With a gay propaganda law in the works, a history peppered with anti-gay violence, lawmakers in Parliament saying things like "homosexuality is a clearly unacceptable behavior" and a bid to host the 2022 Olympic Winter Games, the situation in Kazakhstan sounds a lot like Russia's. And that's a curious place to be, when you consider the international outrage against the latter's aggressive anti-gay laws and the resulting calls to boycott the 2014 Winter Olympics in the Russian city of Sochi.

With her labor pains intensifying, Epiphanie Nyirankurikiyimana knew the time had come to leave for the health facility.
Rather than give birth at home without skilled care, the 25-year-old mother, pregnant with her second child, telephoned Immaculée Bampoyineza, the village community health worker who had educated her on the importance of prenatal care and developing a birth plan. Immaculée agreed to accompany Epiphanie to the health facility. Instead of waiting for local transport—four men carrying a sling—the women began the three-mile walk to the health center.

While some Americans put off getting back to work in earnest until after Labor Day, President Obama has already hit the ground running. His eight days of golf with buddies and bike rides with his family on the Massachusetts resort island of Martha’s Vineyard ended abruptly Sunday night when he returned to the White House. Confronting him now is an unusually large and difficult array of issues. And although more than three years remain in his presidency, what he does – or doesn’t do – to address them could go a long way toward determining his presidential legacy.

The Nigerian government was deliberating on actions to be taken regarding the Sudanese president Omer Hassan al-Bashir during his visit to Abuja last month where he attended a health summit organized by the African Union (AU), according to formal filing by Abuja released today. Nigeria at the time defended receiving Bashir who is subject to two arrest warrants issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for alleged war crimes and genocide committed in Sudan's western region of Darfur.

In 2025, France will have no unemployment, no debt, and tapping the housing market will be a "pleasant" experience - a tleast according to four of its government ministers. The finding came after France's president, Francois Hollande, asked his ministers to present their "holiday homework" on Monday, which was an essay entitled "What is your vision of France in 2025?" Happily for Hollande, the general tone of the homework suggested everything will be just grand in 2025.

The European Union has thrown delivery of billions of aid dollars into question as it meets "urgently" to coordinate a response to Egypt in the aftermath of a crackdown there that has killed almost 900 people in five days. Violence has skyrocketed since the military-backed interim government cleared two camps of supporters of ousted leader Mohammed Morsi in Cairo on Aug. 14.

Ecuador’s combative president is threatening to try to force the country’s newspapers to go all-digital as a way to save paper. Rafael Correa has long had a prickly relationship with Ecuador’s opposition-owned newspapers, and his Twitter statement Monday is a jab at papers backing a proposed referendum to block oil exploration in the pristine Yasuni national park.