Copyright: Deborah D. Lattimore

When Deborah Lattimore found out she had breast cancer in September last year, she decided to document her struggle with the illness and post the photos online. A stark but important message: having a mammogram can save your life. Read more and see her images…

Smoking turns your teeth into stumps and makes you impotent: that's the message increasing numbers of smokers are facing when they reach for a fag, and the illustrations are getting increasingly gruesome. Last week, it was the French government's turn to adopt the measure of printing graphic images on cigarette packets. Not something that Parisian tobacconists quite understand... Read more and see the campaigns.

Thought of as one of the best in the world, the French healthcare system is under fire after two fatal incidents within a week. Former nurse and blogger William Rejault condemns the system's insufficiencies and calls on health minister Roselyne Bachelot to take the problem of staff shortages seriously. Read more...

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...

Prices double from one hour to the next in Zimbabwe. One of our Observers told us that if you haven't paid cash in hand within half an hour of negotiating a price for something, then you better forget about buying it. Read more...

By docking their boat at harbours around the world, Dutch NGO Women on Waves allows women to skirt abortion laws by operating in international waters. On Friday the group arrived in Spain, to a particularly cold reception. Read more...

Web users are not letting Sanlu off lightly. They continue to chide the Chinese dairy producer at the heart of the powdered-milk scandal, and this time with humour.  See the videos...

Cannabis is already used as a pain-reliever in several countries, but only for people undergoing treatment for serious illnesses. Now, a British researcher has proved that the drug is also an efficient solution for chronic pain like arthritis. The news has reignited the debate over whether to legalise cannabis for therapeutic means. Read more...

The Chinese blogosphere is panicking over the tainted milk scandal that has already killed three babies and hospitalised more than 6,000 others. Web users are sceptical about the official government line - that it's the fault of the milk farmers, and not the manufacturing companies. Read more...

With moves like "ground-and-pound" and "lay-and-pray", Mixed Martial Arts is considered the most brutal form of contact sport after street fighting. So why are children as young as six getting involved? Read more...