BAMAKO // Two French radio journalists were found dead after being kidnapped by armed men in northern Mali in what President Francois Hollande called a “despicable” act as he ordered an emergency ministers’ meeting for Sunday.
Ghislaine Dupont and Claude Verlon of Radio France Internationale (RFI) had travelled on Saturday to the northern city of Kidal to interview a spokesman for the Tuareg separatist group the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA), and were abducted outside his home, according to their employer.
RFI said MNLA spokesman Ambery Ag Rhissa said he heard a commotion outside and “saw the kidnappers put the journalists into a beige 4X4”.
Men in turbans and speaking the Tuareg language of Tamashek “ordered Mr Ag Rhissa to get back inside and forced the journalists’ driver to lie down”, RFI said, adding that he had heard Verlon and Dupont resist and protest at their abduction.
“This was the last time that the journalists were seen alive,” said Marie-Christine Saragosse, CEO of France Media Monde, which owns RFI.
Mr Hollande expressed “his indignation over this despicable act”, in a statement from his office.
The French leader, who sent troops to Mali in January to oust Islamist rebels from the north, called a meeting of his ministers for Sunday to establish “jointly with Malian authorities and UN forces, the circumstances of the killings”.
Mr Hollande and Malian leader Ibrahim Boubacar Keita spoke over the telephone, reaffirming their determination “to relentlessly pursue the fight against terrorist groups that are present in northern Mali”, the French president’s office said.
The UN Security Council members also “strongly condemned” the slaying of the journalists and “reiterated their full support” for the UN mission in Mali, a statement said.
The fatal kidnapping occurred just days after four Frenchmen held hostage in neighbouring Niger were freed reportedly for a huge ransom, a claim France denied.
The exact circumstances of the journalists’ deaths are not yet known.
French army spokesman Colonel Gilles Jaron said French forces in Mali, alerted about the kidnapping, immediately sent out a patrol and two helicopters.
“The bodies of the two journalists were found by the patrol about 12km east of Kidal on the ground near a vehicle that had stopped,” Col Jaron said, adding it was about two hours after their abduction.
Dupont, 57, was an African affairs specialist who had spent 27 years covering the continent since joining RFI in 1986, including stints in Ethiopia, Sudan and 10 years in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
“She always wanted to dig, dig deeper and she shared this passion with us and always encouraged us to go further,” her colleague Nicolas Champeaux said.
RFI said Verlon, 55, who had been at the station since 1982, was a seasoned journalist who was “used to difficult terrain across the world”.
A spokesman for European foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton said there was “great sadness” on hearing news of the incident.
The spokesman added the deaths were a “heinous crime” which must not go “unpunished”.
The press group Reporters without Borders called the killings “an unspeakable and revolting act”.
Moussa Ag Assarid, the MNLA’s spokesman in Europe, told the French i-Tele news channel the journalists had been abducted by “unknown elements”.
The town of Kidal, situated more than 1,500km northeast of Mali’s capital Bamako, is the traditional homeland of the Tuareg people and the birthplace of the MNLA’s rebellion.
A French government source said the journalists had asked to be taken there with troops from France’s Operation Serval mission but ended up going with the United Nations’ MINUSMA peacekeeping force after Serval refused for safety reasons.
The deaths have added to security concerns following an upsurge in rebel violence in the aftermath of the French military intervention that ousted armed groups linked to Al Qaeda from northern Mali cities. They had taken control in the north in the chaos following a March 2012 coup.
Mali is set to hold parliamentary elections in three weeks which are supposed to mark the completion of the country’s transition back to democracy.
The MNLA took control of Kidal in February but the Malian authorities finally reclaimed the city after signing a deal with the MNLA on June 18 aimed at reuniting the country.
Under the deal, MNLA forces moved into barracks as regular Malian troops were deployed to secure Kidal.
Some 2,000 French troops from an initial deployment of 3,000 will remain on the ground – including around Kidal – until the end of December, with the withdrawal of a further 1,000 to be completed by the end of January.
MINUSMA is eventually expected to comprise about 12,600 troops and police but Malian soldiers have nevertheless voiced concerns over the prospect of France’s departure from its former colony.
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Starring: Nicole Kidman, Liev Schreiber, Jack Reynor
Creator: Jenna Lamia
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UPI facts
More than 2.2 million Indian tourists arrived in UAE in 2023
More than 3.5 million Indians reside in UAE
Indian tourists can make purchases in UAE using rupee accounts in India through QR-code-based UPI real-time payment systems
Indian residents in UAE can use their non-resident NRO and NRE accounts held in Indian banks linked to a UAE mobile number for UPI transactions
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7.40pm Laser Show
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10pm: Beyond Reason
Sri Lanka-India Test series schedule
- 1st Test India won by 304 runs at Galle
- 2nd Test Thursday-Monday at Colombo
- 3rd Test August 12-16 at Pallekele
Attacks on Egypt’s long rooted Copts
Egypt’s Copts belong to one of the world’s oldest Christian communities, with Mark the Evangelist credited with founding their church around 300 AD. Orthodox Christians account for the overwhelming majority of Christians in Egypt, with the rest mainly made up of Greek Orthodox, Catholics and Anglicans.
