French forces killed 33 Islamic extremists in central Mali on Saturday, French President Emmanuel Macron said. 
 
He made the announcement on the second day of a three-day trip to West Africa that has been dominated by the growing threat posed by jihadist groups. 
 
Macron tweeted that he was proud of our soldiers who protect us.'' Two Malian gendarmes also were rescued in the operation, he said. 
 
In a speech to the French community living in Ivory Coast, Macron said French troops would continue fighting terrorism in the Sahel region. 
 I want to reiterate my determination to continue this fight. We suffered losses; we also have victories,he said, stressing thehuge success” of Saturday’s operation in the Mopti region of central Mali. 
 
France has about 4,500 military personnel in West and Central Africa, much of which was ruled by France during the colonial era. The operation is France’s largest overseas military mission. 
 
The French led a military operation in 2013 to dislodge Islamic extremists who had seized control of major towns in the north and implemented a harsh version of Islamic law. In the ensuing years, the militants have regrouped and pushed farther into central Mali, where Saturday morning’s operation was carried out. 
 
On Friday evening, Macron met with French military personnel stationed in Ivory Coast, which shares a long border with volatile Mali and Burkina Faso. 
 
Later Saturday, Macron was to meet with Ivorian President Alassane Ouattara in Abidjan. Both men will highlight a new training effort being launched. The International Academy to Fight Terrorism will be in charge of training in Ivory Coast some specialized forces from across Africa, Macron said Saturday. 
 
