US ramps up pressure on reluctant South Korean ally

Outgoing German Chancellor Angela Merkel made a greater commitment to Africa than her predecessors. But her policies haven't necessarily made a difference on the ground.

Rapid antigen tests for detecting the coronavirus could be giving people a false sense of security. In Germany, manufacturers are allowed to certify the efficacy of their tests without independent quality control.

In September, Kenya declared the drought in the country a national disaster. Many users have used social media to show their support, with the hashtag #PrayforKenya. However, many of the images are out context, or just simply out of place. Also, did a movie from 1963 really predict the Omicron variant? We tell you more in this edition of Truth or Fake.

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.

Many experts agree that Germany's fourth COVID wave could have been avoided, as most of the recent deaths were among people not vaccinated. DW's Luisa von Richthofen met a woman who lost two close relatives early on in the pandemic.

Russia is one of the countries with the lowest vaccination rates and highest Covid-19 death rates in the world. With just over 30 percent of the population vaccinated, the Russian authorities' vaccination campaign has been deemed a fiasco. And yet when Vladimir Putin announced the launch of the Sputnik V vaccine in summer 2020, it was supposed to "save humanity from Covid". More than a year later, the jab has still not arrived on the European market and the majority of Russians do not trust it.