The online newspaper Libération.fr has published footage of the inside of a detention centre on the French island of Mayotte. Detainees sleep on the floor. Hygiene conditions are unspeakable. While Mayotte is an "overseas collective" of France, asylum rights don't apply to this territory. Read more and see the video...

Grafitis depicting the previously unknown Yang Jia have popped up on Beijing walls. The young Yang was projected into the limelight after he was tried and executed on November 26 for the killing of six policemen. So why did he become a national icon? Read more...

Bernard Kouchner, France's foreign minister, has publicly questioned the role of his country's state secretary for human rights, Rama Yade, dealing a harsh blow to the junior minister. His statement sparked, made on the60 ^th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, sparked immediate controversy. A chance to ask our Observers, from Iran to China, if they believe France can still claim to be a reference for human rights throughout the world. Read more...

A mineral that's used to make mobile phones is helping to finance the civil war in the Democratic Republic of Congo, say NGOs. Read more...

A group of Californian campaigners is using France as a model society on the evolution of the family. Their aim: to get gay marriage banned in a referendum on Tuesday, US election day. And yet, it seems that they misinterpreted the findings of a French report. Read more and watch the campaign clips...

UPDATE (6 Nov. 08 10am): Proposition 8 was passed after 52% of voters supported the ban on same-sex message. As a result, over a thousand gay-rights activists demonstrated in Los Angeles on Wednesday night.

For replacing "God, The Nation, The King" with "God, The Nation, Barcelona" on the blackboard at school, a Moroccan football fan was condemned to 18 months in prison. His father tells us that after calling for appeal, his has been released on bail, but he faces a retrial on November 5. Read more...

The number of immigrants locked up in US jails has exploded in the past 15 years, after a law that allows "double punishment" was introduced. Today, 30,000 detainees are awaiting deportation. Read more...

An Afghan student has been condemned to 20 years in prison for having downloaded and handed out a text, found on an Iranian blog, about sexual inequality in the Koran. Read more...

"I am a local child. I want to receive compulsory education, too!"

Seven-year-old Xiao Qing's parents weren't married when she was born. Considered illegitimate by the state, she's not allowed to go to school until her mother pays a €900 fee. Not so easy when you're unemployed... Read more.

A Vietnamese netizen filmed the interrogation of an Associated Press photo-reporter this morning. Read more and see the video...