Turkish authorities on Saturday banned transsexual rights activists from holding a planned march in Istanbul, the country's largest city, this weekend, a week after police used rubber bullets to thwart a Gay Pride parade. 

Germany legalized same-sex marriage Friday despite the personal objections of Chancellor Angela Merkel, as the nation joined many other western democracies in granting gay and lesbian couples full rights including adoption. 

Germany's parliament is set to vote on a bill to legalize same-sex marriage Friday after the lower house legislative committee put it on the agenda, its chairwoman said.

"The path to equality is open," said the chairwoman, Renate Kuenast of the left-leaning ecologist Greens opposition party, in a tweet on Wednesday.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Monday softened for the first time her opposition to gay marriage, as her conservative party comes under growing pressure on the issue ahead of elections in September.

Megan Couto on Monday became the first female officer to command the troops protecting Queen Elizabeth II at Buckingham Palace, as a Canadian battalion took over guard duties.

A Spanish court has ordered that the remains of Salvador Dali be exhumed after a woman who claims to be the daughter of the world-famous artist filed a paternity claim.

The Madrid court said Monday the exhumation aimed "to get samples of his remains to determine whether he is the biological father of a woman from Girona (in northeastern Spain) who filed a claim to be recognized as the daughter of the artist."

Adorned in makeup, fake breasts and bells, Jawed whirls around middle-aged men at Kabul's underground bacha bazi, or "boy play" parties, where the former child sex slave finds freedom of sorts as a dancing boy.

Russians have picked Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin as the greatest figure in history, a new poll said Monday, beating President Vladimir Putin into joint second alongside poet Alexander Pushkin.

Everyone thought Tamer El Said had gone mad in the decade it took him to make his film "In the Last Days of the City".

China's jailed Nobel peace prize laureate Liu Xiaobo has been granted medical parole after being diagnosed with terminal liver cancer last month, his lawyer said Monday, worrying supporters who pleaded for his unconditional release.