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Families of the 22 people who died in the 2017 terrorist bombing of a concert at Britain’s Manchester Arena are urging authorities to mount corporate manslaughter prosecutions against the firm responsible for security on the night of the attack and the company that runs the arena.   Their demand came Thursday in the wake of the release of a damning official report into the terror attack that detailed nine missed opportunities to thwart the bombing of the Ariana Grande concert by 22-year-old Salman Abedi, a British-Libyan citizen. The report by John Saunders, a former High Court judge, who has led a months-long inquiry into Abedi’s suicide bombing, which also left hundreds injured, found there were grave “systemic failures” ahead of the attack on May 22, 2017. “Everybody concerned with security at the arena should have been doing their job in the knowledge that a terrorist attack might occur on that night. They weren’t,” Saunders said in the report.Abedi, an Islamic State-inspired attacker, should have been identified as a threat on the night of the attack, and if he had been, it is “highly likely” more lives could have been saved, the inquiry found. Saunders concluded “more should have been done” by police and security before Abedi detonated his homemade device.The report concluded the arena’s operator, SMG, security company Showsec and British Transport Police were “principally responsible for the missed opportunities.” Saunders also noted “failings by individuals.” The report has paved the way for substantial civil damages claims to be filed by the families of the dead and those who were injured, according to lawyers acting for the families.Manchester Marks Anniversary of Concert Bombing

        Like last year on May 22 bells will toll across the northern English city of Manchester to mark the anniversary — this time the second— of the suicide bombing of the Manchester Arena that left 23 concert-goers dead, including the attacker, and 139 wounded, more than half of them children.Many of the survivors and relatives of the dead say they remain unable two shake off the terrors of the blast and loss of loved ones. 

Speaking after the publication of the 204-page report examining events leading up to the bombing, Paul Hett, the father of 30-year-old victim Martyn Hett, said the families were failed by the authorities “on every level.” He added, “This atrocity should and could have been prevented, and 22 people would not have lost their lives.” The mother of 32-year-old victim Philip Tron, June Tron, told reporters it was “very hard to accept and understand” the series of security failures and missed opportunities to stop Salman Abedi from detonating his device.“We hope that, as a result of this inquiry, many lessons are learnt and that laws are introduced and changes made quickly to ensure people can go to a concert or a big public event in confidence that they have the best possible protection,” she added.“Prosecutions should be commenced without further delay,” lawyer Elkan Abrahamson, who represents five of the victims’ families, said in a statement to the press.Among the “most striking missed opportunity,” the report found, was when a concert-goer, Christopher Wild, raised his suspicions about Abedi minutes before he detonated his device, but no action was taken and a security guard “fobbed off” the alert. “Christopher Wild’s behavior was very responsible. He stated that he formed the view that Abedi might ‘let a bomb off’. This was sadly all too prescient and makes all the more distressing the fact that no effective steps were taken as a result of the efforts made by Christopher Wild,” Saunders said in the report, which is one of three to be delivered on errors ahead of the attack.The inquiry also was critical of two police officers who, despite being on duty, took a two-hour break to go for a kebab five miles away from the arena. The British Transport Police (BTP), the force responsible for patrolling the concert, was accused by Saunders of failing “to give adequate consideration to the threat of terrorism” despite Britain being under a “severe” terrorism warning at the time.Abedi was wearing a large backpack containing his shrapnel-filled bomb and was able to hide for more than an hour in a room inside the arena complex. The inquiry viewed security video of the suicide bomber as he entered the arena “bent over” and was “struggling to walk” because of the 32-kilogram weight of the bag containing the bomb. He detonated the device as thousands of concertgoers, many of them children and teenagers, were leaving the auditorium.FILE – Concert goers flee the Manchester Arena in northern England where US singer Ariana Grande had been performing in Manchester, Britain, May 22, 2017.SMG, the arena’s operator, failed to “instruct an expert in security” to conduct a comprehensive review of security arrangements for the event, according to Saunders. Its specific risk assessment also was “inadequate” and “descended into a box-ticking exercise.”  
 
