In late September Andrei, a middle-aged Moldovan, was set upon by two men in a park in the center of this city. They had found his number on a gay dating site, arranged a meetup and, after calling him a faggot, beat him and kicked him in the face. Then, for good measure, they stole his bag and wallet. “It was vicious, and when the police arrived they started asking me all these degrading questions,” says Andrei, who asked that his name be changed.

Hundreds of Ukrainians have flocked to Kiev's Liberty Square to show their support for closer ties with their European neighbours. Demonstrators, who have camped out for a week, have been protesting around the clock against the government's decision to abandon forging an historic pact with the European Union.

FIFA boss Sepp Blatter condemned the European media for "attacking" the 2022 World Cup hosts Qatar on Tuesday, days after slamming European countries and companies over the controversial tournament. The veteran Swiss said the media had been unfair to Qatar as he made an impassioned defense of the event to delegates at the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) awards in Kuala Lumpur.

Twenty years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Ukraine is slipping back under Kremlin control. Ukraine’s shock decision to opt for Vladimir Putin’s Russia and pull out of EU talks on the eve of an historic deal is a dramatic upset to the European balance of power. It is the first major defeat for the EU in its eastward march since the fall of Communism. While the region’s geo-politics remain fluid, the upset may prove as fateful as the move by the Kossack chief Bohdan Khmelnytsky to turn his back on the West and accept Tsarist suzerainty in the 1640s.

In a dramatic easing of its hardline stance, Russian courts granted bail this week to nineteen of the thirty Greenpeace crew members detained since September for a protest outside a Russian oil rig in the Arctic. Seven activists received the good news today, joining others who appeared in court on Monday and Tuesday, while another twelve are still awaiting custody hearings. So far, only one detainee has been set free.

Ukraine has rejected draft laws that would allow the release of a jailed opposition leader, suspended plans for a landmark agreement with the European Union and announced it will renew active dialogue with Russia. The Ukrainian parliament's failure to pass the bills on Thursday to grant freedom to the former prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko, took away the country's last chance to satisfy the EU's condition for stepping towards integration with the 28-member bloc.

The world's largest social network Facebook has listed Kosovo as a country more than five years after the breakaway territory proclaimed independence from Serbia, officials said Tuesday. "Facebook recognises Kosovo as a state," Minister for EU Integration Vlora Citaku wrote on Twitter. And Prime Minister Hashim Thaci said in a statement that he "was informed (on Monday) by senior Facebook executives... about including Kosovo in the global social network".

African Union and European Union countries should work together to strengthen protections for human rights defenders in Africa and migrants in Europe, Human Rights Watch said in recommendations to the AU and EU released today. The annual AU/EU human rights dialogue will be in Brussels on November 20, 2013.