Ian McKellen said it was a point of deep "principle" as he joined hundreds of protesters outside the Russian embassy in London voicing their anger against a "purge" of gay men in Chechnya.

Taiwan's Constitutional Court has ruled in favour of same-sex marriage, making the island the first place in Asia to recognise gay unions.

Several activists were detained in Moscow as they prepared to submit signatures they have collected to protest against arbitrary detentions and torture of gay men in Chechnya.

Over 50 people turned out in Limerick’s city centre recently to protest at human rights abuses against members of the LGBT community in Chechnya.

A number of groups are to hold a demonstration on Cork’s Grand Parade on Tuesday in protest at the reported detention and killing of gay men in Chechnya.

Police in the southern Russian republic of Chechnya have reportedly rounded up more than 100 men suspected of homosexuality and at least three have been killed, a respected newspaper says.

Thousands of Russians have marched through Moscow to mark two years since opposition leader Boris Nemtsov was gunned down outside the Kremlin.

The world is doing little as the killing of civilians in Aleppo continues. Bernard-Henri Lévy argues that it is now time for the European Union to act

ENGLAND: Joe Johnson has revealed his video of his snooker World Championship triumph was lost — when one of his sons taped a He-Man film over it.

The Islamic State group is pursuing development of chemical weapons, setting up a branch dedicated to research and experiments, according to Iraqi and US intelligence officials.

Lawyers for Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev rested their case to save him from the death penalty, calling a famous death penalty opponent as their final witness to testify that Tsarnaev told her, “no one deserves to suffer like they did.”

Russian news agencies said yesterday that one of the suspects in the killing of leading opposition figure Boris Nemtsov has admitted involvement in the crime.

The outrage of ordinary Muscovites was sparked by Boris Nemtsov’s assassination on Friday, but many fear apathy will return in the face of a remorseless enemy, says Anna Nemtsova

Potential jurors stared intently at Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev as jury selection in his federal death penalty trial began under tight security.

Russian President Vladimir Putin celebrated his 62nd birthday in the wilderness of Siberia as supporters from across Russia create tributes in his honour.

A Russian court has sentenced two men to life in prison and three others to terms ranging from 12 to 20 years for the 2006 killing of renowned journalist Anna Politkovskaya.

At least 65 journalists have been killed since the Syrian conflict began and kidnappings are rife. Former war reporter Janine di Giovanni writes about the risks involved in filing from the frontline.

IN HIS 1979 novel The Island of Crimea, Vasily Aksyonov imagined the region’s flourishing independence from the Soviet Union.

The chief of the UN relief agency supporting Palestinian refugees said he is “deeply disturbed and shaken” by the despair and destruction he had seen in a besieged camp in the Syrian capital.

It is an indication of how powerful, how unaccountable and secure Russia president Vladimir Putin and his circle of oligarchs feel that they can orchestrate such terrible, anti-democratic violence in Ukraine while their pet project — the incredibly expensive, €37.5bn Olympics at Sochi — offers the world a prime-time insight into modern Russia.

Ever since the Winter Olympics were awarded to Russia, fears were raised about potential terrorist attacks, which have plagued the country since the collapse of the Soviet Union, writes Dmitri Trenin.

Yards from its improbable palm-fringed seafront and attended by a president whose seven-year, £31bn dream was starting to unfold before his steely eyes, Sochi welcomed the Winter Olympics with an opening ceremony of fittingly exorbitant scale in the Fisht Stadium last night.

Police detained dozens of people yesterday in sweeps through the Russian city of Volgograd after two deadly attacks in less than 24 hours raised security fears ahead of the Winter Olympics.

A suicide bomber struck a busy railway station in southern Russia yesterday, killing herself and at least 15 others and wounding scores more, officials said, in a stark reminder of the threat Russia is facing as it prepares to host February’s Olympics in Sochi.

Fifteen people died and scores were wounded when a female suicide bomber struck at a railway station in southern Russia.

A female suicide bomber killed at least 14 people and wounded scores more at a railway station in southern Russia.

Three men from Ingushetia have been jailed for life for their roles in the 2011 bombing of a Moscow airport that killed 37 people, a Russian news agency has reported.

A new ‘official’ history of Russia to be used in schools will devote an entire chapter to Vladimir Putin’s domination of politics since he came to power in 2000.

Three policemen have been killed and four injured in a suicide car bombing in Chechnya, Russian news reports said.

The UN Security Council is calling on both the Egyptian government and the Muslim Brotherhood to exercise “maximum restraint” and end the violence spreading across the country.

Groups such as Europol identify clues that help predict who the possible terrorists of the future could be. Cormac O’Keeffe talks to Pat Byrne, the head of Europol’s US office

A tycoon who financed a newspaper critical of the Kremlin has been found guilty of assault after punching a talk show guest and sentenced to 150 hours of community service.

Boston Marathon suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev downloaded bomb-making instructions from an al-Qaida magazine, legal documents revealed.

A federal grand jury has returned a 30-count indictment against the surviving suspect in the Boston Marathon bombings.

The Boston Marathon bombings could have been prevented if US officials had followed through on Russian intelligence, a senior Moscow official has said.

A female suicide bomber has injured at least 11 police officers and civilians in the southern Russian region of Dagestan, police said.

A Chechen immigrant shot dead in Florida after a confrontation with an FBI agent had ties to one of the Boston Marathon bombing suspects, and was being questioned at the time of the shooting.

Putin governs Russia with all the panache of a Bond villain, says Dave Kenny. Or so his photoshoots suggest

The Boston bombings show that the West was wrong in supporting militants in Chechnya, Russian President Vladimir Putin says.

The CIA has confirmed it wanted one of the Boston bombing suspects placed on a terrorist database 18 months ago.

The parents of Tamerlan Tsarnaev have insisted that he went to Dagestan and Chechnya last year to visit relatives and had nothing to do with militants operating in the volatile part of Russia.