Festive floats and giant balloons are on the move in New York City for Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, an annual, nationally-televised spectacle. Blustery weather had threatened to ground the balloons, a crowd favorite not permitted to fly in strong winds.

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio drew cheers from the crowd when he declared the balloons “are going to fly” even if a “little lower.” Handlers are keeping the massive inflatables only a couple meters above them.

In the past, strong winds have caused some helium-inflated characters to detach from tethers, leading to injuries.

This year’s parade, the 93rd sponsored by American retail department store Macy’s, includes a canine cartoon character, Snoopy, as an astronaut.

The event features about 8,000 marchers, two dozen floats and many marching bands — ending with an appearance by Santa Claus.

Among the performers scheduled for this year are singers Celine Dion, Ciara, Kelly Rowland and Idina Menzel.

For many Americans, the holiday to give thanks also marks the beginning of the Christmas shopping season.

 

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When opposition leader Keiko Fujimori leaves prison, her supporters will applaud her freedom and her detractors will lament what they consider more impunity for the corrupt, but the reality is the future is far from clear for the woman who twice almost won Peru’s presidency.

The Constitutional Tribunal narrowly approved a habeas corpus request to free Fujimori from detention while she is investigated for alleged corruption. But the magistrates noted the 4-3 decision does not constitute a judgment on her guilt or innocence with regards to accusations she accepted money from Brazilian construction giant Odebrecht.

The daughter of imprisoned former President Alberto Fujimori — who herself was jailed in October 2018 — could be returned to a cell.

“Although the Constitutional Tribunal has freed her for a strictly procedural matter, it has not absolved her of any of the charges, and it also did not dismiss the new charges made by the Public Ministry,” political analyst Iván García Mayer said.

It is unclear when Fujimori will be freed, but authorities said after Monday’s court ruling that it could happen later in the week.

The 44-year-old will leave prison to a changed political landscape, facing the tough task of rebuilding her political party and career, both of which have been eroded by scandals. Her Popular Force party held a majority in congress until September, when President Martín Vizcarra dissolved the legislature in a popular move he described as necessary to uproot corruption.

The conservative Popular Force will participate in January legislative elections, but Fujimori is not expected to be a candidate and some expect the party to fade in the vote.

As leader of Popular Force, Fujimori managed to undermine the government of Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, fueling the impeachment of the now imprisoned ex-president for lying about his ties with Odebrecht.

But now Fujimori herself has been ensnared by a corruption scandal that has toppled political and businesses leaders around Latin America.

In 2016, Odebrecht recognized in a plea agreement with the U.S. Justice Department that it paid some $800 million in bribes to officials throughout the region. The bribes included some $29 million in Peru for public works contracts during the administrations of President Alejandro Toledo and two of his successors. Corruption allegations have hit all of Peru’s presidents between 2001 and 2016.

Prosecutors accuse Fujimori of laundering $1.2 million provided by Odebrecht for her 2011 and 2016 presidential campaigns. They opened an investigation into the campaigns after seeing a note written by Marcelo Odebrecht, head of the Brazilian mega-company, on his cellphone that said: “increase Keiko to 500 and pay a visit.”

Fujimori denies the accusations against her and says prosecutors and Peru’s election body have received Popular Force’s accounting books for inspection.

Her jailing capped a striking downfall for a politician who went from first lady at age 19, to powerful opposition leader, to within a hair’s breadth of the presidency.

Hundreds of mostly young people protested Monday’s ruling freeing her, calling it another demonstration of impunity for the corrupt.

But Fujimori’s supporters have painted “Free Keiko” signs around Lima. Her husband, Mark Villanella, had been on a more than week-long hunger strike outside the jail holding Fujimori.

Fujimori’s father, a strongman who governed Peru from 1990 to 2000, remains a polarizing figure. Some Peruvians praise him for defeating Maoist Shining Path guerrillas and resurrecting a devastated economy, while others detest him for human rights violations. He is serving a 25-year sentence for human rights abuses and corruption.

Keiko Fujimori assumed the role of first lady following the traumatic divorce of her father and Susana Higuchi.