“Then we will collectively be better prepared for the fight against terrorism.” 
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In his four-hour, stage-managed year-end news conference Thursday, Russian President Vladimir Putin went out of his way to back U.S. President Donald Trump in the impeachment saga unfolding in Washington.Lambasting American Democrats for what he termed “made-up reasons” to impeach Trump, a Republican, the Russian leader accused them of nursing a grudge over losing the 2016 presidential elections.The impeachment is “just the continuation of the domestic political strife,” Putin said. “Your members of Congress should know better.”Putin added there’s little chance the Republican-controlled Senate will remove Trump from office. He disputed a key article of impeachment against the U.S. president: that Trump pressured Ukraine’s president to investigate a political rival, former U.S. Vice President Joe Biden, a Democrat who is competing for his party’s 2020 presidential nomination.”The party which lost the election, the Democratic Party, is trying to achieve results by other means, first by accusing Trump of conspiring with Russia, then it turns out there has been no conspiracy,” Putin said. “This cannot be the basis of impeachment. Now they’ve invented some kind of pressure on Ukraine.”Agitation of domestic US policyMoscow-based diplomats say Putin’s defense of his American counterpart had the aim of further agitating domestic politics in the United States.”He knows full well his comments, his trolling of Democrats, is adding salt to domestic U.S. political wounds,” a Western diplomat told VOA. “The main foreign-policy aim of the Kremlin is to encourage political divisions in the West.”But Putin’s praise of Trump — and the U.S. leader’s often complimentary remarks about his Russian counterpart — have not helped to improve U.S-Russian relations, widely seen as being at their lowest point since before the Cold War ended.And few analysts and diplomats believe that will change next year, despite the overlapping views the two leaders have often expressed about Europe and NATO, or Trump’s recent suggestion that Russia be readmitted to the exclusive Group of Seven industrialized countries. The group had eight members until 2014, when Russia was disinvited over the annexation of Crimea.Russian President Vladimir Putin drives a motorbike during the Babylon’s Shadow bike show camp near in Sevastopol, Crimea, Aug. 10, 2019.Both the Kremlin and the White House have repeatedly expressed a wish to improve relations, most recently during a visit earlier this month to the U.S. capital by Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.”We should have a better relationship — the United States and Russia — than we’ve had in the last few years, and we’ve been working on that,” U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told reporters in a joint news conference with his Russian counterpart.CooperationHe noted U.S. and Russian law-enforcement agencies are cooperating on an almost “daily basis” on counterterrorism and counternarcotics. He said both Moscow and Washington agree there are no military solutions to the conflicts raging in Syria or Afghanistan, although they are far apart on how they can be brought to an end.Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, right, shake hands with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, after a media availability at the State Department in Washington, Dec. 10, 2019.For his part, Lavrov said the meetings in Washington have “confirmed that it is useful to talk to each other.” He added, “Talking to each other is always better than not talking to each other.”But both nations’ top diplomats highlighted the gulf between them on a host of issues, from Ukraine to Venezuela to arms control to Iran.And on the issue of Russian meddling in U.S. politics, the two had very different takes. “I was clear it’s unacceptable, and I made our expectations of Russia clear,” Pompeo said. Lavrov denied the Kremlin has interfered at all.With all these overhanging issues — along with what U.S. officials describe as malign Russian activities, including slayings and attempted assassinations on foreign soil of Moscow’s foes — U.S. officials are wary of even attempting a reset with Russia, fearing the effort will be as doomed as the Obama administration’s push to transform relations between the two countries. To do so would raise expectations that likely would be subsequently dashed, leaving both sides worse off and feeling aggrieved, they say.Recently, U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper said, “It would be great if we could get Russia to behave like a more normal country. But you also can’t ignore the last many years of history where Russia has invaded Georgia. It has annexed Crimea. It is occupying parts of Ukraine. It is threatening the Baltic States.”U.S. officials aren’t alone in saying a reset gambit would be unwise. Chatham House analysts James Nixey and Mathieu Boulègue say making grand overtures toward the Kremlin would be repeating the mistakes of other Western leaders, past and present.Criticism for MacronIn a recent commentary for the London-based think tank, they criticized French leader Emmanuel Macron’s calls in September for Russia to be brought back into the Western fold, saying his courtship of Moscow overlooks principles and evidence, and would excuse Russia from any responsibility for the frozen conflicts triggered by the Kremlin around its periphery.President Donald Trump, right, listens as French President Emmanuel Macron speaks at their meeting at Winfield House during the NATO summit, in London, Dec. 3, 2019.”That olive branches have been extended to Vladimir Putin countless times over the past 20 years does not necessarily mean that no more should ever be forthcoming, should a future Kremlin leadership offer any meaningful concession. What