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Sizzla Concert in Sweden Canceled Over Violent, Anti-Gay Lyrics

Jamaican reggae singer Sizzla's scheduled concert in Stockholm has been canceled because of complaints due to the violent, anti-gay lyrics in his songs, reports The Local.

Sizzla, whose full name is Sizzla Kalonji, was booked to perform at the Hornstull Strand in Sweden’s capital on March the 28th. However, event organizers have acknowledged the public outcry and accepted the fact that the Sizzla’s messages are in fact in breach of their code of conduct.

Sizzla, 35, is currently on tour and has played 18 European venues with the same result – members of the gay community being outraged.

Killing homosexuals and burning them is a theme in several of the Rastafarian’s songs, which has incited rage throughout the world, seeing him banned from performing in Canada and England. After news of his impending visit to Stockholm reached Sweden, a petition was started, and soon event organizers were forced to take notice, thereby cancelling the singer’s visit to the Hornstull Strand.

Sizzla has been repeatedly cited as one of the leading voices in so-called "murder music", which calls for violence acts toward gays and lesbians. Lyrics in song such as "Boom Boom" and "Pump It Up" openly advocate the burning and killing of homosexuals.

Although many of Sizzla's concerts have been canceled in Europe and Canada in recent years, the anti-gay singer played to a very receptive audience in 2010: The birthday party of Zimbabwe president and fellow gay-basher Robert Mugabe.

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NEWS: Syria, Doug Spearman, Celia Cruz, Cory Booker, Louis Smith

NATO to enforce no-fly zone over Libya. 

Lindsay Lohan becomes "Lindsay." 

Noah's Arc alum Doug Spearman lands role on All My Children.

Celiz Cruz and Tito Puente are honored with U.S. stamps.

  Sweden replaces stamps with text messages. "Users will send a text to the postal service, and receive a code. That code gets scribbled on a piece of snail mail and voilà! It's ready to be sent."

Syrian troops open fire on protesters. "Human rights groups said that since protests began seven days ago in the south, 38 people had been killed by government forces—and it appeared that many more were killed on Friday. Precise details were difficult to obtain Friday because the government sealed off the area to reporters and denied access to the country to foreign news media."

Boris Kodjoe cast in television pilot.

  Pommel horse hotness Louis Smith wins gold in Paris.

Michelle Obama to deliver commencement address at Spelman.

GOP recall drive ahead of schedule in Wisconsin: "Dems say they’ve gathered more than half the signatures they need to hold elections to recall GOP Senators and are now flatly predicting they’ll take back the state senate."

Attention size queens! World penis size chart.

A cautionary tale: Black, gay NYC escort shares story of "hustling, drug addiction, bareback sex, AIDS, depression."

Soulja Boy in grief over the death of his brother.

AT&T's $39 billion deal to acquire T-Mobile faces "steep climb" for approval.

NYT profiles Newark Mayor Cory Booker's constant use of Twitter: "Part of Mr. Booker’s success is his real-world networking with the likes of Mark Zuckerberg, Oprah Winfrey and Brad Pitt, but a huge part is his social networking dexterity. He’s quick, for obvious reasons, to mention Facebook as well as Twitter. Still, the most striking part is his Twitter feed, with its crowdsourcing on local problems, motivational snippets, Dalai Lama-citing, Springsteen-quoting and general air of hyper-caffeinated hyper awareness.

WIKILEAKS: HIV-Positive Cubans Held in Prison-Like Facility, "SIDA" Stamped on National ID Cards

Cubans living with HIV/AIDS suffer extreme hardships, are often treated in a "prison-like" facility and are forced to have the letters "SIDA" (AIDS) stamped on their national ID cards." That's according to a series of diplomatic cables by an unidentified nurse assigned to the United States Interests Section in Havanaand released by WikiLeaks. The cables offer a damning assessment of Cuba’s public health system, the Miami Herald reports.

The cable can be viewed HERE.

HIV-positive Cubans have "only one facility" in Havana that can provide specialty care and life-saving anti-retroviral medications, the cable noted. "One usually waits for months for an appointment, but can often move ahead in line by offering a gift or hard currency." Due to transportation issues and costs of travel, "many HIV-positive patients may be seen only once per year."