She graduated in business administration from Boston University in 1997 and returned to the United States in 2000 to obtain a master’s degree in business from Columbia University.

She tried to follow in her father’s presidential footsteps and forge a gentler, kinder version of the movement known as “Fujimorismo.”

She finished second in the 2011 election and five years later lost in a razor-thin vote, coming within less than half a percentage point of defeating Kuczynski.

Now, emerging into a new Peru with a dissolved congress and widespread dislike for political elites, Fujimori faces a tough situation, analysts say.

She “is in a very bad position; it will be very difficult for her to recover because the immense majority believe she really committed acts of corruption,” said analyst and sociologist Fernando Rospigliosi.

“She is not going to recover in the medium term,” he said.

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Marko Kepi, an Albanian-American activist, is heading a fundraising campaign to aid victims of Wednesday’s earthquake.

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Albanian Defense Minister Olta Xhacka becomes emotional while reading names of victims of the strongest earthquake to hit Albania in more than three decades.

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U.S. President Donald Trump on Wednesday signed into law congressional legislation backing protesters in Hong Kong despite angry objections from Beijing, with which he is seeking a deal to end a damaging trade war.

The new legislation, approved unanimously by the U.S. Senate and by all but one lawmaker in the House of Representatives last week, requires the State Department to certify, at least annually, that Hong Kong retains enough autonomy to justify favorable U.S. trading terms that have helped it maintain its position as a world financial center. It also threatens sanctions for human rights violations.

Congress passed a second bill — which Trump also signed — banning the export to the Hong Kong police of crowd-control munitions, such as teargas, pepper spray, rubber bullets and stun guns.

“I signed these bills out of respect for President Xi, China, and the people of Hong Kong. They are being enacted in the hope that Leaders and Representatives of China and Hong Kong will be able to amicably settle their differences leading to long term peace and prosperity for all,” Trump said in a statement.

Trump had been vague about whether he would sign or veto the legislation, while trying strike a deal with China on trade that he has made a top priority ahead of his 2020 re-election bid.

China has denounced the legislation as gross interference in its affairs and a violation of international law.

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The U.S. Navy announced Wednesday that it would scrap plans to carry out reviews of three Navy SEALs that could have led to their ouster from the elite force, after President Donald Trump’s extraordinary intervention in a related case. 

“I have determined that any failures in conduct, performance, judgment or professionalism exhibited by these officers be addressed through other administrative measures as appropriate,” acting Navy Secretary Thomas Modly said in a statement. 

The decision followed Trump’s order on Sunday that Special Operations Chief Edward Gallagher keep his status as a Navy SEAL, even after he was convicted of battlefield misconduct. The review of the three other SEALs was connected to the Gallagher case. 

Critics say the actions undermine military justice and send a message that battlefield atrocities will be tolerated. Trump’s former Navy secretary, Richard Spencer, who was fired on Sunday over the case, has spoken out against the president on the issue. 

“The president has very little understanding of what it means to be in the military, to fight ethically or to be governed by a uniform set of rules and practices,” Spencer wrote in a piece published Wednesday by The Washington Post.

Trump: I’m defending fighters

Trump has argued that the Navy mishandled Gallagher’s case and has said that he is defending America’s combat fighters from unfair and unfounded prosecution. 

The now-terminated reviews of the three remaining SEALs — Lieutenant Jacob Portier, Lieutenant Commander Robert Breisch and Lieutenant Thomas MacNeil — had received far less attention than the Gallagher case. 

A military jury in July convicted Gallagher of illegally posing for pictures with the corpse of an Islamic State fighter while deployed to Iraq in 2017, but acquitted him of murder in the detainee’s death. Gallagher also was cleared of charges of attempted murder in the wounding of two civilians, a schoolgirl and an elderly man, shot from a sniper’s perch. 

Portier, Breisch and MacNeil were under scrutiny in the Gallagher affair as his superiors. 

Modly said his decision to scrap the reviews should not be interpreted as a diminishment of the SEAL ethos, which he quoted. It says the elite fighters serve with honor “on and off the battlefield.” 

“The United States Navy, and the Naval Special Warfare Community specifically, have dangerous and important work to do,” he said in his statement. “In my judgment, neither deserves the continued distraction and negative attention that recent events have evoked.” 

