Mark Zuckerberg expecting second child

Frances Haugen said her former boss, Mark Zuckerberg, should step down and allow change instead of devoting resources to build the so-called "metaverse."

In 2019 alone, militia groups recruited nearly 8000 child soldiers, some as young as six. One of the countries where children are most at risk is the Central African Republic. Deutsche Welle has visited a project aiming to rehabilitate such children.

The Federal Criminal Police chief has warned that the huge increase in cases is stretching police resources. On the same day, a Catholic priest was fired over a probe into child sexual abuse images.

Frances Haugen called on lawmakers in Brussels to seize the opportunity to create a "global gold standard" as they draft oversight regulation for tech giants.

Facebook became Meta Platforms on October 28 and subsequently announced its grand plans for bringing the virtual and physical worlds together in the metaverse. Since then, tech and entertainment giants have been jumping on the bandwagon and staking their own claims as builders of a new reality. But what exactly is the metaverse and what are the risks associated with it? Peter O'Brien takes a closer look in this week's Tech 24, the first in a new live format.

In an interview with FRANCE 24 at the Paris Peace Forum, US billionaire Frank McCourt strongly criticised tech giants, saying social media is "undermining our democracies". The owner of French football club Olympique de Marseille told us more about his Project Liberty plan. He has invested $100 million in the initiative, which he hopes will "transform the way the internet works".

For years, Vietnamese children and teenagers have been disappearing in Germany. Those responsible are unscrupulous human traffickers whose networks span continents. The young Vietnamese are smuggled into Germany via Russia and Eastern Europe. Many end up in the world of crime, working as slaves for the Vietnamese mafia. This film tells their story. One high-ranking investigator describes the phenomenon as "modern slavery". This is how many children and young people are brought from Vietnam to Germany: They are crammed into vans, loaded into refrigerated trucks, on the road for months, held along the way in abandoned warehouses or apartments. They are beaten, raped, exploited, they fear for their lives. They are lured by the prospect of a better life, as promised to their families by the criminals.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson's wife, Carrie, has given birth to a baby girl, his office said.

Falling pregnant at 15 caused Sara to drop out of school. Determined to support her and her child, Sara has since built up a successful business selling fried bananas.

Falling pregnant at 15 caused Sara to drop out of school. But determined to support herself and her child, Sara has built up a successful business selling fried bananas.

Many Facebook groups based in Mali and Nigeria began sharing a video of a helicopter on December 9, claiming it showed an aircraft delivering weapons to terrorists. In Mali, the posts often accused the French government of operating the helicopter, while posts coming from Nigeria laid the blame on the Nigerian government. In reality, the video is from neither one of these countries – it was filmed in the Central African Republic during a routine supply drop.

Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa returned to Earth on Monday after a 12-day journey into space, ending a practice run for his planned trip around the moon with Elon Musk's SpaceX in 2023.