Laws legalizing marriage and adoption for same-sex couples will soon be introduced in France, Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault told a French television station on Friday. Same-sex marriage is currently banned by law in France. The prime minister’s announcement comes nearly a year after the French National Assembly voted to reject a bill seeking to legalize [...]

Incidents of hate-based murders against LGBT individuals in the US increased in 2011, the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs (NCAVP) reported Thursday. The annual report, entitled “Hate Violence Against Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer and HIV-affected Communities in the U.S. in 2011,” found that 30 LGBT individuals were killed in 2011 in hate-based murders, the [...]

Ecuadorian plaintiffs seeking to collect on a judgment against Chevron Corp over Amazon pollution on Wednesday filed a collection action in Ontario’s Superior Court of Justice . The pollution was originally caused by Texaco in the 1980s. Chevron acquired the company with its liabilities in 2001. With this new lawsuit, the plaintiffs seek to enforce [...]

The Syrian government has released more than 500 prisoners detained during pro-democracy demonstrations in the last month, Syria’s official news agency reported Thursday. The report indicated that the government released 265 prisoners on May 5 and another 250 on May 17, adding that only those prisoners who “did not commit murders” were freed. The announcement [...]

Libya will begin the prosecution of senior officials who served under former leader Muammar Gaddafi in June, Prosecutor-General Abdul Azizi al-Hassadi told reporters on Thursday. The trials will begin with the prosecution of former spy chief Buzeid Dorda. The Prosecutor-General’s announcement comes after the Libyan government formally challenged the right of the International Criminal Court [...]

SunTrust Mortgage, Inc. agreed on Thursday to a $21 million settlement with the US Department of Justice (DOJ) for discrimination in the pricing of mortgage loans. DOJ had filed a suit against the company for discriminating against borrowers based on race and national origin rather than on risk. The company allegedly engaged in the unlawful [...]

An appellate division of the New York State Supreme Court on Thursday dismissed a lawsuit filed by a man seeking to recover damages because of a false rumor that he was gay. The court noted that because the man did not assert specific harm, the false statements must amount to “‘slander per se’—those categories of [...]

Blind Chinese human rights activist Chen Guangcheng urged the US on Thursday to “try harder” to promote the rule of law in China . Speaking at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) , Chen informed the audience that the rule of law in China is still weak and that much has to be done to [...]

Pre-Trial Chamber II of the International Criminal Court (ICC) on Thursday rejected the prosecution’s application for an arrest warrant against Sylvestre Mudacumura , a field commander in the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR) . The prosecution announced that it would apply for an arrest warrant against Mudacumura earlier this month on charges [...]

Ukrainian Prosecutor General Viktor Pshonka told reporters on Wednesday that former prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko may face additional criminal charges, including charges relating to the 1996 shooting of lawmaker Yevhen Shcherban and his family. Pshonka indicated that he believes Tymoshenko transferred money to the individuals who organized the murder. Serhiy Vlasenko, one of Tymoshenko’s lawyers, [...]