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Colombians unhappy with President Ivan Duque’s response to nearly a week of boisterous protests over everything from job losses to shark hunting took to the streets again Wednesday in a continuing tide of unrest.

The daily protests jolting the South American country proclaim a wide array of complaints but echo one refrain: an opposition to a government that many believe only looks after the most privileged citizens.

“We feel defenseless to everything,” Lucy Rosales, 60, a pensioner in Bogota. “We don’t feel like we have a voice that represents us. It’s many things that they allowed to accumulate.”

Several thousand people blew whistles and waving their nation’s flag as they marched through the streets of the capital around mid-afternoon, while indigenous activists blocked part of a major highway in southwest Colombia.

The new demonstration came a day after Duque’s attempt to quell the discontent by holding talks with a protest steering group hit a snag: Members of the National Strike Committee refused to join broader talks the president has called with all social sectors, fearing their demands would be diluted.

“The government has not been able to learn from the Chilean and Ecuadorian experiences,” said Jorge Restrepo, an economics professor, referring to recent mass demonstrations in both of those countries. “It has made very many mistakes.”

The steering committee presented a 13-point list of demands Tuesday that asks Duque to withdraw or refrain from tax, labor and pension law changes that are either before the legislature or rumored to be in development. The labor and student leaders also want Duque to review free-trade agreements, eliminate a police unit accused in the death of an 18-year-old student protester and fully implement the nation’s historic peace accord with leftist rebels.

Organizers dismissed Duque’s calls to join his “National Conversation” that would run through March — an initiative that appears to take a page from French President Emmanuel Macron, who opened a “Great National Debate” to involve citizens in drafting reforms after months of angry protests in that country.

“It’s a monologue between the government and its allies,” said Diogenes Orjuela, president of the Central Workers Union, one of the main forces behind the National Strike Committee.

It remains unclear to what extent the Strike Committee represents protesters in what has become a largely citizen-driven outpouring of discontent. An invitation to gather in a park or bang pots and pans quickly goes viral on WhatsApp and soon hundreds fill neighborhoods with the angry sound of clanging metal and chants like “Get out Duque!”

“We’re tired,” Ana Maria Moya, a student, said. “We’re saying, ‘No more.’”

Though the National Strike Committee drew an estimated 250,000 people to the streets last Thursday, far fewer protesters were heeding their call for a new strike on Wednesday. Protesters filled the storied Plaza Bolivar but life continued as normal in much of the rest of the capital.

Various leaders have tried to capitalize on the momentum, but none yet has emerged as the unequivocal voice of the protesters.

“There is a contest over the ownership of the protesters,” Restrepo said. “I see students get out in the streets because they need more social mobility, higher levels of income, more opportunities at least in employment. But then the ones that claim they represent those students in the streets are the unions.”

Colombia is widely considered in need of labor and pension reform. Few retirees currently have access to pensions, with the lowest-income earners the least likely to get one. Labor laws make it difficult to hire new employees. Even as the nation’s economy grows at a healthy 3.3%, unemployment has risen to nearly 11%.

“I would characterize the demands of the National Strike Committee as highly conservative, regressive and counter-reformist demands,” Restrepo said.

Orjuela, a former schoolteacher who participated in Colombia’s last major strike, in 1977, said protest organizers would be willing to support a pension reform as long as it involves a state and not a private-run system.

Even as they parse out the details, the committee’s general message decrying Duque has resonated widely, tapping into the myriad frustrations of Colombians.

For some it is big-picture issues like not fully implementing peace accords, endemic corruption and persistent economic inequality. For others it is small indignities, like relatively pricey public transportation that is also slow and overcrowded.

One unexpected sight in the protests has been that of giant plastic sharks hoisted by at least one protester denouncing a government decision allowing a certain amount of shark fishing.

“It’s like all the groups are feeding off each other,” said Gimena Sanchez-Garzoli, a human rights advocate with the Washington Office on Latin America.

Few expected that such a mixed bag of motivations could generate a prolonged protest and it remained unclear how long it might drag on. Thus far, four people have died, hundreds have been injured and tens of millions of dollars have been lost from businesses shuttering during demonstrations.The patience of some Colombians is beginning to wear thin.

Julio Contreras, a deliveryman who was tear gassed while trying to get 20 kilos (44 pounds) of chicken to restaurants, said he is ready for the protests to be done.

“They’re not letting us work,” he said. “The students should be in the universities and not affecting us.”

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U.S. prosecutors have arrested a Hawaii man they accuse of sending hundreds of unwanted service providers and others to a Utah home, including plumbers and prostitutes.

Loren Okamura was arrested Friday in Hawaii following his indictment last month on charges of cyberstalking, interstate threats and transporting people for prostitution, court documents show.

Okamura, 44, targeted a father and her adult daughter, sending the woman threatening messages and posting her picture and address online, authorities said. One posting said the homeowner wanted drugs and prostitutes at the house in a quiet, middle-class neighborhood in a Salt Lake City suburb.

The Gilmore family was “tormented” during the year-plus that the “extreme cyberstalking” endured, U.S. Attorney John Huber said Tuesday at a news conference.

Investigators had been focused on Okamura as the suspect since January when the Gilmores were granted a protective injunction in Utah. It took investigators time to gather enough evidence to charge Okamura because of his use of encryption and apps that made him appear anonymous, Huber said.

“For all the good that technology offers us in our modern lifestyles, there is also a darker, seedier side to it,” Huber said. “That’s what you have here.”

Huber declined to disclose the relationship between the victim and Okamura, but said it was not random. He noted that most stalkers had a previous intimate relationship with their victims and said, “those dynamics are present in this case.”

A sealed indictment was issued on Oct. 2, but Okamura wasn’t arrested until Friday as police struggled to find him because he doesn’t have a permanent address or job and is “savvy” with technology he used to mask his phone’s location.

A team of Utah officers flew to Honolulu and teamed with FBI agents on a 15-hour search Friday for Okamura that ended when they arrested him without incident at a supermarket, said Sgt. Jeff Plank of the Utah Department of Public Safety, who was assigned to the FBI’s cybercrime task force.

Okamura’s federal public defender, Sharron Rancourt, didn’t immediately return a phone message and emails seeking comment.

Okamura is scheduled to be in court in Hawaii on Wednesday for a detention hearing.

Prosecutors say Okamura’s online stalking began sometime in 2018 and led as many as 500 unwanted people to go to the house, according to Gilmore. Okamura sent food deliveries, repair services, tow trucks, locksmiths, plumbers and prostitutes to “harass and intimidate” the family, costing the service providers thousands of dollars in lost business, according to the charging documents.

Utah police went to the North Salt Lake house more than 80 times over a four-month period from November 2018 to February 2019. The activities affected the entire neighborhood, prosecutors say.

Okamura sent the woman extensive and repeated texts and voicemails.

In May, the woman received a threatening email telling her she should “sleep with one eye open and keep looking over her shoulder.” The email told her, “You should just kill yourself and do your family a favor,” charging documents show.

Prosecutors say they have records from Okamura’s cellphone and Apple ID to support the charges. His arrest was first reported by Hawaii News Now.

Walt Gilmore didn’t immediately return messages Tuesday. 

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Pennsylvania enacted legislation Tuesday to give future victims of child sexual abuse more time to file lawsuits and to end time limits for police to file criminal charges.

Gov. Tom Wolf signed new laws he said will help repair “faults in our justice system that prevent frightened, abused children from seeking justice when they grow into courageous adults.”

The legislative package was based on recommendations in last year’s landmark grand jury report about the cover-up of hundreds of cases of child sexual abuse in six of Pennsylvania’s eight Roman Catholic dioceses over much of the 20th century.

However, Republicans with majority control of the state Senate blocked the two-year window, which was a top priority of victim advocates, victims and state Attorney General Josh Shapiro.

They all want the state to temporarily lift time limits that currently bar now-adult victims of child sexual abuse from suing their perpetrators and institutions that may have helped hide it.

About two dozen states have changed their laws on statutes of limitations this year, according to Child USA, a Philadelphia-based think tank that advocates for child protection.

