London — A lawyer accused of trying to interfere in British politics on behalf of the Chinese government has lost a legal challenge against the U.K.’s domestic intelligence agency MI5.

Britain’s Security Service issued a security alert to all lawmakers in January 2022, warning that London-based lawyer Christine Lee was knowingly engaged in “political interference activities in the U.K.” in coordination with the Chinese Communist Party’s United Front Work Department, an organization known to exert Chinese influence abroad.

The House of Commons’ Speaker warned at the time that Lee had “facilitated” covert donations to British political parties and legislators “on behalf of foreign nationals.” Members of Parliament are required to declare the source of donations they receive, which must be from U.K.-registered electors or entities.

Lee’s firm, Christine Lee & Co., provided legal services mainly to the British Chinese community and had acted as a legal advisor to the Chinese embassy in London. Her son, Daniel Wilkes, worked for lawmaker Barry Gardiner as a diary manager for five years, while she had donated some 500,000 pounds ($635,000) to Gardiner, mostly for office costs, according to official records.

Lee, who was not accused of a criminal offense, brought a legal action, arguing that the security alert against her was political and that it breached her human rights.

On Tuesday, three judges at the Investigatory Powers Tribunal unanimously dismissed her claim, saying MI5 had issued the warning for “legitimate reasons.”

The tribunal decision came the day after British authorities named Chinese national Yang Tengbo as an alleged spy who cultivated close ties with Prince Andrew and sought to exert influence among British establishment figures on behalf of China’s United Front Work Department.

Yang, 50, also known as Chris Yang, was banned from entering the U.K. last year after MI5 found that he was believed to have carried out “covert and deceptive activity” for China.

Authorities said his relationship with the royal had a covert nature, citing correspondence that referenced getting people “unnoticed in and out of the house of Windsor.”

Yang strongly denied the claims.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian on Tuesday called the spying allegations against Yang “ridiculous,” while the Chinese Embassy in Britain condemned U.K. lawmakers for “smearing” China.

“We urge the UK side to immediately stop creating trouble, stop anti-China political manipulations, and stop undermining normal personnel exchanges between China and the UK,” a statement released on the embassy’s website said.
…

Moscow — Kazakhstan’s state-controlled nuclear resources company said on Tuesday that Russia’s state Rosatom corporation was selling its stakes in vast uranium deposits that it had been developing with the world’s largest uranium producer.  

Kazatomprom said that Rosatom unit, Uranium One Group, had sold its 49.979% stake in the Zarechnoye mine to SNURDC Astana Mining Company Limited, whose ultimate beneficiary is China’s State Nuclear Uranium Resources Development Company. 

Uranium One Group is also expected to give up 30% in the Khorasan-U joint venture to China Uranium Development Company Limited, the ultimate beneficiary of which is China General Nuclear Power Corporation (CGN, China), Kazatomprom said. 

Kazatomprom’s stakes will remain unchanged, it said. 

Zarechnoye’s uranium reserves amounted to approximately 3,500 tons at the beginning of 2024, according to Kazatomprom.  

Khorasan-U operates at the Kharasan-1 block of Severny Kharasan deposit in the Zhanakorgan district of the Kyzylorda region. Uranium reserves of the deposit amounted to about 33,000 tons at the beginning of 2024, with an expected maturity in 2038, Kazatomprom said. 

Rosatom did not immediately comment. Uranium One produced 4,831 tons of uranium in Kazakhstan in 2023.  

Kazatomprom is the world’s largest producer of uranium and has the largest reserve base. It accounted for approximately 20% of global primary uranium production in 2023.  

 
…

TALLINN, estonia — Twelve Western countries have agreed to measures to “disrupt and deter” Russia’s so-called shadow fleet of vessels in order to prevent sanctions breaches and increase the cost to Moscow of the war in Ukraine, Estonia’s government said Monday. 

The measures were agreed to by Germany, Britain, Poland, the Netherlands, the five Nordic nations and the three Baltic states, said Estonia, where leaders of the 10-nation Joint Expeditionary Force were due to meet Tuesday. 

Western nations have slapped sanctions on a wide range of ships they say are used by Moscow to avoid restrictions on the export of Russian oil and other cargoes. Vessels in the shadow fleet are not regulated or insured by conventional Western providers. 

“We are taking concerted steps to deter Russia’s shadow fleet and avoid attempts to evade sanctions,” Estonian Prime Minister Kristen Michal said in a statement. 

Denmark, Sweden, Poland, Finland and Estonia will begin to check insurance documents of ships under suspicion passing through the English Channel, Danish straits, the Gulf of Finland and the sound between Sweden and Denmark, he added.
…

GENEVA  — Migrants play a crucial role in the global economy by filling essential jobs in foreign countries and sending much-needed remittances to their home countries, according to a report released Monday by the International Labour Organization.

The report’s release comes as President-elect Donald Trump has vowed to deport millions of undocumented migrants from the United States. During his presidential campaign, he accused them of draining economic resources and taking jobs from native-born Americans.

The ILO report says migrants usually bring a net economic benefit to the countries they enter and those from which they depart.

“Migrants drive economic growth in destination countries, and they support home countries through their remittances and skills transfer,” Sukti Dasgupta, director of the ILO’s conditions of work and equalities department, told journalists at a briefing in Geneva on Monday.

Rafael Diez de Medina, chief statistician at ILO, said the report debunks the assertion by some that “migrants are taking away [the] jobs of nationals.”

“I would like to say that migrant workers often fill specific roles in low-wage or specialized jobs, and often as seasonal workers, and that they complement, rather than displace, the national labor force.

“There might be competition in specific contexts, but we do not really have evidence of migrants taking away jobs from nationals,” he said.

“In this report, migrants in the labor force include all foreign-born persons in the labor force of a host country who are employed or unemployed regardless of their legal status in the country,” Diez de Medina added. “So, documented and undocumented, regardless of the employment permission to the host country, are included in our figures.”

The report presents global and regional estimates of migrants in the labor force covering 189 countries and territories for 2022, representing 99% of the world population at that time.

Migrant labor force increases

The report says 167.7 million migrants were part of the international labor force as of 2022, accounting for 4.7% of the working force worldwide.

The report finds that the migrant global labor force has increased by more than 30 million since 2013, but notes that from 2019 to 2022, “the rate of growth slowed down to less than one percent annually.” This is attributed largely to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.

While migration patterns have changed in some regions of the world, the ILO said the overall composition of migrant workers has remained relatively stable, with men accounting for about 61% percent and women making up 39%.

About 68% of international migrants in the labor force, the report noted, were concentrated in high-income countries located in northern, southern and western Europe, North America, and the Arab states.

“Migrants were concentrated in high-income countries drawn by higher living standards and more job opportunities,” said Dasgupta, who added that most migrants work in the service sector.

“This is where we find 70 percent of all working migrants, and this is particularly true for women,” she said.

Diez de Medina said the estimates presented are based on a new and improved methodology that allows for more detailed breakdowns than before.

In 2022, the ILO reported that more migrants faced a higher unemployment rate of 7.2% compared to the rate of 5.2% for non-migrants, with more migrant women than men out of work.

According to the report, “This disparity may be driven by factors such as language barriers, unrecognized qualifications, discrimination, and limited childcare options.”

Migrants and legal protections

Diez de Medina stressed the importance of ensuring that migrant workers have access to social and labor protection and “are covered by the country’s labor laws, particularly for domestic workers.”

Instead of being a drain on society, he said, migrant workers are a benefit and “are essential for the global economy, particularly in certain sectors such as services, manufacturing and agriculture.”

“If there were to be major restrictions on the movement of migrant workers, there would be labor shortages in particular sectors in the destination countries,” he said.

Dasgupta agreed that migrants contribute significantly to host economies through taxes, social security payments and other means.

“Their employment to population ratios are often higher,” she said, noting the report finds that “migrants contribute more than they withdraw, particularly for the second-generation migrants.”
…

BRUSSELS — The EU on Monday for the first time imposed fully fledged sanctions, including asset freezes and visa bans, on Chinese firms for supplying Russia’s military for the war on Ukraine.

