Hong Kong transsexual wins right to use female name


A transsexual woman said Thursday she has won a landmark fight to list only her female name and add her gender to secondary school certificates after filing complaints about employment discrimination. The woman, who would agree to be identified only as Ms. J, said her school certificates revealed that she had been a man before undergoing a sex-change operation in 2000. She was allowed to add her female name to the documents, but authorities retained her old male name. They later agreed to exclude any mention of gender. Still, the revised paperwork caused problems when she tried to find clerical work because employers didn't want to hire a transsexual, said Ms. J, who is in her 20s. "I suffered discrimination," Ms. J told the Associated Press. "The employers would not even consider my capability, education level, and experiences. I feel very unhappy that I've been deprived of work."

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UN To Africa: Brace For AIDS Time Bomb
by Anthony Mitchell
The Associated Press


(Addis Ababa) Africa must brace itself for an AIDS time bomb as 8,000 people are infected with HIV a day in the region worst hit by the pandemic, the United Nations warned Thursday.

Seventy per cent of the 45 million people worldwide infected with HIV live in sub-Saharan Africa _ even though the region is home to only 11 per cent of the world's population, said a fund set up to combat three of the world's most devastating diseases.

The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria said that per capita growth in half of the countries in sub-Saharan Africa is falling by 0.5 to 1.2 per cent each year as a direct result of AIDS. By 2010, per capita GDP in some of the hardest-hit countries may drop by eight per cent and per capita consumption may fall even farther, the Geneva-based fund said.

``If we think we are seeing an impact today, we have to brace ourselves because it is set to get very much worse in the future,'' warned Alan Whiteside, member of a commission set up by UN Secretary General Kofi Annan to deal with HIV/AIDS and governance in Africa