The community accounts for some 10 per cent of Egypt’s 100 million people, with the largest concentrations of Christians found in Cairo, Alexandria and the provinces of Minya and Assiut south of Cairo.
Egypt’s Christians have had a somewhat turbulent history in the Muslim majority Arab nation, with the community occasionally suffering outright persecution but generally living in peace with their Muslim compatriots. But radical Muslims who have first emerged in the 1970s have whipped up anti-Christian sentiments, something that has, in turn, led to an upsurge in attacks against their places of worship, church-linked facilities as well as their businesses and homes.
More recently, ISIS has vowed to go after the Christians, claiming responsibility for a series of attacks against churches packed with worshippers starting December 2016.
The discrimination many Christians complain about and the shift towards religious conservatism by many Egyptian Muslims over the last 50 years have forced hundreds of thousands of Christians to migrate, starting new lives in growing communities in places as far afield as Australia, Canada and the United States.
Here is a look at major attacks against Egypt's Coptic Christians in recent years:
November 2: Masked gunmen riding pickup trucks opened fire on three buses carrying pilgrims to the remote desert monastery of St. Samuel the Confessor south of Cairo, killing 7 and wounding about 20. IS claimed responsibility for the attack.
May 26, 2017: Masked militants riding in three all-terrain cars open fire on a bus carrying pilgrims on their way to the Monastery of St. Samuel the Confessor, killing 29 and wounding 22. ISIS claimed responsibility for the attack.
April 2017: Twin attacks by suicide bombers hit churches in the coastal city of Alexandria and the Nile Delta city of Tanta. At least 43 people are killed and scores of worshippers injured in the Palm Sunday attack, which narrowly missed a ceremony presided over by Pope Tawadros II, spiritual leader of Egypt Orthodox Copts, in Alexandria's St. Mark's Cathedral. ISIS claimed responsibility for the attacks.
February 2017: Hundreds of Egyptian Christians flee their homes in the northern part of the Sinai Peninsula, fearing attacks by ISIS. The group's North Sinai affiliate had killed at least seven Coptic Christians in the restive peninsula in less than a month.
December 2016: A bombing at a chapel adjacent to Egypt's main Coptic Christian cathedral in Cairo kills 30 people and wounds dozens during Sunday Mass in one of the deadliest attacks carried out against the religious minority in recent memory. ISIS claimed responsibility.
July 2016: Pope Tawadros II says that since 2013 there were 37 sectarian attacks on Christians in Egypt, nearly one incident a month. A Muslim mob stabs to death a 27-year-old Coptic Christian man, Fam Khalaf, in the central city of Minya over a personal feud.
May 2016: A Muslim mob ransacks and torches seven Christian homes in Minya after rumours spread that a Christian man had an affair with a Muslim woman. The elderly mother of the Christian man was stripped naked and dragged through a street by the mob.
New Year's Eve 2011: A bomb explodes in a Coptic Christian church in Alexandria as worshippers leave after a midnight mass, killing more than 20 people.
Key facilities
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- Premier League-standard football pitch
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- 600-seat auditorium
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- An elevated football field that doubles as a helipad
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The rules on fostering in the UAE
A foster couple or family must:
- be Muslim, Emirati and be residing in the UAE
- not be younger than 25 years old
- not have been convicted of offences or crimes involving moral turpitude
- be free of infectious diseases or psychological and mental disorders
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The specs
Engine: Four electric motors, one at each wheel
Power: 579hp
Torque: 859Nm
Transmission: Single-speed automatic
Price: From Dh825,900
On sale: Now
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
Election pledges on migration
CDU: "Now is the time to control the German borders and enforce strict border rejections"
SPD: "Border closures and blanket rejections at internal borders contradict the spirit of a common area of freedom"
BIGGEST CYBER SECURITY INCIDENTS IN RECENT TIMES
SolarWinds supply chain attack: Came to light in December 2020 but had taken root for several months, compromising major tech companies, governments and its entities
Microsoft Exchange server exploitation: March 2021; attackers used a vulnerability to steal emails
Kaseya attack: July 2021; ransomware hit perpetrated REvil, resulting in severe downtime for more than 1,000 companies
Log4j breach: December 2021; attackers exploited the Java-written code to inflitrate businesses and governments
Skewed figures
In the village of Mevagissey in southwest England the housing stock has doubled in the last century while the number of residents is half the historic high. The village's Neighbourhood Development Plan states that 26% of homes are holiday retreats. Prices are high, averaging around £300,000, £50,000 more than the Cornish average of £250,000. The local average wage is £15,458.