Rapist buried alive in Bolivia

A man suspected of rape has been buried alive by villagers in the southern highlands of Bolivia.

Police had identified the 17-year-old as the possible culprit in the rape and murder of a 35-year-old woman near the municipality of Colquechaca.
The chief prosecutor says more than 200 furious local people seized Santos Ramos and buried him in the grave of his alleged victim.
He says residents blocked roads into the village to stop police arriving.
A reporter for a local radio station, who would only speak anonymously for fear of reprisals, told the media that Mr Ramos was tied up at the woman's funeral.
He said mourners threw him into the open grave alongside the woman's coffin and filled the grave with earth.
Colquechaca is a town of about 5,000 inhabitants some 207 miles ( 333 km) south-east of the Bolivian capital, La Paz.
Correspondents say lynchings sometimes happen in isolated, poorer parts of Bolivia, where police and other authorities are scarce.

Gay culture gaining momentum in Singapore

Although homosexuality is against the law, the gay community in this city-state has become more prominent recently.

Homosexuality in this Southeast Asian city-state has been illegal here for more than a century, dating back to law under colonial British rule. In a country that still lashes convicted criminals with a cane, sexual contact between men is punishable by up to two years in jail.

But in recent years the country has become ambivalent about enforcing its homosexuality laws, and as a result, gay culture is slowly emerging here in ways that seemed unimaginable just a decade ago.
"Pink Dot Sg" - a play on words on Singapore's nickname, Little Red Dot - is an open-air event where thousands dress in pink and gather to form a giant dot in support of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) causes. The festival marks its fifth year on June 29, and the organisers say they expect turnout to be enormous.
Attendance estimates for the first Pink Dot event in 2009 ranged from 500 to 2,500, while last year's event drew a record 15,000 people.
Major corporations have begun to sponsor the event, including Google, JP Morgan, and Barclays.
"The growing number of companies who are coming out and supporting social movements like Pink Dot is humbling," says Paerin Choa, spokesperson for Pink Dot Sg. "Increasingly, corporate entities are recognising the importance of values like inclusiveness and diversity, not just in the creation of a good working environment for employees, but also as a gesture of goodwill to clients and customers.

First gay magazine
In conjunction with the festival, the nation's first-ever gay lifestyle magazine - only available in electronic formats, and hosted by an Internet server in the US to bypass Singapore's restrictions on print publications - is publishing its second issue in June. 
The magazine, named Element, bills itself as "The Voice of Gay Asia" and targets the tech-savvy "pink dollar" market.
The magazine's features include listings on gay films with live links to movie trailers, gay-friendly resorts, and an interactive map of gay-themed events around the world. The publication stresses it is a lifestyle magazine, not a skin magazine. Singapore bans the sale of pornographic magazines and blocks sexually explicit websites.
"There are people who would read a lifestyle magazine that really covers different aspects of their life," says Hirokazu Mizuhara, the managing director and creative force behind Element. "It's not just about nudity or hot guys." 
Meanwhile, two court cases are seeking the overturn of Section 377A of Singapore's penal code, which forbids consensual sex between adult men.
"Any male person who, in public or private, commits, or abets the commission of, or procures or attempts to procure the commission by any male person of, any act of gross indecency with another male person, shall be punished with imprisonment for a term which may extend to two years," the article states.
After reviewing the penal code, the government in 2007 declared oral and anal sex to be legal for heterosexuals and lesbians, but not for gay men. The government assured the remaining ban on consensual sex between men would not be "proactively enforced", striking a middle ground between gay rights advocates and religious and social conservatives.