It has also added North Korea’s defense minister to its sanctions blacklist after the secretive state sent troops to Russia to reinforce its military.

The move — part of the EU’s 15th round of sanctions over the conflict — represented a heightened effort to tackle the crucial role allegedly being played by China in keeping Russia’s war machine going.

The EU said it was blacklisting four Chinese companies for “supplying sensitive drone components and microelectronic components” to the Russian military.

Two other firms and one Chinese businesswoman were hit for circumventing EU sanctions aimed at stopping equipment flowing to Moscow.

Among the companies was Xiamen Limbach, alleged to have supplied engines for long-range attack drones used by Russia against Ukraine.

The EU has targeted Chinese firms before for supporting Russia’s military.

But until now the bloc has imposed bans on European firms doing business with the Chinese companies — rather than the tougher sanctions now being applied.

The EU also took aim at North Korea in the latest package, after Pyongyang dispatched troops to Russia to fight Ukraine.

The 27-nation bloc added defense minister No Kwang Chol and deputy chief of the general staff Kim Yong Bok to a number of North Korean officials already blacklisted.

Ukraine said Monday that its troops killed or wounded at least 30 North Korean soldiers who had been deployed in Russia’s western Kursk region, where Ukraine has seized territory.

In a bid to limit Russian revenues, the EU included around 50 oil tankers from Moscow’s “shadow fleet” used to help the Kremlin get around Western oil sanctions.
…

Washington — Ten countries and the EU called North Korea’s growing involvement in Russia’s war in Ukraine a “dangerous expansion” on Monday, in a joint statement released by the United States.

Pyongyang has sent thousands of troops to reinforce Russia’s war effort, including to the Kursk border region where Ukraine reported Monday that its fighters had killed or wounded at least 30 North Korean soldiers.

“Direct DPRK support for Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine marks a dangerous expansion of the conflict, with serious consequences for European and Indo-Pacific security,” the statement said, referring to North Korea by its official acronym.

The foreign ministers of Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, South Korea, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, the United States and the high representative of the European Union signed the release.

They also said that they were “deeply concerned about any political, military, or economic support that Russia may be providing to the DPRK’s illegal weapons programs, including weapons of mass destruction.”

North Korea and Russia have strengthened their military ties since Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Experts say the nuclear-armed North’s leader, Kim Jong Un, is keen to acquire advanced technology from Moscow and battle experience for his troops.

The statement signatories said they “condemn in the strongest possible terms the increasing military cooperation” including the “deployment of DPRK troops to Russia for use on the battlefield against Ukraine.”

They added that the export of ballistic missiles, artillery shells and other military materiel by Pyongyang to Russia as well as Moscow’s training of North Korean soldiers involving arms “represent flagrant violations of United Nations Security Council resolutions.”

“We urge the DPRK to cease immediately all assistance for Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine, including by withdrawing its troops,” the statement said.

The United States and South Korea have accused the North of sending more than 10,000 soldiers.
…

BERLIN — Chancellor Olaf Scholz lost a confidence vote in the German parliament on Monday, putting the European Union’s most populous member and biggest economy on course to hold an early election in February.

Scholz won the support of 207 lawmakers in the 733-seat lower house, or Bundestag, while 394 voted against him and 116 abstained. That left him far short of the majority of 367 needed to win.

Scholz leads a minority government after his unpopular and notoriously rancorous three-party coalition collapsed on November 6 when he fired his finance minister in a dispute over how to revitalize Germany’s stagnant economy. Leaders of several major parties then agreed that a parliamentary election should be held on Feb. 23, seven months earlier than originally planned.

The confidence vote was needed because post-World War II Germany’s constitution doesn’t allow the Bundestag to dissolve itself. Now President Frank-Walter Steinmeier has to decide whether to dissolve parliament and call an election.

Steinmeier has 21 days to make that decision — and, because of the planned timing of the election, is expected to do so after Christmas. Once parliament is dissolved, the election must be held within 60 days.

In practice, the campaign is already well under way, and Monday’s three-hour debate reflected that.

What did the contenders say?

