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Over the past seven years, France’s Barkhane counterinsurgency operation in the Sahel has weathered terrorist attacks, flagging political support from its African allies, and growing popular protests against the ongoing presence of Paris, the region’s former colonial power. Now, it faces the coup in Mali.  August’s power grab by a group of army colonels — Mali’s fourth coup since independence — is again posing questions about whether and for how long French boots should remain in an increasingly shifting and dangerous terrain.  That debate ratcheted up a notch this week, following the deaths of two French soldiers in northern Mali, bringing to 45 the number of French fatalities in the region over the past seven years. FILE – French Defense Minister Florence Parly pays tribute to two French soldiers with the anti-jihadist Barkhane force in Mali killed when their armored vehicle hit an improvised explosive device, during a tribute ceremony in Tarbes, Sept. 9, 2020.“After the coup in Mali, doubts on the Barkhane operation,” France’s Le Figaro newspaper headlined this week, while some leftist lawmakers have called for a parliamentary debate about the future of France’s 5,000-plus strong regional force.  Yet along with the questions about France’s future in the region, some analysts see potential opportunities from the coup which ousted a government long accused of corruption and mismanagement — even as others fear deepening unrest.  For its part, France’s official answer remains the same.  “There is no question of letting down the guard,” Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian told French radio hours after news of the soldiers’ deaths. “We are making progress in Mali, where we are fighting to ensure our security and that of other countries.”  Talks on next steps The debate comes as Mali’s new military rulers hold local and international talks about the country’s next steps. The 15-nation Economic Commission of West African States, or ECOWAS, has set a 12-month limit for new elections and a September 15th deadline for the appointment of an interim president and prime minister.  FILE – Col. Assimi Goita, center, self-declared leader of the National Committee for the Salvation of the People, and other officials from the group meet with a delegation from the West African regional bloc known as ECOWAS, in Bamako, Mali, Aug. 22, 2020.There are also reportedly rocky talks between the self-styled National Committee for the Salvation of the People, or CNSP junta, and the civilian coalition whose massive protests helped topple the government of former President Ibrahim Boubakar Keita.  Within this changing political landscape, France and other Western countries involved in regional counterinsurgency operations have offered mixed responses.   Even as the European Union and Washington announced the suspension of some military missions in Mali following the coup, French President Emmanuel Macron announced in late August the Barkhane peacekeeping force “would continue.”  FILE – French President Emmanuel Macron meets soldiers of Operation Barkhane, France’s largest overseas military operation, in Gao, northern Mali, May 19, 2017.“They’re still pushing for a quick [political] transition,” said Andrew Lebovich, Sahel expert with the European Council on Foreign Relations policy institute, of Paris’ response to the junta.Still, he said, France’s tone toward the coup’s leaders has softened after it became clear Keita would not be returning to power. Respecting engagements Helping to ease relations, Mali’s coup leaders have said they would respect the country’s previous military engagements, which include partnering with other so-called G-5 Sahel member states and France in fighting the long-running Islamist insurgency in northern Mali and neighboring countries. When they met with France’s ambassador to Mali in August, analyst Lebovich noted, Barkhane’s commander was also present.  “There was a clear message being sent,” he added, “that from their perspective, nothing changed with Barkhane.”  And for now, the military appears to have the support of at least a slice of the Malian population, which staged weeks of anti-government protests leading up to the coup.  FILE – A man holds a sign reading “A transition led by the army” as supporters of the National Committee for the Salvation of the People take part in a rally on Independence Square in Bamako, Sept. 8, 2020.“The soldiers, the soldiers,” some chanted at a Bamako rally on Monday.  “In theory it’s an opportunity,” Lebovich said of the junta, who he noted moved swiftly to show “they wanted to play a role in pushing anti-corruption measures and good governance” — reforms long demanded by French and other Western powers. Whether Mali’s new rulers carry them out remains unclear. Also unclear, for some, is France’s future relationship with them.  Coup leader Colonel Assimi Goita, 37, received training in the United States and Germany — but not in France, France’s Les Echos newspaper noted. Indeed, only one of the coup’s senior officers spent time in the country, it said, adding French military officials initially didn’t seem to know who they were.  “We knew the situation remained unstable, but the five officers who led the coup took us by surprise,” it reported a French defense official as saying.  Barkhane essential?  Either way, Barkhane’s supporters argue the force remains key in fighting the Sahel insurgency. Mali’s own 13,000-strong army is underpaid and underequipped, while some G-5 alliance forces have been accused of human rights abuses.  For its part, Paris has described a recent string of tactical successes, including the June killing of a senior al-Qaida leader, Adbemalek Droukdel. FILE – A member of a French military medical unit provides medical action for the benefit of the population during Operation Barkhane in Ndaki, Mali, July 29, 2019.“I think today, Barkhane is vital for Mali,” Nicolas Normand, a former French ambassador to Mali, told France’s Marianne magazine in a recent interview. “If it’s withdrawn, there will be chaos and towns will fall.”  But, he added, while “Barkhane is an insurance of Mali’s survival, it cannot stay forever.”  French opposition parties have expressed their own doubts about the status quo. A number of analysts are also skeptical about Barkhane’s effectiveness. Some point to a tangle of sometimes conflicting French and other European military missions in the region, and to protests in Mali and elsewhere against foreign involvement.  “The French say they’re making headway,” analyst Lebovich said. “Most outside specialists look at this and say, ‘Yes, there’s some improvement, but in general the overall security situation is not that much better.’ ”  
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U.S. weather officials announced Thursday that a La Nina climate pattern has developed in the Pacific Ocean, possibly exacerbating an already busy hurricane season and setting up a colder, wetter winter for North America.U.S. Climate Prediction Center Deputy Director Mike Halpert said in a press release that La Nina can contribute to an increase in Atlantic hurricane activity by weakening winds over the Caribbean Sea and tropical Atlantic Basin. He said that can enable storms to develop and intensify.Halpert said the potential for La Nina development was considered when the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) updated its Atlantic hurricane season outlook last month.In a statement on its website, NOAA describes La Nina — translated from Spanish as “little girl” — as a natural ocean-atmospheric phenomenon marked by cooler-than-average sea surface temperatures across the central and eastern Pacific Ocean near the equator.In the winter, La Nina typically brings above-average precipitation and colder-than-average temperatures along the northern tier of the U.S., along with below-average precipitation and above-average temperatures across the South. NOAA says that raises concern for the U.S. Southwest, which saw a weak summer rainy season and is already experiencing a severe drought.The opposite effect, El Nino — “little boy” in Spanish — is characterized by unusually warm ocean temperatures in the equatorial Pacific. That can often result in increased rainfall across the southern tier of the U.S., which, in the worst case, can cause destructive flooding, and drought in the western Pacific.NOAA says the most recent La Nina appeared during the winter of 2017-18, and El Nino followed in 2018-19. When neither climate pattern is present, as was the case last winter, the El Nino Southern Oscillation is neutral and does not influence global climate patterns.
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The third phase of human trials for a vaccine against the coronavirus is underway in Peru.On Wednesday, Chinese pharmaceutical giant Sinopharm began testing about two dozen people, with the long-term goal of vaccinating a total of 6,000 people between the ages of 18 and 75.The participants will receive one of three injections, consisting of a virus strain from Wuhan, China; a Beijing strain; or a saline water placebo.The Associated Press reports the Peruvian government is in talks with six laboratories to determine the best course to buy the vaccine.Peru is one of the hardest-hit countries by the coronavirus in Latin America, with more than 696,000 COVID-19 infections and more than 30,000 deaths.So far, Sinopharm has given 30,000 doses to volunteers and another 10,000 participants have received double doses in Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates. Additional testing is planned for Morocco and Argentina.
