An Egyptian court on Thursday ordered the name of ousted President Hosni Mubarak and his wife Suzanne removed from all public facilities and institutions — the latest step in dismantling the legacy of the former leader's 29 years in power.

The ruling will affect hundreds, perhaps even thousands, of subway stations, schools, streets, squares and libraries across the nation that over the years bore the name of the former leader or his wife.

In announcing the ruling, Judge Mohammed Hassan Omar said "people have uncovered Mubarak's journey of corruption that began at a parade stand and ended at Tahrir square."

He was referring to the assassination of Mubarak's predecessor Anwar Sadat in October 1981.

With Mubarak, then vice president, seated next to him, Sadat was shot dead by Muslim radicals while reviewing a military parade. Days later, Mubarak became president after a nationwide referendum in which he was the only candidate.

Tahrir square in central Cairo was the epicenter of the revolt against Mubarak, where masses converged daily for 18 days of protests that eventually toppled the president. Mubarak stepped down on Feb. 11.

"It has become clear that the size of the corruption (under Mubarak) that's being uncovered every day exceeds by far anyone's imagination," said the judge.

France's top court refused Wednesday to allow French citizenship for 10-year-old twin girls born to a surrogate mother in the United States, in a ruling that affirmed France's legal ban on surrogacy.

In a case straddling international legal rights and bioethics, the Court of Cassation ruled a California county went too far by ruling that a French couple are legally the twins' parents.

The ruling exposes the legal limbo that many would-be parents find themselves in because of inconsistencies on surrogacy between countries like the United States, which legally recognizes it, and France, which does not.

Other countries, like Belgium, are largely silent on the subject, leaving the door open to different interpretations and leaving an international legal void in many cases.

Because Sylvie Mennesson was unable to bear children, she and her husband, Dominique, turned to a surrogate mother with his sperm and a donor's egg. The surrogate mother gave birth to the twins in California in 2000, and the girls have U.S. citizenship. Under California's surrogacy rights laws, San Diego County said the Mennessons were the girl's legal parents.

Wednesday's ruling follows a lower court's order that stripped the twins from France's civil registry. Being listed on the civil registry is a requirement for obtaining documents including identity cards or passports.

The International Court of Justice has thrown out a case filed by Georgia accusing Russia and separatist militias of years of ethnic cleansing in two breakaway Georgian provinces that sparked a five-day war in 2008.

In a 10-6 ruling, President Hisashi Owada said Friday that the United Nations' highest court had no jurisdiction in the case because Russia and Georgia had not attempted to negotiate a settlement to their long-running dispute before filing it to the court at the end of the war.

Georgia complained to the court in 2008 that Russian authorities and militias allied to Moscow murdered thousands of ethnic Georgians and displaced some 300,000 people in a two-decade campaign of discrimination in South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

Former Israeli President Moshe Katsav will learn Tuesday whether he will go to jail on a rape conviction in a case that has already made history in Israel.

The former head of state is the highest-ranking Israeli official ever to be convicted of a crime. He faces up to 16 years in prison.

His conviction was seen as a victory for the Israeli legal system and for women's rights in a decades-long struggle to chip away at the nation's macho culture, which once permitted political and military leaders great liberties. At the same time, it left some Israelis equally saddened to see a symbol of the state tarnished.

Katsav was convicted in December of two counts of raping an employee when he was tourism minister in 1998. The court also convicted him of sexual harassment against two other women who worked for him when he was president, from 2000 to 2007.

The presidency is a mostly ceremonial position in Israel, traditionally given to elder statesmen as a reward for a lifetime of public service.

Details surfaced in 2006 when Katsav complained that a female employee was trying to blackmail him. The woman went to police with her side of the story, listing a series of alleged sexual assaults. Other women later came forward with other complaints of sexual abuse by Katsav.

The ruling overturned a decision the court had reached in November 2009 in which it said the crucifix could be disturbing to non-Christian or atheist pupils. Led by Italy, several European countries appealed that ruling.

The case originated in Italy, and Friday's final verdict was immediately welcomed in Rome. "The popular sentiment in Europe has won today," said Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini.

All 47 countries that are members of the Council of Europe, the continent's human rights watchdog, will be required to obey the ruling.

The European Court of Human Rights, which is based in Strasbourg, France, said Italian public schools did nothing wrong by hanging crucifixes in their classrooms, in a case that divided Europe's traditional Catholic countries and their more secular neighbors.

Friday's final decision by the court's Grand Chamber said it found no evidence "that the display of such a symbol on classroom walls might have an influence on pupils."

The case was brought by Soile Lautsi, a Finnish-born mother who said public schools in her Italian town refused to remove the Roman Catholic symbols from classrooms. She said the crucifix violates the secular principles the public schools are supposed to uphold.

A Dubai lawyer has appeared in court to deny charges that he stole tens of millions of dollars from former Thai prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra.

The lawyer, Khaled al-Muhairy, 45, a partner at a Dubai firm, is charged with breach of trust, attempted fraud and forgery charges. He pleaded not guilty.

Prosecutors told the court Thursday that al-Muhairy took money from an escrow account his firm had been hired to manage in 2009.

The attorney is accused of taking $129 million, $97 million of that from Thaksin's sale of the Manchester City football club. He also stole millions to buy a villa and tried to steal millions more for a plane.

Thaksin was ousted in a 2006 coup and has often used Dubai as a base while in exile.