John goes under knife to become Julie
A Hutt Valley boy was given hormone treatment from the age of 14 to become a girl and is now, four years later, planning to go under the knife to complete the process.

Wainuiomata boy John was the youngest New Zealander to undergo the treatment, usually reserved for adults who are absolutely sure about their need to change their sex, it was reported on TV3's 60 Minutes programme.


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New watchdog for cops
Police Commission prepares for work.
By Alison Soltau
Staff Writer
High-profile activist Theresa Sparks wants to keep a close eye on current police training to better deal with people with mental illness and transgender community members. "There is some cultural kind of a roadblock, if you will, and it takes a long time for the people within the department to understand the value of the training," she said


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On World Stage, Critics of US Grow Louder
By Colin Nickerson
SEOUL -- On a wind-swept quadrangle of Seoul National University, the weekly demonstration against the United States was building up steam. Activists thrust clenched fists skyward while chanting the usual chants -- ''US out of Iraq!" ''US out of Korea!" ''US out of Asia!" -- and waggling posters bearing brightly colored caricatures. Check out Uncle Sam puffing a big fat stogie atop a heap of nuclear missiles! Catch President George W. Bush in Dracula garb, vampire fangs dripping blood! Inside a common room on the South Korean campus, Lee Ji-Woo, a 21-year-old student of agricultural economics, winced as the bullhorn tirade outside rattled the window panes.
 
''It isn't noisy protesters that should bother Americans," she said. ''What should bother Americans are the quiet feelings of anger and disgust filling the hearts of people who normally would be your best friends. America is becoming such a bully and a boor -- deaf to every voice except its own. Demanding its own way, 'Now, now, now!', and suggesting that anyone who disagrees or argues is an enemy. That frightens me. I think it frightens many people."
 
Her view was echoed by many of the scores of people on four continents interviewed by Globe reporters in recent weeks. Even in former citidels of pro-America sentiment in Asia, Europe, and Latin America, people are starting to chafe and complain. They are increasingly irritated by what many South Koreans facetiously refer to as the Pax Americana -- a world politically dominated by Washington, a world increasingly steeped in US moral values, and a world awash in American culture.


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Groups Say Louisiana and other Families Under Attack
Gene Mills, Executive Director of Louisiana Family Forum, has just announced that a  joint press conference with “pro-family organizations and concerned citizens from throughout Louisiana“ was held in Baton Rouge.  In the press release, Mills states the organiztions´ position is  that “Today, we call upon the Louisiana legislature to promptly pass, and send to the people of Louisiana for ratification, an amendment to the Louisiana Constitution defining and protecting marriage as one man and one woman“.   



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Senate homosexuals ban together
Washington, DC, May. 3 (UPI) -- A group of homosexual staffers in the U.S. Senate have joined their House counterparts by establishing their own issue and support group.

Roll Call reported Monday that a group of staffers have started the group --the first of its kind in Congress -- as a networking community for gay and lesbian staffers and not in response to the national debate over homosexual marriage.

The Gays, Lesbians and Allies Senate Staff Caucus is predated by a similar, decade-old networking group in the House of Representatives that functions primarily as a bipartisan social institution.

The new Senate group is co-chaired by a Republican and Democrats staffers and its members have vowed to not lobby their employers on gay and lesbian issues.