The U.N. chief called on Uganda Tuesday to repeal a tough new law imposing life terms on homosexuals, warning it could fan violence and impede responses to HIV and AIDS.

Ban Ki-moon "urges the government to protect all persons from violence and discrimination," his spokesman said.

The United States said Monday that the signing of an "abhorrent" anti-gay law by Uganda's President Yoweri Museveni marked a "sad day" for his country and the world.

Museveni signed the bill despite warnings from Washington that he was putting U.S. relations with Kampala at risk and amid fears that aid donors could also react badly.

The mouth is made for eating and kissing, and gay oral sex will give you worms: Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni on Monday gave a detailed explanation of why he believed homosexuals should be jailed for life.

"I have failed to understand that you can fail to be attracted to all these beautiful women and be attracted to a man," the president told reporters as he signed off on controversial anti-gay legislation that includes life prison terms for repeat offenders.

Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni signed into law Monday a controversial bill that will see homosexuals jailed for life, defying international pressure and criticism.

"The president has just signed the anti-homosexuality bill," said presidential spokeswoman Sarah Kagingo, calling it a "landmark" law.

Israel is secretly transferring African asylum seekers to Uganda, Haaretz newspaper reported on Wednesday, quoting a senior Israeli government official.

The paper said that, over the past month, dozens of people agreed to leave for Uganda and some had already departed.

Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni is to sign into law a controversial bill that will see homosexuals jailed for life, despite international pressure, a government spokesman said Monday.

Confirmation of the decision, made following local "scientific" analysis of the issue, came as U.S. President Barack Obama warned Museveni that the legislation was a "step backward" that would complicate ties between Washington and Kampala.

Twenty-two Congolese soldiers and 230 Ugandan rebels have been killed in a nearly month-long offensive in restive eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, the government said Friday.

According to a provisional toll by the army chief of staff, 22 troops and 230 fighters from the Islamist ADF-Nalu rebellion have died in the clashes since January 16, said government spokesman Lambert Mende at a press conference in Kinshasa.

The wanted deputy of Uganda's murderous Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) rebels, Okot Odhiambo, may have been killed in recent fighting, the Ugandan defense minister told Agence France Presse Friday.

Odhiambo was indicted by the Hague-based International Criminal Court (ICC) in 2005, along with LRA chief Joseph Kony and fellow rebel Dominic Ongwen, on charges of butchering and kidnapping civilians.

In the steaming heat of Uganda, just south of the border with South Sudan, long lines of tents crowd the Dzaipi refugee camp where tens of thousands have fled fighting in their war-torn nation.

Dzaipi was designed for 400 people, but at one point the flood of South Sudanese refugees swelled to some 35,000 as Uganda bears the brunt of the massive exodus from the world's youngest nation.

East African nations have approved a 5,500-strong military force for war-torn South Sudan to end weeks of bitter fighting that has devastated the young nation, Kenya's foreign minister said Wednesday.

Thousands have been killed and half a million civilians forced to flee the fighting between troops loyal to President Salva Kiir and rebels allied to his sacked deputy Riek Machar.