Wolf, a Democrat, signed bills to invalidate secrecy agreements that keep child sexual abuse victims from talking to investigators, and to increase and clarify penalties for people who are required to report suspected child abuse but fail to do so.

Wolf signed the bills at Muhlenberg High School in Reading, the home district of state Democratic Rep. Mark Rozzi, a champion of the legislation and who has spoken publicly about being raped as a 13-year-old boy by a Roman Catholic priest.

“We know our work is not done today, it’s going to continue,” Rozzi said.

The grand jury report prompted a lengthy battle in the Legislature that pitted victims and their advocates who sought the two-year window to file claims over past abuse against top Senate Republicans, who argued it would be unconstitutional and instead offered the slower alternative of amending the state constitution.

The multi-year amendment process has begun, but the bill must again pass both the House and Senate in the 2021-22 legislative session before voters will decide its fate.

Shapiro, a Democrat, said the eliminated time limits means prosecutors could file charges against only two priests after the report was issued. Shapiro said that if the new legislation had applied, some 100 priests could have been charged.

Wolf and Shapiro urged lawmakers to take up the two-year window for lawsuits rather than wait for the constitutional amendment process to play out.

“By waiting, we are robbing the very victims who made this day possible, we are robbing them of the only closure before them,” Shapiro said. “Think about the many Pennsylvanians who have a story to tell about sexual abuse. Why should anyone who’s been a victim of sexual abuse or its cover-up be made to suffer while others get three or four more years of a free pass?”

The main bill in the legislative package ends any statute of limitations, in future cases, for criminal prosecution of major child sexual abuse crimes. Current law limits it to the victim’s 50th birthday.

Victims would have until they turn 55 to sue, compared to age 30 in current law. Young adults ages 18-23 would have until age 30 to sue, where existing law gives them just two years.

Police could file criminal charges up to 20 years after the crime when young adults 18-23 years old are the victims, as opposed to 12 years after the crime for victims over 17 in current law.

Other state have previously amended their laws.

In New Jersey, lawmakers expanded the civil statute of limitations from two years to seven years. The bill opened a two-year window, which starts on Dec. 1, to victims who were previously barred by the statute of limitations. It also allows victims to seek damages from institutions.

New York raised the victim’s age for which prosecutors can seek a felony indictment from 23 to 28. The law also gave anyone a year starting in August to file child sex abuse lawsuits against individuals and institutions, and civil lawsuits going forward can be filed until the victim is 55, up from 23.

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Donald Trump on Tuesday followed a White House Thanksgiving tradition by pardoning “Butter,” the turkey, and his alternate, “Bread.” The president also honored his own tradition of cracking jokes while granting clemency to the poultry. White House correspondent Patsy Widakuswara has the story.

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Rescuers were pulling survivors and dead bodies from piles of rubble in Albania on Tuesday after a 6.4-magnitude earthquake struck the country’s coastal area. The U.S. Geological survey placed the quake’s epicenter about 30 kilometers north of the capital Tirana and at a depth of about 20 kilometers. The earthquake was followed by about 100 aftershocks, including three with preliminary magnitudes of about 5. VOA’s Zlatica Hoke reports the death toll is rising.

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WHITE HOUSE — President Donald Trump on Tuesday honored another White House tradition where he granted a pardon to “Butter,” the turkey, and his alternate, “Bread,” in the Rose Garden, ahead of the Thanksgiving holiday.  

Honoring his own tradition of cracking jokes while granting clemency to poultry, Trump said, “I expect this pardon will be a very popular one with the media. After all, turkeys are closely related to vultures.”

The turkeys have been “raised to remain calm under any condition, which will be very important because they’ve already received subpoenas to appear in Adam Schiff’s basement on Thursday,” Trump said, referring to impeachment hearings.

“Bread and Butter, I should note that unlike previous witnesses, you and I have actually met,” the president said in another jab to Democrats and their impeachment inquiry.

The president made a similar subpoena joke during last year’s turkey pardon, saying, “Even though Peas and Carrots have received a presidential pardon, I have warned them that House Democrats are likely to issue them both subpoenas.”

Trump has made political jokes during all of his Thanksgiving turkey pardons since coming to office. In his first turkey pardon in 2017, Trump joked that he has been “very active in overturning” executive actions taken by his predecessor Barack Obama, but would not subject the birds to it.

“I have been informed by the White House counsel’s office that Tater and Tot’s pardons cannot, under any circumstances, be revoked,” Trump said. “So, Tater and Tot, you can rest easy.”

Matthew Costello, assistant director of the David M. Rubinstein National Center for White House History, said that in these events presidents get to lighten up and show “who they are as a person.”

Costello recalled how President Obama used to make what his daughters call “bad dad jokes” during these ceremonies, while Trump is more focused on how he’s covered in the press. “I think he sees it as an opportunity then to sort of tease and make fun of some of those things,” added Costello.

As far as Bread and Butter are concerned, both birds got to stay at a luxury hotel in Washington, D.C., prior to the pardoning, and will spend the rest of their lives at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University.

Turkey tradition

Turkeys are a staple main dish for the American Thanksgiving holiday, which falls on the last Thursday of November. According to the White House Historical Association, pardoning them became a presidential tradition since George H. W. Bush in 1989 but the custom has earlier roots.

“A White House reporter in 1865 published a report about President Lincoln pardoning a turkey that he grew fond of,” said Costello. However, that turkey was headed to become Christmas dinner, not Thanksgiving.

The first turkey pardon on record was in 1963 when President John F. Kennedy received a turkey as a gift for Thanksgiving dinner but decided to let it live on Nov. 19. Three days later, the president was assassinated in Dallas, Texas.

In 1987, President Ronald Reagan deflected questions about the Iran-Contra scandal and whether he would pardon the actors involved, Oliver North and John Poindexter.

“If they’d given me a different answer on Charlie and his future, I would have pardoned him,” Reagan said, referring to the bird.

Before its pardoning, turkeys have been sent as gifts to American presidents from as early as the 1870s, said Costello. In the early 1920s, there had been such a huge poultry influx that President Calvin Coolidge discouraged Americans from sending them. He received not only turkeys for dinner, but quail, ducks, geese, rabbits, deer, even a raccoon, which became a Coolidge family pet named Rebecca.

In recent years, the White House has turned the pardon to be a social media event and encouraged people to participate, including voting on the name via the online poll.

After pardoning the turkeys, Trump and first lady Melania Trump departed the White House to spend Thanksgiving holidays at his Florida golf resort, Mar-a-Lago.
 

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This week on Healthy Living, we discuss access to safe abortionsin Africa and the impact of new U.S. restrictions on funding for abortions. Wakikona Rose, Senior Program Officer with the Center for Health, Human Rights, and Development joins the show from Kampala for more on this topic. Also, some tips on quitting smoking, how doctors in the DRC are taking steps to address sleeping sickness, and how researchers may have discovered a way to address antibiotic resistance. These topics and more on this episode of Healthy Living.

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Ukraine’s president says he has discussed a new contract for natural gas supplies from Russia during a conversation with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Volodymyr Zelenskiy said he discussed the gas deal with Putin during Monday’s phone call. Zelenskiy said Tuesday that the deal is a priority for Ukraine and important for Europe’s energy security.

Talks on a replacing a contract expiring this year have dragged, raising fears of disruptions of Russian gas supplies to Europe via Ukraine.

Price and debt disputes led to disruptions of Russian gas deliveries to European customers during the winters of 2006 and 2009.

Relations between Russia and Ukraine have remained badly strained since Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014 and Moscow’s support for a separatist insurgency in eastern Ukraine.
 

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Russia’s foreign minister is warning Syria’s Kurds that relying on U.S. support “won’t bring them any good.”

Sergey Lavrov on Tuesday accused Syria’s Kurds of failing to abide by a Russia-Turkey deal that halted a Turkish offensive into Syria.

He says the Kurds are trying to stay allied with the U.S., and avoid engaging in dialogue with the Syrian government.

U.S. and Kurdish-led forces fought the Islamic State group for years. Washington’s support allowed the Kurds to set up an independent government in eastern Syria.

But American troops pulled out of most of the country in October, paving the way for Turkey’s offensive against the Kurds. Russia, which backs the Syrian government, helped broker a cease-fire.

Lavrov dismissed the Kurdish claims of Turkey’s violations of the cease-fire.

 

 

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Two helicopters collided in midair and killed 13 French soldiers fighting Islamic extremists in Mali, France said Tuesday, in its biggest loss since its mission in West Africa’s Sahel region began in 2013.

The deaths draw new attention to a worrying front in the global fight against extremism. Attackers linked to the Islamic State or al-Qaida this month alone have killed scores of local troops in the region and ambushed a convoy carrying employees of a Canadian mining company, leaving at least 37 dead.
      
French President Emmanuel Macron expressed “deep sadness” after the Monday evening crash. “These 13 heroes had only one goal: protecting us,” he tweeted.

The French military said both helicopters were flying very low when they collided and crashed in Mali’s Liptako region. No one on board survived.

The helicopters were supporting French commandos on the ground who were pursuing a group of extremists. French defense minister Florence Parly said an investigation has been opened into the accident.

France’s operation in West and Central Africa is its largest overseas military mission and involves 4,500 personnel. France intervened in 2013 after extremists seized control of major towns in northern Mali and implemented a harsh version of Islamic law. They were forced back into the desert, where they have regrouped and moved south into more populated areas.

Since 2013, at least 44 French soldiers have died.

A new surge in extremist attacks in Mali has killed well over 100 local troops in the past two months, with IS often claiming responsibility. The extremists loot military posts and profit from mining operations while finding refuge in forested border areas.

Before his death this year, IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi congratulated “brothers” in Mali and neighboring Burkina Faso for pledging allegiance.

Public outrage in Mali over the latest attacks also has been directed in recent weeks against France, the country’s former colonizer.

Mali’s Liptako region near the border with Niger and its Gourma region near the Burkina Faso border have become strategic crossings for extremist groups as they are largely unguarded, the International Institute for Strategic Studies wrote last month.

France’s operation became involved in the Liptako area in 2017 and this year it built a new base in Gossi in the Gourma region, IISS said.
 
“Despite increased French presence in this zone, military gains remain limited. Both sides barely ever engage in direct confrontation. Militants use guerrilla tactics, rely heavily on improvised explosive devices and hide within the civilian population before and after launching attacks,” it added.

France’s Barkhane military operation is one of multiple efforts against the growing extremist threat in the Sahel including a five-nation regional counterterror force that struggles to secure international funding and a U.N. peacekeeping mission in Mali. 

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A year after he won Europe’s top human rights award, Ukrainian filmmaker Oleg Sentsov has finally picked up the prize, following his release from a prison in Russia’s far-north where he was held on terror charges.

Sentsov was freed in a prisoner swap in September after spending five years in a Russian prison colony above the Arctic circle.

He has been one of the most vocal opponents of Russia’s 2014 annexation from Ukraine of his native Crimea region, and staged a 144-day hunger strike to protest the jailing of dozens of Ukrainians in Russia. He ended it faced with the prospect of being force-fed.

The EU award, named after Soviet dissident Andrei Sakharov, was created in 1988 to honor individuals or groups who defend human rights and fundamental freedoms. Sentsov accepted it in Strasbourg on Tuesday.
 

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Two French citizens were shot dead in Port-au-Prince over the weekend shortly after flying into the Haitian capital to adopt a child, diplomatic and other sources told AFP Monday.

An official at the French embassy confirmed that a French couple had been killed, without giving further details of the exact circumstances of their deaths.

According to two other sources, however, the couple were from the Ardeche region of southeastern France and had arrived in the Caribbean country to adopt a child.

One of the sources said they were killed in an armed robbery that turned deadly.

A spokeswoman for the Ardeche department confirmed to AFP that the couple, from the town of Saint-Martin-d’Ardeche, had been given a green light last year to adopt their first child.

Haiti, the poorest country in the Americas, has been roiled for two months by protests, which were triggered by fuel shortages but have turned violent and morphed into a broader campaign against President Jovenel Moise.

According to UN figures, at least 42 people have been killed and dozens injured during anti-government protests since mid-September.

