News stories by Elizabeth Whitman, page 5

A California immigration judge has allowed Alex Benshimol, a Venezuelan citizen, and his U.S.-born husband Doug Gentry to remain together in the United States for at least two more years, in another victory for same-sex bi-national couples.

Women in minority and indigenous communities are especially vulnerable to wide-ranging forms of violence, abuse and discrimination, according to a new report released Wednesday by Minority Rights Group International (MRG), a human rights group that works on behalf of minorities and indigenous peoples.

Henry Velandia, an immigrant from Venezuela, will not be deported, federal immigration officials informed him last week. Now he and his husband, Josh Vandiver, will be able to remain together in the United States.

The International Criminal Court (ICC) issued warrants Monday for the arrest of Libyan leader Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, his son Seif al-Islam al-Gaddafi, and the Libyan chief of intelligence, Abdullah al-Senussi, for crimes against humanity.

Long heralded as a model for the global response to HIV/AIDS, Brazil is intensifying its actions, at home and abroad, in the face of potential setbacks including an arising need for new treatment regimens, the resultant increase in drug prices and the debate over intellectual property rights.

They have taken over a strip of the sidewalk at Park Place and Broadway, handing out flyers to passersby and taping posters to the ground and to the metal crossbars of the scaffolding that shelters them from the rain.

Labour and women’s rights groups are strongly criticising the Supreme Court’s rejection of a class action suit brought by current and former female employees of Walmart who sought to represent 1.5 million female employees who claim that the company discriminated against women.

Fredy Peccerelli and his team of forensic anthropologists sort through human bones and other remains - shoes, clothes, ID cards. A stack of long, thick bones dark with dirt accumulates as they painstakingly reconstruct what they can from Guatemala's La Verbana Cemetery, where for decades anonymous corpses have been dumped.

When reports of protests and subsequent civilian deaths as security forces fired on protestors began filtering in from the southern Syrian city of Dera‘a in March, many wondered what turn events would take in both Syria and the international community in the wake of earlier uprisings during the ‘Arab Spring’.

Frequent and long-distance transfers to remote detention facilities are jeopardising the political and human rights of immigrants detained in the United States, according to the New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW).