Nitzan Horowitz announced his intention to run for election to Israel’s largest city, Tel Aviv, against the incumbent Ron Huldai.

Horowitz, of the left of centre Meretz party, is the country’s only openly gay Member of the Israeli Knesset (MK), a post he intends to resign if elected to the be the mayor of Tel-Aviv.

His annoncement yesterday (6 May) pits the 49 year-old Horowitz against Labor’s Huldai in the 22 October elections.

If he wins, he would become Tel Aviv’s first openly gay mayor, and the first in any Israeli city or the Middle East.

Kurdish men from the Marivan County in the Kurdistan province of Iran have launched a cross-dressing campaign to redress outmoded concepts of masculinity and femininity.

Over the last week, over 150 Kurdish men have posted photographs of themselves in women’s clothing to campaign against the sexist nature of a court sentence which led to the public humiliation of a man by dressing him in women’s clothing.

A journalist and editor at a ‘well-known’ daily newspaper was arrested in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, for planning to attend a ‘gay party’, using make up and possession of alcohol.

The kingdom’s religious police known as the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice arrested the unnamed man during the weekend.

A whistleblower has spoken out on Australian TV about the 'cover-up' of abuse in the army.

Lieutenant Colonel Paul Morgan, an openly gay senior army psychologist in the Australian Defence Force (ADF) said on ABC TV on yesterday:

'The way army deals with abuse is entirely consistent with how you would run a cover-up.'

Morgan, whose job is to look after the mental health of soldiers serving in East Timor, Iraq and the Middle East, said:

A Manchester student has secretly filmed an extremist Muslim saying gays should be executed.

Middle East studies student Colin Cortbus was attending a meeting at the University of Manchester’s Students’ Union on 13 February.

The city in north-west England is famous for its cultural diversity, big student population and thriving LGBT community.

He asked others at the event, organized by the Global Aspirations of Women student group, whether God would agree to gay men being stoned to death. He was told he would.

Tel Aviv’s International LGBT film festival, known as TLVFest, barely survived an attempt by the Israeli ministry of culture to shut it down.

While TLVFest has for now been saved, Yair Hochner, its founder and director, told Gay Star News, it faces funding discrimination which threatens its future.

TLVFest is the Middle East and one of Asia’s largest LGBT film festivals and will celebrate its 8th anniversary in June 2013.

A US Christian group is threatening to make companies such as Starbucks 'pay the price' for being pro-gay in countries which are known to be homophobic.

The National Organization for Marriage (NOM) revealed its action plan during a conference to discuss the next stage of their campaign against same-sex marriage.

Egyptian media reported yesterday (31 October) that seven men have been detained and questioned for over four days for their allegedly organising and participating in a gay sex ‘debauchery’ party network, in the El Nozah neighbourhood of Cairo, the country’s capital.

According to the reports, the public prosecutor is preparing a case against the men, as well as assigning a urologist to ‘investigate’ if the men had any ‘incriminating’ sexually transmitted diseases.

Gay men are marrying women in central Asia to hide their sexuality, according to a new report for HomoLAB.

A 23-year-old gay man from Uzbekistan, who wished to remain anonymous, has spoken out about gay life in the capital Tashkent where being gay is illegal.

He says he is openly gay, has gay friends and goes to gay clubs.

‘My mom probably knows because most times she has seen huge muscle guys on my desktop. She asks and I say, “I want to be the same as them”.

The censorship committee of the 35th Cairo International Film Festival has rejected three of the 60 films it has reviewed so far, one of them dealt with a gay theme.

Of the two other films were censored, one dealt with the theme of adultery, while the other had scenes of sex and nudity.

The government of Saudi Arabia government has voiced its objection to .gay – a proposed new generic top-level domain name like .com.

The Communication and Information Technology Commission (CITC) of Saudi Arabia said the .gay address ending would ‘promote homosexuality’ and be ‘offensive to many societies and cultures.’

A draft bill to criminalize offenses against ‘sacred values’ was submitted to parliament this week by Tunisia’s ruling Islamist party Ennahda.

Human rights defenders warn if passed it would threaten freedom of expression and may worsen an already difficult situation for Tunisia’s gay community.

If passed, the new law would effectively punish remarks and words broadly deemed as insult or mocking the ‘sanctity of religion’ by large fines and imprisonment.