Scholz, a center-left Social Democrat, told lawmakers that the election will determine whether “we, as a strong country, dare to invest strongly in our future; do we have confidence in ourselves and our country, or do we put our future on the line? Do we risk our cohesion and our prosperity by delaying long-overdue investments?”

Scholz’s pitch to voters includes pledges to “modernize” Germany’s strict self-imposed rules on running up debt, to increase the national minimum wage and to reduce value-added tax on food.

Center-right challenger Friedrich Merz responded that “you’re leaving the country in one of its biggest economic crises in postwar history.”

“You’re standing here and saying, business as usual, let’s run up debt at the expense of the younger generation, let’s spend money and … the word ‘competitiveness’ of the German economy didn’t come up once in the speech you gave today,” Merz said.

The chancellor said Germany is Ukraine’s biggest military supplier in Europe and he wants to keep that up, but underlined his insistence that he won’t supply long-range Taurus cruise missiles, over concerns of escalating the war with Russia, or send German troops into the conflict. “We will do nothing that jeopardizes our own security,” he said.

Merz, who has been open to sending the long-range missiles, said that “we don’t need any lectures on war and peace” from Scholz’s party. He said, however, that the political rivals in Berlin are united in an “absolute will to do everything so that this war in Ukraine ends as quickly as possible.”

What are their chances?

Polls show Scholz’s party trailing well behind Merz’s main opposition Union bloc, which is in the lead. Vice Chancellor Robert Habeck of the environmentalist Greens, the remaining partner in Scholz’s government, is also bidding for the top job — though his party is further back.

The far-right Alternative for Germany, which is polling strongly, has nominated Alice Weidel as its candidate for chancellor but has no chance of taking the job because other parties refuse to work with it.

Germany’s electoral system traditionally produces coalitions, and polls show no party anywhere near an absolute majority on its own. The election is expected to be followed by weeks of negotiations to form a new government.

Confidence votes are rare in Germany, a country of 83 million people that prizes stability. This was only the sixth time in its postwar history that a chancellor had called one.

The last was in 2005, when then-Chancellor Gerhard Schroder engineered an early election that was narrowly won by center-right challenger Angela Merkel.
…

Saint-Denis de la Reunion, France — Rescuers raced against time Monday to reach survivors after a devastating cyclone ripped through the French Indian Ocean territory of Mayotte, destroying homes across the islands, with hundreds feared dead.

Images from Mayotte, which like other French overseas territories is an integral part of France and ruled from Paris, showed scenes of devastation, with homes reduced to piles of rubble.

The crisis, which erupted at the weekend the day after President Emmanuel Macron appointed Francois Bayrou as the sixth prime minister of his mandate, poses a major challenge for a government still only operating in a caretaker capacity.

The cyclone has left health services in tatters, with the hospital extremely damaged and health centers knocked out of operation, Health Minister Genevieve Darrieussecq told France 2.

“The hospital has suffered major water damage and destruction, notably in the surgical, intensive care, maternity and emergency units,” she said, adding that “medical centres were also non-operational”.

Macron was due to chair a crisis meeting in Paris, the Elysee said.

Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau, whose super ministry is responsible for Mayotte, arrived on the island.

Cyclone Chido caused major damage to Mayotte’s airport and cut off electricity, water and communication links when it barreled down Saturday on France’s poorest territory.

Asked about the eventual death toll, Prefect Francois-Xavier Bieuville, the top Paris-appointed official on the territory, told broadcaster Mayotte la Premiere “I think there will definitely be several hundred, perhaps we will come close to a thousand or even several thousand.”

With roads closed, officials fear that many could still be trapped under rubble in the inaccessible areas.

The mayor of Mayotte’s capital Mamoudzou, Ambdilwahedou Soumaila, told AFP the storm “spared nothing”.

“The hospital is hit. The schools are hit. Houses are totally devastated,” he said.

Some 160 additional soldiers and firefighters arrived, to reinforce the 110 already deployed.

The nearby French island of La Reunion was serving as a hub for the rescue operations.

 ‘Apocalyptic scenes’

Chido was packing winds of at least 226 kilometers per hour when it slammed into Mayotte, which lies to the east of Mozambique.