it definitely does mean, however, is that the lessons need to be learned as to why they have been rebuffed hitherto: because ‘what Russia wants’ is incompatible with established Western conceptions,” Nixey and Boulègue said.Kremlin insiders also see little hope of any major improvement in relations between Moscow and Washington, although they place the blame for that on U.S. and European governments. Their assessment of future relations between Russia and the West is bleak and reflects, they say, Putin’s own appraisal.”He doesn’t think it is possible,” said an insider, speaking on the condition of anonymity.They blame the sharp slide in relations since the era of former Russian President Boris Yeltsin to the expansion of NATO eastwards to take in the former communist Baltic States. They say the final blow came with the 2013-14 Maidan unrest that led to the ouster of Putin ally Ukraine Presidient Viktor Yanukovych. The Kremlin remains adamant that the Maidan agitation was Western-fomented and not a popular uprising.The blaming of the West for the return of Cold War-like enmity, and the sense of pessimism, illustrates how difficult it will be to bridge the rift and suggests Russia’s relations with the U.S. and Europe are likely to remain antagonistic.Gleb Pavlovsky, a former Kremlin adviser, says continued antagonism invites serious danger.A so-called “political technologist” for Putin before breaking with the Russian leader in 2012 over his decision to seek a third term as president, Pavlovsky paints a picture of an insecure Kremlin that frequently improvises and bluffs and “has not inherited from the Soviet Union an instinct for understanding risk and how far you can push risks.”He added, “Putin is an improviser. And as with all improvisers, he’s an opportunist.”
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President Donald Trump on Friday signed off on US sanctions against companies building a Russian natural gas pipeline to Germany that Congress fears will give the Kremlin dangerous leverage over European allies.The sanctions, which are opposed by the European Union, were included in a sprawling defense spending bill Trump signed at a ceremony on Joint Base Andrews, an air force installation outside Washington, DC.They target companies building the nearly $11 billion Nord Stream 2 pipeline under the Baltic Sea with the aim of doubling deliveries of Russian natural gas to Europe’s leading economy, Germany.US lawmakers have warned the pipeline would enrich a hostile Russian government and vastly increase President Vladimir Putin’s influence in Europe at a time of heightened tension across the continent.Both houses of Congress overwhelmingly approved the sanctions, with the Senate voting Tuesday to send the measure to Trump’s desk.Trump, who has been accused by Democratic opponents of being soft on Putin, had little choice but to give his approval.The sanctions were inserted into a much wider $738 billion annual Pentagon funding bill and, given the level of congressional support, a veto would likely have been overturned.The US measures have angered Moscow and the European Union, which says it should be able to decide its own energy policies.Germany’s foreign minister, Heiko Maas, discussed the issue during a phone call Friday with US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, State Department spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus said.Pompeo expressed “strong opposition” to the project, Ortagus said in a statement.The German-Russian Chamber of Commerce insisted last week that the pipeline was important for energy security and urged retaliatory sanctions against the United States if the bill passes.The US sanctions target pipe-laying vessels for Nord Stream 2 and TurkStream, a Russia-Turkey pipeline, and include asset freezes and revocation of US visas for the contractors.One major contractor that could be hit is Swiss-based Allseas, which has been hired by Russia’s state-owned energy giant Gazprom to build the offshore section.The power of Gazprom, which is closely integrated with the Russian state, is at the center of concerns about the pipeline in the United States, and also in eastern and central European countries.Senator Ted Cruz, a Republican ally of Trump, said that halting Nord Stream 2 should be a major security priority for the United States and Europe alike.”It’s far better for Europe to be relying on energy from the United States than to be fueling Putin and Russia and dependent on Russia and subject to economic blackmail,” he told the Senate last week.However, Senator Rand Paul, another Republican, voted against the bill, objecting to its bid to “sanction NATO allies and potentially American energy companies.”
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Notre Dame kept Christmas going even during two world wars — a beacon of hope amid the bloodshed.Yet an accidental fire in peacetime  finally stopped the Paris cathedral from celebrating Midnight Mass this year, for the first time in over two centuries.As the lights stay dim in the once-invincible 855-year-old landmark, officials are trying hard to focus on the immediate task of keeping burned out Notre Dame ‘s spirit alive in exile through service, song and prayer.It has decamped its rector, famed statue, liturgy and Christmas celebrations to a new temporary home pending the restoration works, just under a mile away, at another Gothic church in Paris called Saint-Germain l’Auxerrois.And there it will remain, as works slowly progress to rebuild the cathedral after the April 15 fire destroyed its lead roof and spire  and was moments away from engulfing its two stone towers.