Italy's interior minister, Angelino Alfano, has said that people who use surrogacy should be treated as sex offenders and sent to prison, in the face of Italian prime minister Matteo Renzi's attempts to grant family rights to same-sex couples.

Alfano, who made the comments while speaking to Italy's Roman Catholic Avvenire newspaper, has argued the legislation will give rise to gay couples seeking children via surrogate mothers. He was reported saying: 'We want wombs-for-rent to become a universal crime, which is punished with a jail term, just as happens for sex crimes.'

January 1 marks the official end of China's one-child policy that for 36 years has forced couples to limit their offspring to slow the country's population growth.

Last week Chinese authorities also decided to drop a plan to ban surrogate motherhood. Now aspiring parents can seek the help of Chinese women to act as surrogate mothers to gestate and give birth to their children.

Tabasco, currently the only state in Mexico allowing surrogacy, has drawn many foreign and gay couples seeking to become parents.

A Mexican state legislature has voted to close the door to foreign couples and gay men looking to have a child by surrogacy.

The Ministry of Economic Development and Trade of Ukraine presented the promotional video dedicated to the tourism potential of Ukraine. Three-minute video shows the unique geopolitical situation of the country, rivers and lakes, the National Park "Oleshkovsky Sands", the Black Sea coast, one of the world's best opera - in Odessa, unique architectural monuments listed in the UNESCO list, the beauty of the Carpathian Mountains.