At least a third of the territory’s 320,000 residents live in shantytowns, where homes with sheet-metal roofs were flattened by the storm.

One resident, Ibrahim, told AFP of “apocalyptic scenes” as he made his way through the main island, having to clear blocked roads himself.

As authorities assessed the scale of the disaster, a first aid plane reached Mayotte on Sunday.

It carried three tons of medical supplies, blood for transfusions and 17 medical staff, according to authorities in La Reunion.

Patrice Latron, prefect of Reunion, said residents of Mayotte were facing “an extremely chaotic situation, immense destruction.”

Two military aircraft are expected to follow the initial aid flight, while a navy patrol ship was also due to depart La Reunion.

There have been international pledges to help Mayotte, including from the regional Red Cross organization, PIROI.

European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen said the bloc is “ready to provide support in the days to come.”

The head of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said the WHO “stands ready to support communities in need of essential health care.”

With around 100,000 people estimated to live clandestinely on Mayotte, according to France’s interior ministry, establishing how many people have been affected by the cyclone is proving difficult.

Ousseni Balahachi, a former nurse, said some people did not dare venture out to seek assistance, “fearing it would be a trap” designed to remove them from Mayotte.

Many had stayed put “until the last minute” when it proved too late to escape the cyclone, she added.

Chido is the latest in a string of storms worldwide fueled by climate change, according to experts.

The “exceptional” cyclone was super-charged by particularly warm Indian Ocean waters, meteorologist Francois Gourand of the Meteo France weather service told AFP.

Chido blasted across the Indian Ocean and made landfall in Mozambique on Sunday, where officials said the death toll stood at three.

The UN humanitarian agency, OCHA, warned 1.7 million people were in danger and the remnants of the cyclone could also dump “significant rainfall” on Malawi through Monday.
…

Norway announced Monday $242 million in new military aid for Ukraine, including help securing access to the country’s vital Black Sea ports.

“It is essential to protect the Ukrainian population and Ukrainian infrastructure from attacks by Russia’s Black Sea Fleet,” Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre said in a statement.  “It is also important to protect exports by sea of grain and other products, which generate crucial revenues for Ukraine.”

The aid includes funding for training Ukrainian soldiers as well as mine clearance operations.

Norway’s Defense Minister Bjørn Arild Gram said mines are a “significant threat” in the Black Sea and that the aid will help Ukrainian forces detect and defuse mines near the coast.

Ukraine’s military said Monday it shot down 27 of the 49 drones that Russian forces deployed in overnight attacks.

The intercepts took place over the Cherkasy, Chernihiv, Dnipropetrovsk, Kharkiv, Khmelnytskyi and Sumy regions, the Ukrainian air force said.

Cherkasy Governor Ihor Taburets said debris from a destroyed drone damaged power lines, but caused no casualties.

Russia’s Defense Ministry said Monday its forces destroyed three Ukrainian aerial drones over the Kursk region.

Some information for this story was provided by Reuters
…

VIENNA — Three years ago, Andrea Vanek was studying to be an arts and crafts teacher when spells of dizziness and heart palpitations suddenly started to make it impossible for her to even take short walks.

After seeing a succession of doctors she was diagnosed with long COVID and even now spends most of her days in the small living room of her third-floor Vienna apartment, sitting on the windowsill to observe the world outside.

“I can’t plan anything because I just don’t know how long this illness will last,” the 33-year-old Austrian told AFP.

The first cases of COVID-19 were detected in China in December 2019, sparking a global pandemic and more than seven million reported deaths to date, according to the World Health Organization.

But millions more have been affected by long COVID, in which some people struggle to recover from the acute phase of COVID-19, suffering symptoms including tiredness, brain fog and shortness of breath.

Vanek tries to be careful not to exert herself to avoid another “crash”, which for her is marked by debilitating muscle weakness and can last for months, making it hard to even open a bottle of water.

“We know that long COVID is a big problem,” said Anita Jain, from the WHO’s Health Emergencies Programme.

About six percent of people infected by coronavirus develop long COVID, according to the global health body, which has recorded some 777 million COVID cases to date.

Whereas the rates of long COVID after an initial infection are declining, reinfection increases the risk, Jain added.