 -- Some newly diagnosed HIV/AIDS patients are held in what has come to be known as “Prision de Pacientes con SIDA de San Jose” (Prison for AIDS patients). There they are started on antiretrovirals AZT, D4T, 3TC. It is unclear to them why they were put in this prison-like facility but believe it is plain discrimination due to their homosexuality. The average period spent at this facility seems to be 18-24 months."

 -- AIDS patients are not given prophylaxis medication for the prevention of PCP (Pneumocysti carinii pneumonia), and for lack of newer medicines some patients are re-started on anti-retroviral regimens that were stopped due to significant side effects.

The cable adds:

HIV positive patients have had the letters ‘SIDA’ (AIDS) stamped on their national ID cards. Needless to say, in a country where the national ID card must be shown for everything from getting monthly rations to buying a train ticket, the person is stigmatized for life. ... Because they are “marked” as HIV positive, many are prevented from pursuing university studies and few can find gainful employment -- many must resort to menial jobs to survive.

The cable is dated January 2008. The Pan-American Health Organization in Havana claims "stamping ID cards used to be the case but is no longer the practice in Cuba." The United Nations and the United States Interests Section of the Embassy of Switzerland "could not" confirm the denial.

Two years ago, Cuba announced its health care system would cover sex reassignment surgery (SRS) for transgenders. That and other official claims about its public health system should be re-evaluated given the WikiLeaks disclosures.

The Miami Herald reports are HERE and HERE ...

The Wikileak cable is HERE.

WATCH: Tyson Gay's Surprise Win Over Usain Bolt in Stockholm

From Beijing to Berlin, it seemed that no one was a match for Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt. That changed for several seconds last night in Stockholm when American sprinter Tyson Gay upset the defending World and Olympic champion in a race between the two fastest runners in history.

Gay beat Bolt at the Diamond League DN Galan 100 meters in 9.84 seconds. Bolt finished second in 9.97. While Gay's time was shy of Bolt's world record of 9.58s, the AP reports that Gay was "in control" from the start and Bolt looking visibly tired toward the end.

This was Bolt's first loss in two years and at the same Stockholm stadium where he last lost a race two years ago. "Part of the shock of Bolt's loss in Stockholm -- in the hours after the race Bolt was the top trending topic on Twitter -- is due in large part to the ridiculously high bar he has set," adds Universal Sports. "Six world records, six global championship medals in two years, and 27 consecutive race victories created an aura of invincibility around the 24-year-old. It turns out the winning machine is human after all. 'I'm not unbeatable,' Bolt said. 'I can be beaten and it showed today.'"

Jamaica's Asafa Powell, who rounds out the top three fastest men in the world, did not participate because of a back injury. The 100 meters rematch is scheduled for August 27 in Brussels. Watch the dramatic race AFTER THE JUMP...

WATCH: European Air Traffic Grounded By Icelandic Volcanic Ash

Tens of thousands of airline passengers are stranded and at least 11 nations have closed their airspace after an eruption from an Icelandic volcano created a high-altitude cloud of drifting as. The volcanic ash plume contains tiny particles of silicate and pulverized rock that can damage airframes and jet engines. The travel chaos is the worst since September 11, 2001, experts say.

Reuters:

"About 17,000 flights were expected to be canceled on Friday because of the dangers posed by volcanic ash from Iceland, aviation officials said. Airports in Britain, France, Germany, and across Europe were closed until at least Saturday. Vulcanologists say the ash could cause problems to air traffic for up to six months if the eruption continues. The British Meteorological Office showed the cloud drifting south and west over Europe. Eurocontrol warned problems would continue for at least another 24 hours and an aviation expert at the World Meteorological Organization said it was impossible to say when flights would resume. Said a spokesman for the Civil Aviation Authority, Britain's aviation regulator, 'In terms of closure of airspace, this is worse than after 9/11. The disruption is probably larger than anything we've probably seen.'"

The flight cancellations cost carriers such as British Airways and Lufthansa about $16 million a day.

Aviation officials said airspace was closed in countries across northern European from Britain and France to Slovakia and Poland. The disruption might force a delay in Sunday's funeral for the late Polish President Lech Kaczynski and his wife who were killed in a plane crash last Saturday. President Obama is scheduled to attend the funeral.

