A Russian LGBT rights group on Monday reported a new wave of persecution against gay people in Chechnya, in which it says around 40 people have been arrested and two killed. 

Chechen authorities immediately denied the claims which come two years after an international outcry when gay men said they had been tortured by law-enforcement agencies in the majority-Muslim Russian republic.

Transgender woman Tessa Ganserer will make history in Germany when she takes up her seat in the Bavarian regional parliament next week, three months after winning reelection as Markus Ganserer.

A fast-food clown nailed to a cross has united its Finnish creator with Holy Land Christians demanding the artwork's removal from an exhibition at an Israeli museum.

An exiled Russian artist and his partner went on trial in Paris on Thursday for setting fire to the facade of a French central bank building, a performance that was filmed and circulated on social media.

Macedonian lawmakers prepared Wednesday to debate a motion to change their country's name to settle a decades-long dispute with Greece and open the way to NATO and EU membership.

A Saudi teen's live-tweeted asylum plea has cast a renewed spotlight on women's rights just months after women won the right to drive, and sparked rare criticism of restrictive "guardianship" laws -- from men.

Caretaker Culture Minister Ghattas Khoury on Wednesday issued a decree adding the building of the Lycée Abdel Kader school in Beirut’s Msaitbeh area to Lebanon’s list of traditional buildings.

The decree protects the building against any demolition or restructuring plans, following a flurry of reports in recent months suggesting that the school will be turned into a shopping mall.

A huge mural celebrating the "yellow vests" revolt has appeared in one of the most traditionally leftwing districts of the French capital.

Saudi courts will notify women by text message when they get divorced, in a new regulation that took effect on Sunday, officials said.

The highest-profile Catholic cleric to be caught up in a pedophile scandal in France went on trial on Monday charged with failing to report a priest who abused boy scouts in the 1980s and 90s.