‘Everything hurts’

Chantal Britt, who lives in Bern, Switzerland, contracted COVID in March 2020. Long COVID, she said, has turned her “life upside down” and forced her to “reinvent” herself. 

“I was really an early bird…. Now I take two hours to get up in the morning at least because everything hurts,” the 56-year-old former marathon runner explained.

“I’m not even hoping anymore that I’m well in the morning but I’m still kind of surprised how old and how broken I feel.”

About 15 percent of those who have long COVID have persistent symptoms for more than one year, according to the WHO, while women tend to have a higher risk than men of developing the condition.

Britt, who says she used to be a “workaholic”, now works part-time as a university researcher on long COVID and other topics. 

She lost her job in communications in 2022 after she asked to reduce her work hours.

She misses doing sports, which used to be like “therapy” for her, and now has to plan her daily activities more, such as thinking of places where she can sit down and rest when she goes shopping.

A lack of understanding by those around her also make it more difficult.

“It’s an invisible disease…. which connects to all the stigma surrounding it,” she said.

“Even the people who are really severely affected, who are at home, in a dark room, who can’t be touched anymore, any noise will drive them into a crash, they don’t look sick,” she said.

Fall ‘through the cracks’

The WHO’s Jain said it can be difficult for healthcare providers to give a diagnosis and wider recognition of the condition is crucial.

More than 200 symptoms have been listed alongside common ones such as fatigue, shortness of breath and cognitive dysfunction.

“Now a lot of the focus is on helping patients, helping clinicians with the tools to accurately diagnose long COVID, detect it early,” she said.

Patients like Vanek also struggle financially. She has filed two court cases to get more support but both are yet to be heard.

She said the less than $840 she gets in support cannot cover her expenses, which include high medical bills for the host of pills she needs to keep her symptoms in check.

“It’s very difficult for students who get long COVID. We fall right through the cracks” of the social system, unable to start working, she said.

Britt also wants more targeted research into post-infectious conditions like long COVID.

“We have to understand them better because there will be another pandemic and we will be as clueless as ever,” she said.
…

Istanbul — Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan will visit Ethiopia and Somalia early next year after brokering a deal to end tensions between the two Horn of Africa neighbors, he said on X Sunday. 

“I will visit Ethiopia and Somalia in the first two months of the New Year,” he wrote in a message that referred to the deal between Ethiopia’s Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed and Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud in Ankara on December 11.

The pair agreed to end their nearly yearlong bitter dispute after hours of talks brokered by Erdogan, who hailed the breakthrough as “historic.”

The dispute began in January when landlocked Ethiopia struck a deal in with Somalia’s breakaway region Somaliland to lease a stretch of coastline for a port and military base. 

In return, Somaliland — which declared independence from Somalia in 1991 in a move not recognized by Mogadishu — said Ethiopia would give it formal recognition, although this was never confirmed by Addis Ababa.

Somalia branded the deal a violation of its sovereignty, setting international alarm bells ringing over the risk of renewed conflict in the volatile Horn of Africa region.

Turkey stepped in to mediate in July, holding three previous rounds of talks — two in Ankara and one in New York — before last week’s breakthrough, which won praise from the African Union, Washington and Brussels. 

Fresh from his latest diplomatic success, Erdogan on Friday telephoned Sudan’s army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and he offered “to step in to resolve the disputes between Sudan and the United Arab Emirates,” his office said.

Since April 2023, Sudan has been mired in a brutal conflict between army chief Burhan and his former deputy Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo who leads the RSF. 

Sudan’s army-backed government has repeatedly accused the UAE of supporting the RSF — a claim which the UAE has consistently denied.

The war has killed tens of thousands of people and displaced over 11 million more.
…

Kyiv, Ukraine — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced Sunday that he would provide Syria with grain and other agricultural products on a humanitarian basis, a week after the fall of Moscow’s ally, President Bashar al-Assad.

“Now we can help the Syrians with our wheat, flour and oil: our products that are used globally to ensure food security,” he said in his daily address.