The volcano below the Eyjafjallajokull (pron. EYE-a-fyat-la-jo-kutl) glacier began erupting on Wednesday. The eruption spewed a plume of ash 6 to 11 km (4 to 7 miles) into the atmosphere. Hundreds of rural Icelanders have been evacuated after floods of glacial water and volcanic ash devastated the countryside.

The situation on the ground is "desolate", reports NYT:

"Sigurlaug Sigurdardottir, a farmer from Herjolfsstadir, told the mbl.is news site that the ash had turned a bright day so dark that it was impossible to see a nearby houseAnother farmer, Ingunn Magnusdottir, described a desolate scene, saying: 'There is gray dust covering everything. The cars are gray.'  She said that her animals were all being kept in barns but that livestock at other farms had to be evacuated to safer areas. A thick layer of gray to black ash — which residents described as fine, like flour or sugar — covered thousands of hectares of land. The authorities were monitoring drinking water in islands that draw their water from Eyjafjallajokull glacier melt, Iceland Review’s Web site reported."

The latest eruption is the fourth by Eyjafjallajokull in 1,100 years, vulcanologists say.

Watch news reports and new footage AFTER THE JUMP ...

WATCH: Volcanic Ash Plume Closes Air Traffic Across UK, Scandinavia

Air traffic in the United Kingdom, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden has ground to a halt after after an eruption from an Icelandic volcano created a high-altitude cloud of drifting ash headed toward London.

The New York Times:

"The move effectively grounded all flights in Britain from 11:00 a.m. Greenwich Mean Time (7:00 a.m. Eastern) and affected an estimated 6,000 flights that use British airspace every day, aviation experts said. Oddly, for travelers, the closure was announced under clear blue skies. The impact was likely to be among the most severe in many years, cutting transatlantic links and severing air routes across northern Europe. The silence of the skies reminded some Britons of the days after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, when transatlantic flights were suspended."

Meanwhile in Iceland:

"Hundreds are evacuated to escape smoke and massive flooding from the eruption of the volcano under a glacier in the Eyjafjallajokull region: "The new volcano is gushing lava from a two kilometre trench ... 700 people have been evacuated and feared damage to farmland has hopefully been avoided – including at Iceland’s biggest grain farm. The floods were expected to be short and sharp, because the volcano will have melted the ice very quickly, at which time the flow of water will stop abruptly. It is thought the peak has now been reached and flooding may already have started subsiding."

The ash cloud at 35,000 feet is expected to drift over the UK. Britain will not be dusted by the ash but residents may witness  a "spectacular" red sunset.

Watch a new footage and a news report WHEN YOU JUMP ...

Report: Ugandan Bill to Execute Gays "Likely" to Pass

Reuters publishes an unfortunate update to the despicable pending legislation in Uganda that has been extensively covered on Rod 2.0:

Activists and political observers expect the private members' bill, which prescribes the death penalty for "serial offenders" and is still in the committee stage, to pass with little opposition and some minor changes. Likely changes may include modifying the death penalty to life imprisonment, altering clauses nullifying international treaties, conventions and protocols that contradict the act, and removing a section about extradition. "It's catastrophic," said Frank Mugisha, chairman of Sexual Minorities Uganda (SMUG), a local activist group. "People are being arrested, intimidated already. What's going to happen if it's passed"

The Anti-Homosexuality Bill is part of an extreme state-sponsoredcampaign of terror against gays in lesbians in Uganda, encouraged by conservative American Christian missionaries and partially funded by your tax dollars. Critics both inside and outside the tiny East African nation say President Yoweri Museveni is trying to divert attention from rampant corruption ahead of the 2011 national vote. Museveni who only last week said "European homosexuals are recruiting in Africa", is pushing for Uganda's membership in OPEC and reportedly "trying to whittle down [Western] donor influence."

