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Italian prisons are the most crowded in Europe with occupancy at more than 142 percent of capacity. There are close to 67,000 prisoners in jails built to hold 45,000 people. The government declared a state of emergency due to overcrowding in 2010 and drew up a plan to create 9,000 new places in 11 new prisons. But due to the nation’s financial crisis construction is yet to begin.

In the last few months, Kuwait has deported thousands of mainly low-paid Asian workers. The oil-rich country relies heavily on foreign workers but pressure to limit their numbers has been growing. Some Kuwaitis argue that too many workers are a burden on the state. They say that instead of bringing in foreigners, Kuwait should be trying harder to cut unemployment among its own nationals.

Defectors from North Korea have been speaking out about human rights abuses in their homeland. It is estimated that 200,000 prisoners languish in North Korean prisons and labour camps but the secretive regime routinely condemns any criticism from abroad. Can new testimony help change North Korea for the better?

Spain's national police force is successfully using Twitter to arrest criminals. In the past year, more than 300 people have been arrested on drugs charges in Spain thanks to tip-offs and detectives successfully tracked a British fugitive after 5,000 people retweeted a message that police were looking for him.

This week’s picture series from Reuters portrays homeless men, women and children from many parts of the world. The stunning photography offers an insight into the lives of homeless people and the daily struggles they face in order to stay alive.

Detroit – once the wealthiest city in America and home to Motown music and cars – has been devastated by the US’s economic crisis. In parts, Detroit is a devastated landscape of urban decay but the city’s philanthropic foundations are fighting back by trying to create jobs and revive schools in a city facing potential bankruptcy.

Chinese baijiu, a flammable, pungent white liquor averaging 110-proof, is the world's most consumed form of liquor thanks to its popularity in China. But for the first time distillers in China are looking to develop export markets in the West and there is already interest from America.

Two of the most violent gangs in Honduras recently announced a truce under a church-brokered drive to stem a tide of violence that has turned Honduras into the world's most murderous country. According to the United Nations, Honduras has the highest murder rate in the world with 87 killings per 100,000 people, and San Pedro Sula, the country's second city and industrial hub, is the world's most murderous city.

The number of people living in poverty in US suburbs surpassed the number of poor in cities over the past decade, according to a new report. Despite the fact the notion of poverty in America probably conjures up images of inner-city slums, the suburbanization of poverty is redrawing the contemporary American landscape.

Italy's new government, already sinking in opinion polls and riven by internal disputes, is preparing a plan to address one of the main causes of public anger - soaring unemployment among young people. Unemployment among 15 to 24-year-olds now stands at nearly 40 per cent, but what can be done to turn the situation around?

About 600 Afghan women and girls are behind bars for so-called moral crimes, according to a disturbing new report by Human Rights Watch (HRW). The figure is the highest number since the Taliban was toppled almost twelve years ago. Women have won back rights since 2001, but there are fears these freedoms could be curtailed after NATO-led forces leave Afghanistan next year.

Like most people in Szczecin - a port city on the western edge of Poland - businessman Zbigniew Sawicki thought that when his country joined the European Union a decade ago, wealthier German neighbours would pour in and buy up the city. But events took an unexpected turn because large numbers of well-to-do Poles from Szczecin - including many of Sawicki's friends - are moving into Germany. They are buying properties on such a scale that sleepy Prussian villages are taking on a Polish air.

They beat him. They tried to set him on fire. Then they crushed his head with a heavy stone. A 23-year-old man in Russia's southern city of Volgograd was tortured and killed after revealing he was gay during a drinking session, investigators said, taking a rare step by linking a murder to homophobia.

Nine more wealthy families and individuals have pledged to give at least half of their fortunes to charity as part of a philanthropic campaign by two of the world's richest men, Warren Buffett and Bill Gates.

Addressing an audience of dignitaries in Luxembourg in 2005, Bulgaria's then prime minister extolled the virtues of European Union membership, declaring his nation ready to take its place at the heart of the continent.

The largest Native American tribe in the United States is seeking to dub the classic 1977 movie "Star Wars" movie in Navajo as a way to help preserve its traditional language.Fluent Navajo speakers have been invited for a casting call in Window Rock in northern Arizona on Friday and Saturday to dub the roles of Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, Princess Leia and others, tribal officials said.

Austerity is having a devastating effect on health in Europe and North America, driving suicide, depression and infectious diseases and reducing access to medicines and care, researchers said last week.

Pupils at a London school – so close to Heathrow airport that it sometimes seems descending planes might land in the playground – have found a novel way to fight the roar of jet engines. Hounslow Heath infants' school has erected four igloo-like adobe domes in its grounds, of a type normally used in earthquakes and emergency zones, to muffle the noise.

When she embarked on a university degree at 18, Caroline never imagined she would still be living like a student a decade later, unable to land a permanent job and stuck in a cramped spare room in her father's flat. An engaging 27-year-old with a literature degree and a masters in communications, she is one of hundreds of thousands of young French graduates stuck in a cycle of short-term job contracts and bouts of unemployment that is stunting their career potential.

How do you collect a $200,000 electricity bill from an Afghan warlord? Try cutting him off from the grid. Then turn off your cell phone so he can't yell at you.