“We are coordinating with our partners and the Syrian side to resolve logistical issues. We will support this region so that stability there becomes a foundation for our movement towards real peace,” Zelenskyy added.

According to him, these possible deliveries will be part of the “Grain of Ukraine” program, launched in 2022 to provide food aid to the poorest countries.

Even at war, Ukraine, one of the world’s largest producers of grain, retains immense production capacities.

And despite Moscow’s threats to shoot ships sailing in the Black Sea, Kyiv has set up a corridor there to export its agricultural products from the summer of 2023.

After an 11-day offensive, the rebel coalition dominated by the Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) on Dec. 8 overthrew Assad, who took refuge in Russia.  

The fall was a serious setback for Moscow, which, along with Iran, was the former Syrian president’s main ally and had been intervening militarily in Syria since 2015.
…

AJACCIO, Corsica — Pope Francis on the first papal visit ever to the French island of Corsica on Sunday called for a dynamic form of laicism, promoting the kind of popular piety that distinguishes the Mediterranean island from secular France as a bridge between religious and civic society.

Francis appeared relaxed and energized during the one-day visit, just two days before his 88th birthday, still displaying a faded bruise from a fall a week ago.

He frequently deviated from his prepared homily during Mass at the outdoor La Place d’Austerlitz, remarking at one point that he had never seen so many children as in Corsica — except, he added, in East Timor on his recent Asian tour.

“Make children,” he implored. “They will be your joy and your consolation in the future.”

Earlier, at the close of a Mediterranean conference on popular piety, Papa Francescu, as he is called in Corsican, described a concept of secularity “that is not static and fixed, but evolving and dynamic,” that can adapt to “unforeseen situations” and promote cooperation “between civil and ecclesial authorities.”

The pontiff said that expressions of popular piety, including processions and communal prayer of the Holy Rosary “can nurture constructive citizenship” on the part of Christians. At the same time, he warned against such manifestations being seen only in terms of folklore, or even superstition.

The visit to Corsica’s capital Ajaccio, the birthplace of Napoleon, is one of the briefest of his papacy beyond Italy’s borders, just about nine hours on the ground, including a 40-minute visit with French President Emmanuel Macron.

Francis was joined on the dais by the bishop of Ajaccio, Cardinal Francois-Xavier Bustillo, who organized the conference that brought together some 400 participants from Spain, Sicily, Sardinia and southern France. The two-day meeting examined expressions of faith that often occur outside formal liturgies, such as processions and pilgrimages.

Often specific to the places where they are practiced, popular piety in Corsica includes the cult of the Virgin Mary, known locally as the “Madunnuccia,” which protected the island from the plague in 1656 when it was still under Genoa control.

Corsica stands out from the rest of secularized France as a particularly devout region, with 92 confraternities, or lay associations dedicated to works of charity or piety, with over 4,000 members.

“It means that there is a beautiful, mature, adult and responsible collaboration between civil authorities, mayors, deputies, senators, officials and religious authorities,” Bustillo told The Associated Press ahead of the visit. “There is no hostility between the two. And that is a very positive aspect because in Corsica there is no ideological hostility.”

The visit was awash in signs of popular piety. The pope was greeted by children in traditional garb and was continually serenaded by bands, choruses and singing troupes that are central to Corsican culture from the airport to the motorcade route, convention center and cathedral. Thousands stood along the roadside to greet the pontiff and more waved from windows.

Renè Colombani traveled with 2,000 others by ship from northern Corsica to Ajaccio, on the western coast, to see the pope.

“It is an event that we will not see again in several years. It may be the only time that the pope will come to Corsica. And since we wanted to be a part of it, we have come a long way,” Colombani said.

The island, which Genoa ceded to France in 1768, is located closer to the Italian mainland than France.

From the conference, the pope traveled to the 17th-century cathedral of Santa Maria Assunta to meet with clergy, stopping along the way at the statue of the Madunnuccia where he lit a devotional candle.

The pope celebrated Mass beneath a looming statue of Napoleon Bonaparte, the French emperor whose armies in 1808 annexed the papal states and imprisoned two of Francis’ predecessors — Popes Pius VI and VII — before being excommunicated and eventually defeated on the battlefield. Thousands packed the esplanade where Napoleon is said to have played as a child.