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Asian markets finished mostly higher Thursday as investors reacted favorably to Wall Street’s recovery from a three-day selloff.The Nikkei index in Tokyo closed 0.8% higher. Sydney’s S&P/ASX index was up 0.5%. The KOSPI index in Seoul finished 0.8% higher, while the TSEC in Taipei was up 0.6%.Shanghai’s Composite index fell 0.6%.In late afternoon trading, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index was down 0.3%, while Mumbai’s Sensex was up 1.2%.Meanwhile, all three major European indices were trading lower at the start of their trading day.In commodities trading, gold was selling at $1,952.60 an ounce, down 0.1%. U.S. crude oil was selling at $37.61 per barrel, down 1.1%, and Brent crude oil was selling at $40.46 per barrel, down 0.8%.All three major U.S. indices were slumping in futures trading.
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European Council President Charles Michel has called for faster consideration of sanctions against officials in Belarus after the detention of multiple opposition leaders.“Political persecution in Belarus including detentions on political grounds and forced exile must stop,” Michel tweeted Wednesday. “Belarusian authorities must free political prisoners and let citizens exercise their right to freedom of speech and assembly.”Unidentified Belarusian authorities on Wednesday detained one of the two remaining free leaders of an opposition council amid continuing protests against longtime President Alexander Lukashenko following a disputed election.Attorney Maxim Znak was taken out of the Coordination Council’s office by unknown people wearing ski masks, according to his associate, Gleb German.Znak’s detention came as Lukashenko tried to end protests against him. German said Znak managed to text “masks” before his phone was seized.Svetlana Alexievich, winner of the 2015 Nobel Prize in literature, is now the only council executive to remain free in Belarus, even after unidentified people tried to enter her apartment on Wednesday.Several European Union diplomats and journalists arrived at her apartment in Minsk to prevent her detention. Alexievich told reporters she does not plan to leave Belarus.”What is happening is terror against the people,” Alexievich said. “We have to unite and not give up our intentions. There is a danger we will lose the country.”Thousands of people have taken part in five weeks of protests following the August 9 election in which Lukashenko was declared the winner. Opposition parties, the United States and the European Union allege the election was rigged.Lukashenko denies the voting was fraudulent and blamed the unrest on meddling by Western countries. Russian news agencies quoted him this week saying he has nothing to discuss with the opposition, and that he would be open to constitutional reforms and a potential new presidential election.Lukashenko’s election opponent, Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, has left the country.More than 7,000 protesters have been arrested, and widespread evidence of abuse and torture has been reported. At least four people are reported to have died during the demonstrations.During a meeting in Estonia on Wednesday, the foreign ministers of the Nordic Baltic nations called on Belarusian authorities to end the crackdown and the prosecution of activists.Alexievich was questioned last month by Belarusian investigators, who have launched a criminal investigation into the Coordination Council members who investigators say are undermining national security by demanding a transfer of power.Several council members have been arrested, and others were forcibly expelled from the country.On Tuesday, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the United States is deeply concerned about the Belarusian government’s attempts to forcibly expel opposition activist Maria Kolesnikova. Pompeo said the United States and other countries are considering bringing sanctions in response to recent events in Belarus.“We commend the courage of Ms. Kolesnikova and of the Belarusian people in peacefully asserting their right to pick their leaders in free and fair elections in the face of unjustified violence and repression by the Belarusian authorities, which included brazen beatings of peaceful marchers in broad daylight and hundreds of detentions (on) September 6, as well as increasing reports of abductions,” Pompeo said in a statement.Pompeo said the potential sanctions would be aimed at promoting “accountability for those involved in human rights abuses and repression in Belarus.”Kolesnikova was detained Monday, along with opposition movement members Anton Rodnenkov and Ivan Kravtsov. They were driven to the border between Belarus and Ukraine on Tuesday where Kolesnikova tore up her passport and was held on the Belarusian side.Rodnenkov and Kravtsov did cross into Ukraine.“She was shouting that she won’t go anywhere,” Rodnenkov said at a news conference in Kyiv. “Sitting in the car, she saw her passport on a front seat and tore it into many small fragments, crumpled them and threw them out of the window. After that, she opened the back door and walked back to the Belarusian border.”A spokesperson for U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres issued a statement expressing his concern about “the repeated use of force against peaceful protesters, as well as reported pressures on opposition civil society activists.”
