It does not matter whether you are gay, bisexual or straight, there is a worldwide call to combat homophobia with a kiss this week.

Across the globe, there will be several 'kiss-ins' promoting the International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia.

In the UK, Manchester's Lesbian & Gay Foundation will 'Kiss Hate Goodbye' with a flash mob on 18 May.

Grahame Robertson, a spokesman from the charity, told GSN: ‘The Kiss Hate Goodbye flash mob and campaign in general is a chance for everyone to make a big statement against LGBT hate crime.

Albania amended its criminal code and put hate crimes against sexual orientation and gender identity on par with an offense against gender, race, ethnicity, religious belief, disability and so on.

It also passed a new law punishing the dissemination of homophobic information through any means (including the internet) by a fine and up to two years imprisonment.

The Attorney General has told the Court of Appeals to review the sentence of a man who was given just 42 months jail for burning a gay teen to death, Gay Star News has learned.

Steven Simpson, who had Asperger’s syndrome, a speech impairment and epilepsy was celebrating his 18th birthday when the incident happened in the early hours of 23 June last year.

As he became more drunk, homophobic insults were scrawled on his arm and stomach and he was encouraged to strip to his underwear and dance.

A lesbian teenager was attacked and beaten by a group of  four teenage boys in the Canadian city of Calgary last week.

The attack, which happened late at night last Thursday (11 April), is being treated by police as a possible hate crime.  

The 17-year-old victim was approached by the group as she was on her way home from a friend’s house, CTV News reports.

A Phoenix man has been sentence to two and a half years in prison over a November 2012 attack on two gay men in the city which was investigated as a hate crime.

Ernie Barnes, 24, and his brother Jermon Barnes, 22, attacked local entertainer and DJ Austin Head and a friend as they made their way home on a bicycle from a Phoenix bar.

The brothers yelled homophobic slurs as they approached the pair before Head, 28, was struck and knocked unconscious.

Head’s friend was assaulted as well but managed to call for help.

Singer Michelle Shocked is finding herself quickly losing work after an anti-gay tirade during a gig last weekend in San Francisco.

The Telluride Bluegrass Festival in Telluride, Colorado, canceled Shocked's scheduled appearance there - the final date left on her US tour after venues in several other states uninvited her to perform.

On Sunday (17 March), the singer was performing at a jazz club called Yoshi’s when she went into a rant against gay marriage saying: 'I live in fear that the world will be destroyed if gays are allowed to marry.'

The FBI is getting involved in the murder investigation of Marco McMillian, a gay mayoral candidate in Mississippi who was murdered last week.

The agency 'will assess evidence to determine whether federal prosecution is appropriate,' Deborah Madden, an FBI public affairs specialist, tells USA Today.

A 22-year-old man named Lawrence Reedhas been charged with McMillian's murder. The victim's family says McMillian was beaten, dragged and set afire.

A 26-year-old Detroit man was sentenced to 18 months in prison for an anti-gay assault yesterday (7 February).

Everett Dwayne Avery will also face three years of supervised release for the attack on Justin Alesna hat happened in March 2011.

While the two men were at a convenience store waiting in line, Avery used anti-gay slurs toward the victim.

After that he punched Alesna in the face, fracturing the victim’s eye socket. He pled guilty to violating the federal Hate Crimes Protection Act on 29 August.

Two teens have been arrested in connection with the murder of Lawrence Corrêa Biancão, a 20 year-old student, in Campo Grande, in the south west of Brazil.

The two confessed to the crime and stated that their motivation was theft and homophobia.

‘He wanted to kiss me and I wanted to kill him’, declared the boy who killed Biancão to daily Campo Grande News.

Manchester residents are being given up to £200 in cash to hold events standing up to hate crime, including homophobia.

The council is helping residents in the northern English city raise awareness of the problem and understand what they can do to report any incidents.

The drive is part of a hate crime awareness week being held in the New Year and groups wanting to organise their own events celebrating diversity are now being invited to apply for grants of up to £200.

Claudio Cofré, the defense attorney in Chile’s Zamudio case, has withdrawn from court proceedings.

A judge has reassigned a public defender to represent the four men charged with brutally attacking Daniel Zamudio for being gay. Zamudio was found mutilated and unconscious in a park with swastikas carved into his body on 2 March 2012. He died in a hospital from injuries 25 days later.