“This is the first time since the French Revolution that there will be no midnight Mass (at Notre Dame),” cathedral rector Patrick Chauvet told The Associated Press.There was even a Christmas service amid the carnage of World War I, Chauvet noted, “because the canons were there and the canons had to celebrate somewhere,” referring to the cathedral’s clergy. During World War II, when Paris was under Nazi occupation, “there was no problem.” He said that to his knowledge, it was only closed for Christmas in the period after 1789, when the anti-Catholic French revolutionaries turned the monument into “a temple of reason.”Christmas-in-exile at Saint-Germain l’Auxerrois this year will be a history-making moment.“We have the opportunity to celebrate the Mass outside the walls, so to speak… but with some indicators that Notre Dame is connected to us,” Chauvet said.Those indicators include a wooden liturgical platform that has been constructed in the Saint-Germain church to resemble Notre Dame’s own. A service will be led at midnight on Dec. 24 by Chauvet to a crowd of faithful, including many who would normally worship in the cathedral, accompanied by song from some of Notre Dame’s now-itinerant choir.The cathedral’s iconic Gothic sculpture “The Virgin of Paris,” from which some say Notre Dame owes its name, is also on display in the new annex.The 14th-century masterpiece, which measures around two meters (six feet) and depicts Mary and baby Jesus, has come to embody the officials’ message of hope following the fire.“It’s a miraculous virgin. Why? Because at the time of the fire, the vault of the cathedral completely crashed. There were stones everywhere, but she was spared. She could have naturally received the vault on her head and have been completely crushed,” Chauvet said.He recalled the moment on the night of the fire when he discovered it was saved, as he was holding hands with French President Emmanuel Macron on the cathedral’s forecourt. Around midnight as the flames subsided, they were finally let inside to look. Chauvet pointed and exclaimed to Macron: “Look at the Virgin, she is there!”He said later that Notre Dame’s workmen on the ground implored him to not remove the statue from the cathedral, saying that during the restoration “we need it. She protects us.”Chauvet said having it nearby for Christmas is comforting.“She lived very much in Notre Dame. She watched the pilgrims, all the 35,000 visitors a day … It keeps us going,” Chauvet said.Another reason for hope: Since November, after months in the dark, the facade of the cathedral is being lit up after dusk for the first time since the fire. Tourists over the festive period can now see the famed gargoyles and stone statues at night in their full illuminated splendor from the adjacent bridges, although the forecourt is still closed.Cathedral officials carefully chose Saint-Germain l’Auxerrois as the new temporary home because of its proximity to Notre Dame, just next to the Louvre, allowing ease of movement for clerics who lived near the cathedral. Also, because of its prestigious history.It was once a royal church that boasted among its faithful French kings, in the days when they lived in the nearby Louvre Palace. The kings, Chauvet explained, would simply cross the esplanade to come and attend Mass.Since September, the church has been welcoming the cathedral’s flock each Sunday.Though Notre Dame has moved liturgically to a new home, Notre Dame will always remain Paris’ cathedral so long as the bishop’s physical chair, or “cathedra” doesn’t move.Derived from the Greek word for “seat,” a cathedral’s entire identity technically boils down to the presence of a chair.“The cathedra is at the cathedral and so it remains Notre Dame Cathedral, which is the cathedral in the heart of Paris,” Chauvet said.
It is not only the faithful who have been displaced since April’s blaze.Notre Dame was home to a vibrant 160-strong choir-school, which provided singers for each of the cathedral’s some 1,000 annual services. Midnight Mass at Christmas was always a special event in the year: One of the rare times the entire choir sung together and used the cathedral’s famed acoustics to their fullest.Instead of disbanding, this now-homeless chorus of singers, ranging in age from 6 to 30, has too honed an upbeat message and decided to continue on in a divided form. Different sections of the choir put on concerts in churches, such as Saint-Eustache and Saint-Sulpice, in Paris and beyond. On Christmas Eve, its members will sing at various yuletide events, including at Saint-Germain l’Auxerrois, as well as, bizarrely, at the Russian Circus.But don’t mention the term choir-in-exile to one of the choir’s directors, Henri Chalet.“I’d rather use beyond the walls'...Exile’ brings it back to sadness. Obviously, there is a lot of sadness and desolation for us to no longer be in our second home. But there is also a lot of hope because it is only a phase,” Chalet said.In the grand scheme of things, five or six years of restoration for an 855-year-old cathedral “is nothing at all,” Chalet reasoned.  Macron declared in the days after the blaze it would take a mere five years to restore the cathedral — a timeline many experts deem unrealistic.Notre Dame choir singer Mathilde Ortscheidt, 29, left a little more space for melancholy as she regretted her absence at last year’s Midnight Mass.“To think that I was ill last Christmas…thinking that I would go again this year with no problem!” she said.On the first rehearsal she attended after the blaze, she said she “felt such a pain and such sadness” because the cathedral was where she began as a singer.For the singers, the unique acoustics produced by the cathedral’s massive dimensions are sorely missed.“When we balanced it right, it was the most beautiful feeling of just hearing it resonate through this enormous space,” Ortscheidt said.Despite having “to walk around a lot now,” people have got used to the choir’s new lifestyle, she said, and it was just a matter of time before there will be song in the cathedral once again.In the meantime, “the important thing for us is that we keep on singing and doing the music. That’s what brings us together.”