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Ronald “Khalis” Bell, a co-founder of the legendary group Kool and the Gang, died Wednesday at his home in the U.S Virgin Islands. He was 68 years old.Bell’s publicist did not disclose his cause of death.Bell sang and composed songs for the Grammy-winning group, which blended jazz, funk, R&B and pop.Kool and the Gang’s heyday during the ‘70s led a loyal following behind the group’s biggest hits written by Bell, including “Celebration,” “Jungle Boogie” and “Summer Madness.”Bell is credited with orchestrating the group’s decades-old popularity that was punctuated with a star for Kool and the Gang being placed on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. 
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Deadly windblown wildfires raging across the Pacific Northwest destroyed hundreds of homes in Oregon, the governor said Wednesday, warning it could be the greatest loss of life and property from wildfire in state history.The blazes from the top of the state to the California border caused highway closures and smoky skies and had firefighters struggling to contain and douse flames fanned by 80-kph wind gusts. Officials in some western Oregon communities gave residents “go now” orders to evacuate, meaning they had minutes to flee their homes.Fires were burning in a large swath of Washington state and Oregon that rarely experiences such intense wildfire activity because of the Pacific Northwest’s cool and wet climate.Flames trapped firefighters and civilians behind fire lines in Oregon and leveled an entire small town in eastern Washington. Oregon Gov. Kate Brown warned that the devastation could be overwhelming from the fires that exploded Monday during a late-summer windstorm.”Everyone must be on high alert,” Brown said. The blazes were thought to be extremely destructive around Medford, in southern Oregon, and near the state capital of Salem.”This could be the greatest loss of human life and property due to wildfire in our state’s history,” the governor said.At least two people were killed in Oregon fires, along with a small child in a Washington state blaze. Brown said some communities were substantially damaged, with “hundreds of homes lost.”A horse stands in a stall under smoky skies on the Oregon State Fairgrounds, Sept. 9, 2020, in Salem, Ore. Hundreds of horses have been brought to the fairgrounds in Salem by people fleeing the fires.The precise extent of damage was unclear because so many of the fire zones were too dangerous to survey, said Oregon Deputy State Fire Marshal Mariana Ruiz-Temple.”Quite frankly, we are not even able to get into these areas,” she said.In Washington, a 1-year-old boy died after his family was apparently overrun by flames while trying to flee a wildfire in the northeastern part of the state, Okanogan County Sheriff Tony Hawley said Wednesday.The child’s injured parents were discovered in the area of the Cold Springs Fire, which is burning in Okanogan and Douglas counties, Hawley said. They were transported to a Seattle hospital with third-degree burns.KOIN reported a boy and his grandmother died in a wildfire near Lyons, Oregon. Marion County Sheriff Joe Kast confirmed two fatalities but had no other details. He said they would likely “not be the only ones.” Lyons is in Marion County.Another wildfire hit Lincoln City, on the Oregon coast, where residents were being evacuated to a community college to the south.”The fire is in the city,” said Casey Miller, spokesman for Lincoln County Emergency Management. He said some buildings had been burned but had no details.The department imposed mandatory evacuation for the northern half of the city of roughly 10,000 residents, which stretches alongside U.S. Highway 101.The Pacific Northwest scenes of lines of vehicles clogging roads to get away from the fires were similar to California’s terrifying wildfire drama, where residents have fled fires raging unchecked throughout the state. But Northwest officials said they did not recall so many destructive fires at once in the areas where they were burning.A water-drop helicopter flies Sept. 9, 2020, near a wildfire burning in Bonney Lake, Wash., south of Seattle.Sheriff’s deputies, traveling with chain saws in their patrol cars to cut fallen trees blocking roads, went door to door in rural communities 64 kilometers south of Portland, telling people to evacuate. Since Tuesday, as many as 16,000 people have been told to abandon their homes.”These winds are so incredible and are spreading so fast, we don’t have a lot of time,” said Clackamas County Sheriff Craig Roberts.”I’ve been through hell and high water but nothing like this. I’ve been shot down and shot at, but this – last night, I’m still not over it,” said Lloyd Dean Holland, a Vietnam veteran who barely escaped his home in Estacada on Tuesday