Speaking of that: Sweden has just announced it's cutting aid to Uganda over the legislation:

"According to comments attributed to Gunilla Carlsson, Sweden’s development assistance minister, the Swedish government says it would cut aid to Uganda over an anti-gay law they find 'appalling'. 'My number two at the ministry, who has direct contact with the Ugandan government, has brought it up,' Ms Carlsson recently told Swedish Radio News. 'We’ve talked about it in Uganda, and I’ve also tried to speak to the kind of organisations in Uganda that are the target of the legislation.' Uganda receives about $50 million in development aid from Sweden annually. Swedish Radio News reported online, in a November 30 article, that the Scandinavian country would consider discontinuing development aid to Uganda if the law was introduced."

The prime ministers of Canada and Great Britain voiced their displeasure with Museveni. The United States has no official comment on the proposed Ugandan law that would execute gays.

Some Background ...

Uganda Law Would Execute HIV+ Gays, Will Obama Cut AIDS Funds?
Uganda's Museveni: European Gays "Recruiting" in Africa
Uganda: Death Penalty for "Aggravated Homosexuality"
Anti-Gay Activists March on Parliament
Uganda Anti-Gay Conference Day Two
UG Anti-Gay Conference
Rare Court Victory for Uganda Gays
Uganda Launches Major Anti-Gay Offensive
Uganda' Muslim Cleric: Exile Gays
Uganda Ethics Minister Advises Gays to Leave

Sweden Becomes Seventh Nation to Allow Same-Sex Couples to Marry

After only brief debate and token opposition, the Swedish Riksdag (Parliament) overwhelmingly votes for gender-neutral marriage, allowing same-sex couples in the Scandinavian country to marry.

Radio Sweden reports the center-right coalition government was "split on the issue with the Christian Democrats the only party to oppose the extension of the term 'marriage' to include non-heterosexuals. But in a free vote in parliament 261 MPs voted in favor of the reform, 22 voted no, while 16 abstained.

"Same-sex couples have been able to become civil partners in Sweden since 1995, and the law change doesn’t automatically make them husband and husband or wife and wife, if they want to get married they will have to either have a new ceremony, or send in an application to get the partnership converted into a marriage."

The law becomes effective May 1. Sweden becomes the seventh nation to allow gay and lesbian couples to marry, joining Belgium, Canada, the Netherlands, neighboring Norway, South Africa and Spain. Only Connecticut and Massachusetts in the United States allow gay and lesbian couples to wed.

Meet Nyamko Sabuni, Sweden's First Black Minister

This week, Sweden also made history by electing a new center-right coalition government that boasts that nation's first gay minister and its first black minister.

37-year-old Nyamko Sabuni is the new minister of integration and gender equality. She was born in Burundi where her parents, from the former Zaire—now the Democratic Republic of Congo—lived in exile. Thanks to Amnesty International, at age 12 she emigrated to Sweden with her mother and siblings. They were reunited with her father, a leading Zairian opposition figure.

"My mum and dad got jobs straight away ... which means for us there was nothing unusual. Our parents worked, we went to school and life went on."

Sweden has a long tradition of welcoming outsiders and is now beginning to impose restrictions. Some of Sabuni's proposals are quite controversial, such as banning wearing of the veil for girls under 15 years old and mandatory gynecological check-ups to detect genital mutilation. Critics have labeled her "Islamophobe" but Sabuni disagrees. "I don't think that learning the language, learning the codes in society, learning how society works, stands in contrast to one's own identity," she insists. "I have all these identities. When I'm with my Congolese friends I'm Congolese, when I'm with Swedes I'm pretty much like a Swede."

Integration Minister Debates Islamic Veils (Radio Sweden)

Anti-Immigrant Backlash on Swedish Border (Bloomberg)

Marc Raquil: Göteborg 2006

From our friends across the pond—delicious new screen captures of the 2006 European Athletic Championships at Göteborg, Sweden.

Marc Raquil, the champion French runner who was born in Martinique, captured the gold in a brilliant 4x400m relay. Raquil is part fashionista, part bad boy—known as much for his impressive skills on the track and for his trademark bleached hair and designer sunglasses. "When people notice the hair and the glasses they think I'm showing off," he told Eurosport after his win. "That just what I want to look like on the track but I'm a different person when I wake up or when I go shopping."

That last line is priceless.

Les athlètes rendez-vous Göteborg (à cause des Garçons)

Raquil: "Baala my inspiratio" (Eurosport.com)

Britain Strike 4x100m gold (Eurosport.com)

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