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British prosecutors said on Friday they had decided to charge the wife of a U.S. diplomat over a fatal car crash in England and to seek her extradition, a decision that “disappointed” Washington.Harry Dunn, 19, died after his motorcycle was in a collision with a car driven by Sacoolas near RAF Croughton, an air force base in the English county of Northamptonshire that is used by the U.S. military.Anne Sacoolas, 42, was given diplomatic immunity and left Britain shortly after the accident, setting off a dispute between London and Washington over whether she should return to face investigation.Charlotte Charles, mother of Harry Dunn, who died after his motorbike was involved in an August 2019 accident in Britain with Anne Sacoolas, wife of an American diplomat, speaks at a news conference, Oct. 14, 2019.Britain’s Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) said on Friday it would charge Sacoolas with causing death by dangerous driving and had started legal proceedings.But it said it was up to the Home Office (interior ministry) to decide whether to seek Sacoolas’ extradition formally through diplomatic channels.”The Director of Public Prosecutions has met with Harry Dunn’s family to explain the basis of the decision we have made following a thorough review of the evidence available,” the CPS said in a statement.The U.S. State department expressed its disappointment.”We are disappointed by today’s announcement and fear that it will not bring a resolution closer,” a State Department spokesperson said.”The United States has been clear that, at the time the accident occurred, and for the duration of her stay in the UK, the driver in this case had status that conferred diplomatic immunities.”Dunn’s case gained international prominence when his parents met U.S. President Donald Trump at the White House in October, an occasion he described as “beautiful” but “sad.”Trump hoped to persuade them meet Sacoolas, who was in the building at the same time, but they declined. They want Sacoolas to return to Britain to face police questioning about the crash.Sacoolas initially cooperated with local police after the crash, but later said she had diplomatic immunity.The White House and the U.S. Department of Justice did not immediately respond to a request for comment.The maximum jail sentence in Britain for causing death by dangerous driving is 14 years.Dunn’s mother, Charlotte Charles, broke down in tears after finding out charges had been brought, saying it meant she had kept a promise to her son to get him justice.”We had no idea it was going to be this hard and it would take this long, but we really do feel it is a huge step towards that promise to Harry,” she told reporters.Edward Grange, a partner at the criminal law firm Corker Binning, said Sacoolas could voluntarily attend a hearing in Britain and that if she failed to appear, it could lead to an extradition request.”The prospect of an extradition request succeeding remains to be seen, particularly in light of comment from the Trump Administration that it is very reluctant to allow its citizens to be tried abroad,” he said.
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The presidents of Belarus and Russia met Friday to discuss deeper economic ties between the two close allies amid mounting concerns in Minsk that Moscow ultimately wants to subdue its neighbor.The meeting in St. Petersburg is the second encounter between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Belarusian counterpart Alexander Lukashenko this month.Greeting Lukashenko at the start of Friday’s talks, Putin said some progress on resolving outstanding issues has been made.But Russia’s Economics Minister Maxim Oreshkin said after the talks that the parties have failed to resolve the key differences over oil and gas.Demonstrators protest closer integration with Russia, which protesters fear could erode the post-Soviet independence of Belarus, in downtown in Minsk, Belarus, Dec. 20, 2019.The negotiations have triggered opposition rallies in Belarus, where many fear that closer ties with Russia could weaken Belarus’ independence. Another protest is scheduled for Friday evening.Putin, who marks two decades in power later this month, remained coy about his political future after his current term ends in 2024.He dodged a question Thursday if he could potentially extend his rule by shifting into a new governing position to become the head of a union between Russia and Belarus.Russia and Belarus signed a union agreement in 1997 that envisaged close political, economic and military ties, but stopped short of forming a single nation.Lukashenko, who has ruled Belarus for more than a quarter-century with little tolerance for dissent, relies on cheap Russian energy and loans to shore up his country’s Soviet-style economy.Russian pressureThe Kremlin has recently raised pressure on Belarus, increasing energy prices and cutting subsidies. Russian officials say Minsk should accept closer economic integration if it wants to benefit from lower energy prices.In an apparent bid to win concessions, Lukashenko on Friday emphasized Belarus’ role as Russia’s military ally and security partner, an argument he has used repeatedly in the past to get more subsidies from Moscow.”We have created a single defense space and our security agencies gave worked in close contact,” Lukashenko told Putin at the start of their talks.But the Russian president has signaled that such tactics won’t work. He argued that Belarus can’t get Russia’s domestic prices for its oil and gas unless it agrees to closely coordinate economic and financial policies and create interstate structures.”It’s a huge work, and it can be done only if there is a political will shared by both sides,” Putin said at his annual news conference Thursday.
 
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