night.Holland said Oregon State Police had warned him to leave earlier in the day, but the fire seemed far away and he decided to stay. Around 10 p.m., he said, his landlord came pounding on the door screaming at him to go.Fires were burning in seven Oregon counties and rural and suburban homes miles away from Portland were under preliminary orders to prepare for possible evacuations. Three prisons were evacuated late Tuesday, and Brown called the state’s blazes unprecedented.The Northwest is no stranger to wildfires, but most of the biggest ones until now have been in the eastern or southern parts of the region – where the weather is considerably hotter and drier and the vegetation more fire-prone than it is in the region’s western portion.Fires in 2017 and 2018 crested the top of the Cascade Range – the long spine that divides dry eastern Oregon from the lush western part of the state – but never before spread into the valleys below, said Doug Grafe, chief of Fire Protection at the Oregon Department of Forestry.A family arrives with their two dogs and other precious belongings at an evacuation center that has been set up at the Oregon State Fairgrounds in Salem, Ore., on Sept. 8, 2020.”We do not have a context for this amount of fire on the landscape,” he said.Fire crews were focusing on trying to keep people out of harm’s way and preventing houses from burning on Wednesday, with officials saying that containing the fires was a secondary priority.After a 30-minute tour of the fire area south of Seattle in Sumner, Washington, Gov. Jay Inslee said the blaze is “just one example of probably the most catastrophic fires we’ve had in the history of the state.”He said that in the past couple of days, more than 194,424 hectares burned.”This is an extraordinary series of events we have suffered,” Inslee said.About 80% of the small eastern Washington farming town of Malden was leveled by flames from a fast-moving fire on Monday.In Sumner helicopters flew over a ridge, dropping water on smoldering areas. Bud Backer, fire chief for East Pierce Fire & Rescue, told Inslee that the recent winds were “like a blowtorch.”Bonney Lake Police Chief Bryan Jeter said that about 2,500 homes in the area were given evacuation orders.In Oregon, at least four major fires were burning in Clackamas County, a suburban county in Oregon that’s a bedroom community of Portland. The entire county of nearly 420,000 people was put on notice to be ready to evacuate late Tuesday amid winds gusting up to 48 kph.Another major fire in southern Oregon prompted evacuation orders in much of Medford, a city of about 80,000 residents near the California border.And several huge blazes burning in Marion County, southeast of the state’s capitol city of Salem, merged overnight – turning the sky blood red in the middle of the day. 
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A U.S. government decision Tuesday to sanction two former Lebanese government ministers is the latest unprecedented campaign against Hezbollah, with some observers saying the move dramatically increases the risk for Lebanese politicians to engage with the U.S.-designated terror group.The Trump administration said it blacklisted former Minister of Transportation and Public Works Yusuf Finyanus and former Minister of Finance Ali Hassan Khalil because they had helped Hezbollah bypass U.S. sanctions and profit from multimillion-dollar government contracts.Firas Maksad, an adjunct professor and researcher on Lebanon at George Washington University, said that Lebanon’s economy is highly dollarized, giving Washington a “tremendous leverage” to use sanctions to deter Lebanon’s political groups from cozying up to the Iran proxy when the country is trying to form a new government.“In the past when the U.S. Treasury had moved to designate Lebanese banks, those banks would fall within 24 hours,” Maksad told VOA by phone. “These sanctions, in particular, are different and of a more significant caliber because it’s the first time that they target two former ministers.”“Lebanese political and business actors are now much more cognizant of the risks working together with Hezbollah,” he added.Khalil is a member of the Shiite Amal Movement, and Finyanus is a member of Christian political party Marada Movement. Both groups have denounced the designations, calling them a U.S. attack “targeting Lebanon and its sovereignty,” according to Reuters.While announcing the sanctions, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin in a statement accused Hezbollah of exploiting Lebanon’s political system to spread “its malign influence.”