Francis will meet privately with Macron at the airport before departing for the 50-minute flight back to Rome.

They are expected to talk about the world’s crises, including wars in the Middle East and Ukraine, and environment and climate-related issues, Macron’s office said.

The pontiff pointedly did not make the trip to Paris earlier this month for the pomp surrounding the reopening of the Notre Dame Cathedral following the devastating 2019 fire. The visit to Corsica seems far more suited to Francis’ priorities than a grand cathedral reopening, emphasizing the “church of the peripheries.”

It is Francis’ third trip to France, each time avoiding Paris and the protocols that a state visit entails. He visited the port of Marseille in 2023, on an overnight visit to participate in an annual summit of Mediterranean bishops and went to Strasbourg in 2014 to address the European Parliament and Council of Europe.
…

KYIV — Ukrainian drone strikes on southern Russia killed a 9-year-old boy and set fire to a major oil terminal, officials said Saturday, the day after Moscow launched a massive aerial attack on its neighbor that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said was one of the heaviest bombardments of the country’s energy sector in the nearly three-year war.

The boy died when a drone struck his family’s home outside Belgorod, a Russian city near the border with Ukraine, local Gov. Vyacheslav Gladkov reported on Saturday morning on the Telegram messaging app. His mother and 7-month-old sister were hospitalized with injuries, Gladkov said.

He posted photos of what he said was the aftermath of the attack, showing a low-rise house with gaping holes in its roof and front wall flanked by mounds of rubble.

Elsewhere in southern Russia, Ukrainian drones overnight hit a major oil terminal in the Oryol region, sparking a blaze, Ukraine’s General Staff reported. Photos published by the General Staff and on Russian Telegram news channels showed huge plumes of smoke engulfing the facility, backlit by an orange glow.

Oryol Gov. Andrey Klychkov confirmed that a Ukrainian drone strike set fire to a fuel depot. He said later the blaze had been contained and that there were no casualties.

Russia’s Defense Ministry on Saturday claimed its forces shot down 37 Ukrainian drones over the country’s south and west the previous night.

Russia pummels Ukrainian energy targets

The Ukrainian strikes came a day after Russia fired 93 cruise and ballistic missiles and almost 200 drones at its neighbor, further battering Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, around half of which has been destroyed during the war. Rolling electricity blackouts are common and widespread, and Zelenskyy charged Friday that Moscow is “terrorizing millions of people” with such assaults.

According to Ukraine’s air force, Russia kept up its drone attacks on Saturday, launching 132 across Ukrainian territory. Fifty-eight drones were shot down and a further 72 veered off course, likely due to electronic jamming, it said.

The Russian Defense Ministry said its forces used long-range precision missiles and drones on “critically important fuel and energy facilities in Ukraine that ensure the functioning of the military industrial complex.”

The strike was in retaliation for Wednesday’s Ukrainian attack using U.S.-supplied the Army Tactical Missile System, or ATACMs, on a Russian air base, it said.

Kyiv’s Western allies have provided Ukraine with air defense systems to help it protect critical infrastructure, but Russia has sought to overwhelm the air defenses with combined strikes involving large numbers of missiles and drones called “swarms.”

Russia has held the initiative this year as its military has steadily rammed through Ukrainian defenses in the east in a series of slow but steady offensives.

But uncertainty surrounds how the war might unfold next year. U.S. President-elect Donald Trump, who takes office next month, has vowed to end the war and has thrown into doubt whether vital U.S. military support for Kyiv will continue.

North Koreans reportedly in combat in Kursk

Zelenskyy said Saturday that a “significant number” of North Korean troops were being deployed by Moscow in assaults in Russia’s southern Kursk region, where Ukrainian troops have held on following a stunning cross-border incursion this summer.

In a televised address, Zelenskyy said that North Korean soldiers have so far not entered the fight on Ukrainian soil, but claimed they are already taking “noticeable” losses.

Elsewhere, Ukrainian officials reported that Russian shelling on Friday and overnight killed at least two civilians and wounded 14 others in front-line areas Ukraine’s south and northeast.
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