International travel picked up over the summer, but Covid-19 is still expected to cost the global tourism industry some €1.8 trillion in 2021. Also, French finance minister Bruno Le Maire remains optimistic about the recovery despite concerns over the Omicron variant, and farmers in India continue their protest movement despite concessions from the government.

Germany, the Czech Republic and the UK are the latest countries to confirm cases of the omicron variant. The new strain that was first detected in South Africa has prompted governments around the world to re-introduce travel restrictions.

Humanitarian workers are racing against time to deliver aid as winter looms in Afghanistan, UN officials told DW. The situation on the ground is already desperate and "looks like it's going to get worse."

Police have previously denied that the arrests are ethnically motivated. Almost 200 young children have starved to death in Tigray.

The UN's special adviser on genocide prevention, Alice Wairimu Nderitu, says the parties fighting in Ethiopia's war have few options but to negotiate.

United Nations officials said staffers were rounded up by government authorities in raids targeting ethnic Tigrayans. Six have been arrested and released, while 16 others remain in custody.

The council's 15 member countries released the statement as Tigrayan rebels threatened to capture the capital, Addis Ababa, a year into the fighting. Twitter also has disabled the trends section on Ethiopia.

Top UN rights official Michelle Bachelet has slammed the military's violent repression following the October 25 coup. Sudan's prime minister is under house arrest.

COVID and conflicts have pushed the number of people facing food insecurity to 45 million, with Afghanistan fast becoming the "world's largest humanitarian crisis."

General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan said the army takeover was "not a coup" but just an adjustment to the democratic transition. The US and UN are calling for the return of the government.

The UN Security Council has agreed to extend the mandate of a European military mission in Bosnia. The decision came amid a simmering row over a diplomatic report citing a separatist threat.

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.