UNICEF: World ‘has continued to fail’ children in conflict zones

Cuban authorities launch a national campaign to vaccinate children aged two to 18 against Covid-19. With the Delta variant spreading across the island of 11.2 million, the country's health care system has been pushed to the brink, and the government says it will only gradually re-open schools for in-person instruction in October after the vaccination campaign among children is completed.

The suspects reportedly forced children as young as 10 to take money from drug buyers. The authorities also arrested several women with Mafia links.

The discovery of more than 1,000 unmarked graves of children has prompted anger against the Catholic Church in Canada. The church has now admitted to "grave abuses."

The BioNTech/Pfizer vaccine for 5 to 11 year olds could be approved in the US as early as October. Meanwhile, Australia plans to stop paying workers affected by lockdowns. Follow DW for the latest.

For the third time in 13 years, Venezuela has slashed zeroes off its inflation-battered currency, the bolivar. This time, it will shed six zeroes, for a total of 14 since 2008. With that, a million bolivars have overnight become one -- still the equivalent of about 25 US dollar cents. Venezuela's central bank announced the move last month to simplify transactions, with consumers scrambling to make payment for even the most basic goods or services. According to private sector estimates around two thirds of transactions in the country now happen in US dollars. Old banknotes now worth almost nothing have become children’s toys or lie discarded in streets around the country. The once-rich oil producer is battling its eighth year of recession and hyperinflation that reached nearly 3,000 percent in 2020 and more than 9,500 percent the year before, according to central bank figures.

While the coronavirus pandemic has had a "significant" impact on children and adolescents' mental health, it is "just the tip of the iceberg," says UNICEF.

The World Health Organization on Wednesday endorsed the RTS,S/AS01 malaria vaccine, the first against the mosquito-borne disease that kills more than 400,000 people a year, mostly African children.

In eight areas of Germany, the incidence rate has crossed 500 per 100,000 people in 10- to 19-year-olds, according to the Robert Koch Institute. Follow DW for the latest.

Last year in Spain, some 50,000 children were in state care – a high number that is largely a consequence of failures in the care system. In Spain, children can be taken into care as a precautionary measure, a step that is five times more frequent than in neighbouring France. The decision in Spain to remove children from their parents is made not by a judge but by social workers. However, it often becomes irreversible, meaning that those parents face a long battle to get their children back. Our correspondents investigate.

"I didn't know what a marathon was until today", says one of a group of Syrian orphans taking part in a race in the rebel-held northwestern city of Idlib. The event has been organised by an NGO in a bid to introduce children who have lost their parents in Syria's ongoing conflict to different kinds of sports. Nearly 500,000 people have died in the conflict since it started in 2011 with the brutal repression of peaceful demonstrations.

Since hanging up his gloves, former Nigerien heavyweight boxing champion Abdoul Aziz Ousseini has turned to combating the issue of the neglected so-called 'street children' in the capital Niamey. Every weekend, Aziz dedicates his time to helping these young people, teaching them the skills of the sport and giving them a new occupation. One of his trainees has already won three West African titles, saying that Aziz helped "wake him up".

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau visited Kamloops, in British Columbia, where the remains of hundreds of indigenous First Nations children were found buried at the site of a former residential school in May. Trudeau apologised for not making the trip earlier. In recent months, shocking discoveries of the remains of First Nations children have made headlines and researchers warn they could continue. First Nations communities want justice for one of the darkest chapters in Canada's history. Our correspondents gained rare access to a "pow wow" – a sacred ceremony in honour of the National Day of Truth and Reconciliation.