creator Gilbert Baker constructed the quarter-mile-long monster to celebrate the gay symbol’s 25th anniversary.

One of Buenos Aires, Argentina’s major daily newspapers, Crónica, has launched a weekly, 16-page gay supplement. The premiere issue featured a cover photo of the city’s first ‘civil-unioned’ gay couple kissing.

“I suspect BA is the only city in the world where a major newspaper includes a free gay supplement each week,” said local activist Tom Hanks.

Buenos Aires began offering gay civil unions on July 18. Registered couples receive spousal rights in areas such as insurance, health care, hospital visitation and bank loans.

The Australian state of Tasmania OK’d the nation’s first partnership registry Aug. 29. It will go into effect Jan. 1.

The legislation creating the registry passed the Legislative Council by a vote of seven to five. It had passed the House of Assembly earlier, 22 to three.

The law grants couples — whether the relationship is sexual or not, whether they live together or not, and whether they even choose to register or not — a broad range of matrimonial rights, and allows registered individuals to adopt a partner’s biological child.

Tasmanian Attorney General Judy Jackson said “the registration model passed ... stands alone as the best scheme of registration nationally and internationally.”

Seventies pop singer Janis Ian, best known for her Grammy-winning song “At Seventeen,” married her partner, Patricia Snyder, at Toronto City Hall Aug. 27.

Court decisions this summer legalized ordinary marriage for same-sex couples in the provinces of Ontario and British Columbia. The federal government is in the process of opening up the institution nationwide.

Ian, 52, and Snyder, a Nashville lawyer, have been together 14 years.

Foreign same-sex couples can travel to Ontario or British Columbia, buy a marriage license, and get married the same day.

The public defender of jailed Uzbek gay journalist Ruslan Sharipov was severely beaten by four masked men Aug. 28 in Tashkent, the capital city.

Surat Ikramov of the Independent Group for Human Rights Defenders was abducted as he returned from meeting with a judge about a court date for appealing Sharipov’s conviction. He had been receiving threatening telephone calls in the days leading up to the assault.

According to Human Rights Watch: “Ikramov was driving his car when a man flagged him down and asked for a lift. When he pulled over, four men in black masks and camouflage uniforms opened the doors of Ikramov’s car, placed a plastic bag on his head, tied his arms and legs, and put him in their car. The men beat Ikramov in the back of the car and repeatedly restricted his air supply by tightening a belt around his neck to close the plastic bag over his head. The men drove Ikramov to the outskirts of Tashkent, where they demanded money from him, continued the beating, and then left him by the Chirchik River. Ikramov lost consciousness and only [hours later] was able to get help. [He] had two broken ribs and a concussion.”

Ikramov had been organizing a protest over Sharipov’s case scheduled for the following day outside Parliament.

Sharipov, 25, pleaded guilty Aug. 13 to sodomy, sex with minors and running a brothel, and was sent to jail for five and one-half years. He had earlier declared his innocence but fired his lawyers and admitted guilt after officials threatened to hurt his mother.

The International Gay & Lesbian Human Rights Commission and other human-rights groups believe the charges against Sharipov were concocted to silence his journalistic criticism of police corruption and human-rights abuses.

“Everything indicates that Sharipov was arrested on false and sordid pretenses designed to rid the authorities of a bothersome, dissident voice,” said Reporters Without Borders in a letter to Uzbek President Islam Karimov.

Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan are the only former Soviet republics that still criminalize gay sex.