“The United States stands with the people of Lebanon in their calls for reform and will continue to use its authorities to target those who oppress and exploit them,” Mnuchin said.Power sharingSince its independence from France in 1943, Lebanon has practiced a complicated parliamentary system called “consociationalism” to divide power among the country’s three main groups, the Sunnis, Shiites and Maronite Christians.As such, the country’s president has been a Maronite, the prime minister a Sunni and the parliament speaker a Shiite.Unlike many Mideast countries, Lebanon is not an oil-rich nation, and more than 80% of its GDP comes from service sectors such as banking, tourism and construction. The U.S. Treasury says Hezbollah owns companies that are deeply involved in Lebanon’s economy.‘Internal dissent’The August 4 blast, caused by nearly 3,000 tons of ammonium nitrate stored in a highly populated civilian area, has led to the resignation of government and calls for deep political reform in the former French colony.French President Emmanuel Macron, who has visited Lebanon twice since the explosion, is leading an international effort to help Lebanon achieve economic recovery and political reform.While no one expects the powerful influence of Iran-backed Hezbollah to disappear anytime soon, experts say international pressure is key to bringing about radical change in Lebanon.“Hezbollah is still holding out,” said Phillip Smyth, a scholar on Shiite political movements at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. “Within the Lebanese government, they have strong allies and a very strong position. However, I would say they are facing internal dissent from a number of directions.”He added, “Following the blast, Hezbollah, with its dominant position, has become the face of the very corruption which spans across the Lebanese government.”Next week, Prime Minister-designate Mustapha Adib is expected to form a new Cabinet. Some observers say the recent U.S. sanctions are likely to influence the direction of the new government.“If the French president’s approach to Lebanon’s ruling class was too soft, the American mode included heavy sticks,” said Sam Bazzi, the founder of Hezbollah Watch blog.“This will hopefully break the stalemate in the country and create the opportunity for Adib to form the deliverance government that Lebanon desperately needs,” Bazzi said.Mehdi Jedinia contributed to this story from Washington.
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U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden is unveiling a plan Wednesday to try to protect American workers by raising taxes on companies that move jobs overseas. Biden, challenging Republican President Donald Trump in the Nov. 3 national election, is delivering details of the plan during a campaign stop in the industrial heartland city of Warren, Michigan.  Traditional working-class Democratic voters embraced Trump in his unexpected win in the Midwestern state in 2016, but Biden is hoping to win them back to help him deny Trump a second term in the White House. Democratic presidential candidate former Vice President Joe Biden speaks during a campaign event at UAW Region 1 headquarters in Warren, Mich., Sept. 9, 2020.Trump is remaining in Washington on Wednesday, but on Thursday will also visit Michigan — considered a must-win political battleground state by both campaigns — and other key electoral states late in the week. On Friday, both Biden and Trump will be in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, to commemorate the 19th anniversary of the 2001 al-Qaida terrorist attacks on the U.S. A jetliner crashed in a field near Shanksville as passengers tried to overcome hijackers who commandeered the aircraft. President Donald Trump speaks at a campaign rally in Winston-Salem, N.C., Sept. 8, 2020.After suspending his television advertising in the state during the summer, Trump resumed this week with an ad trumpeting what he called the “Great American Comeback,” saying the American economy is on the way back in the middle of the coronavirus pandemic. Ad trackers say Biden is outspending Trump on the airwaves in Michigan. Trump visited two other battleground states on Tuesday — Florida, where he extended an offshore drilling ban, and North Carolina, where several thousand supporters gathered in an airport hangar to hear him criticize Biden. Few of the people attending the rally adhered to health experts’ advice to wear face masks or remain 2 meters apart.  
 
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Fake news about the coronavirus can do real harm. Polygraph.info is spotlighting fact-checks from other reliable sources here​.Daily DebunkClaim: South Africa has the fifth-highest Covid-19 infection rate in the world.Verdict: IncorrectRead the full story at: Africa Check Social Media DisinfoCirculating on social media: Video purportedly showing Russian healthcare workers celebrating a new vaccine for the novel coronavirus.Verdict: FalseRead the full story at: Agence France-Presse​
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