The French foreign ministry recommends visitors “postpone their trip to Haiti until further notice.”  

“Demonstrations, accompanied by blockades on the main roads and violent acts (rock throwing, shots…) are very frequent. Violent groups are active and fueling a climate of insecurity,” the foreign ministry warned last month.   

 

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The holiday season officially began at the White House Monday, as first lady Melania Trump received the 2019 White House Christmas tree.
 
Unlike last year, President Donald Trump did not attend the tree presentation.
 
The tree arrived by jingle bell-adorned horse and carriage, continuing an annual White House tradition to highlight the holiday spirit.
 
“Just a few decades earlier they were still delivering the tree in pick-up trucks,” said historian Matthew Costello from the White House Historical Association. “So it’s nice that they’ve made it more festive, to do it with a Christmas-themed sled and a drawn carriage,” Costello added.
 
This year’s tree, is a 5.6 meters tall Douglas fir grown by Larry Snyder of Mahantongo Valley Farms in Pennsylvania, winner of the National Christmas Tree Association’s Christmas tree contest.

As the winner, Snyder has the honor of presenting a Christmas tree to the White House. He called it, “a memorable experience of a lifetime for our family, especially for our children and grandchildren, who are accompanying us for the presentation.”
 
The first lady chatted with Snyder and took pictures with the Snyder family.
 
Holiday tree tradition
 
The National Christmas Tree Association has presented the official White House Christmas Tree every year since 1966. Each year’s tree has to fit the exact specifications of the White House Blue Room, where it is displayed as part of the holiday décor with a theme selected by the first lady.
 
Jacqueline Kennedy started the tradition of selecting a theme for the official White House Christmas tree in 1961.

Historian Costello said that the choice of themes tells us a little bit about the president and first lady who are living there.  He said it shows “what they see as important to have this representation on the traditional Christmas tree.”
 
Melania Trump is scheduled to unveil the theme of her 2019 White House Christmas décor in early December.
 
Next up in the White House holiday events schedule is the Thanksgiving turkey pardon by President Trump later this week.

 

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Activists on Monday criticized as insufficient new French government efforts to fight one of Europe’s highest rates of so-called femicides, or the killing of women by their partners.

French Prime Minister Edouard Philippe on Monday announced millions of dollars in measures to protect women from spousal killings. They include beefing up shelters and the national hotline for victims, electronic bracelets and firearms seizures targeting abusers, educational programs and stiffer penalties for those convicted. The announcement coincides with the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women.

Philippe said he hoped the measures will create an “electric shock” that he says French society needs to fight so-called femicides. Activists say nearly 140 women have been killed by their partners or ex-partners in France so far this year — one of Europe’s highest rates.

Tens of thousands of people demonstrated in Paris Saturday, in the latest protest against femicides. The new measures come after weeks of discussions between authorities and women’s rights groups on the problem.

But, some activists say both the measures and the funds to realize them are not enough. Camille Bernard is a member of #NousToutes, a women’s rights group which organized the demonstrations.

“We are really disappointed about this, because we must have more money to make things [i.e. measures to crack down] for the violence, and the prime minister says it will not be more [new] money. We don’t know how they think they will do more things against violence without more money,” he said.

Domestic violence has also become a hot-button issue elsewhere in Europe. A day after the Paris demonstrations, thousands protested violence targeting women in Brussels. Similar demonstrations also took place recently in Spain, despite a raft of government measures more than a decade ago to address the problem.

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Got secrets? They’ll be safe in here. VOA Explains what a SCIF is.

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Kosovo prosecutors have filed terrorism charges against three women repatriated from Syria for allegedly joining terror groups there.
                   
Prosecutors said Monday that the three women had left Kosovo in 2013, 2014 and 2015 to join the Islamic State group in Syria and Al-Nusra in Iraq. Spouses of two of them had died, apparently in fighting there.
                   
The three women were among 110 Kosovo citizens repatriated from Syria in April.
                   
If convicted, they could face a prison sentence of up to 15 years.
                   
Kosovo authorities say 30 of the country’s citizens are still actively supporting terror groups in Syria.

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