Showsec, the security firm hired by SMG, also came in for scathing criticism, over the absence of patrols and inadequate training for security staff. Showsec is owned by Live Nation, the world’s biggest music promotion company.Future reports into the bombing will examine whether Britain’s security services and counterterrorism police should have mounted surveillance on the Manchester-born Abedi, who had just returned to Britain before the bombing after a month-long stay in Tripoli, ostensibly to visit family.
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EU foreign ministers will look to agree sanctions on key sectors of the Belarus economy Monday to punish the authorities after the forced landing of an airliner, diplomats said.Ministers meeting in Luxembourg are set to discuss broad-ranging measures designed to hit the regime of President Alexander Lukashenko “in the wallet”, a European diplomat told AFP on Friday.  
The sanctions are expected to target mainstays of the Belarusian economy, including potash fertilizer exports, the tobacco sector, and petroleum and petrochemical products, diplomats said.
They will also tighten restrictions on exports from the bloc of arms and equipment that can be used to crackdown on demonstrators, diplomats said.”We are talking about sanctions that will hurt,” the diplomat said.Diplomats said there is still disagreement over targeting the financial sector due to opposition from EU member Austria, which has deep banking ties with the country.Belarusian strongman Lukashenko sparked international outrage by dispatching a fighter jet on May 23 to intercept Ryanair’s Athens-to-Vilnius flight.Jailed Belarusian Journalist Raman Pratasevich Appears at Press Conference Pratasevich claimed he was fine, but some say his appearance was made under duress When the plane was forced to land in Minsk, Belarus arrested dissident journalist Roman Protasevich and his girlfriend Sofia Sapega on board.In response, the EU has already blocked Belarusian airlines from flying to the bloc and stopped carriers from its 27 nations from using Belarusian air space.Ministers on Monday are also set to formally sign off on placing more than 80 additional individuals and entities on an assets freeze and visa ban blacklist.Seven of the individuals being sanctioned are linked directly to the incident involving the Ryanair passenger jet last month and the rest are targeted over the government’s broader crackdown on opposition, diplomats said.Last year, the EU slapped sanctions on 88 individuals — including Lukashenko and his son — over a brutal crackdown on protests since the veteran leader claimed victory at elections in August deemed fraudulent by the West.Lukashenko — who has ruled Belarus since 1994 — has so far shrugged off the pressure with backing from his key ally Russia.Exiled opposition leader Svetlana Tikhanovskaya — who insists she rightfully won last year’s poll — will meet EU foreign ministers before their meeting on Monday.
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The U.N. refugee agency, which just released its 2020 Global Trends report, said the number of people forcibly displaced last year by wars, violence, persecution and human rights violations hit a record high of 82.4 million, 4% more than in 2019.This is the ninth consecutive year that forced displacement figures have continued to rise. Even lockdowns and border closures because of the coronavirus pandemic have not stopped people from fleeing for their lives in the face of war and atrocities.Of the more than 82 million forcibly displaced, 26.4 million are refugees, who have crossed international borders in search of protection. Most of the rest are people displaced within their own countries because of conflict and violence.U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi said the number of internally displaced people has doubled over the past 10 years.“We are now in excess of one percent of humanity being forcibly displaced,” Grandi said. “And one of the many figures that to me is quite interesting and striking is that 42% of these people are children.”The report found that more than two-thirds of all refugees who have fled abroad come from just five countries — Syria, Venezuela, Afghanistan, South Sudan, and Myanmar. For the seventh consecutive year, Turkey has hosted the largest number of refugees, followed by Colombia, Pakistan, Uganda, and Germany.Grandi said new crises that have caused fresh displacements include northern Mozambique, where violence by armed groups, poverty, climate change and other factors have displaced up to 700,000 people.He said violence in countries in the Central Sahel, including Burkina Faso, Niger and Mali, has prompted 750,000 people to flee their homes.“And then, of course, Ethiopia, where the Tigray crisis has provoked up to — and we are not even sure about that — up to 1 million additional internally displaced people in addition to about 50 to 60,000 that have crossed the border into Sudan.”High Commissioner Grandi said the global trend for displacement crises in 2021 is not looking good. In the first six months of this year, he said, very few refugees have returned home and protracted refugee crises have stagnated.At the same time, he said, new crises are arising, churning out new refugees and internally displaced people faster than solutions can be found.
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Cybersecurity experts have been poring over the transcripts from Wednesday’s news conferences in Geneva to determine whether the U.S.-Russia summit will produce real progress in halting a wave of high-profile ransomware attacks. For most, the answer is: It’s too soon to tell. In the run-up to the meeting between President Joe Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin, cyberattacks for ransom emanating from Russia emerged as a critical national security issue for the United States. Concern over Russia’s purported role in these attacks grew after ransomware criminals believed to be based in Russia breached the computer networks of Colonial Pipeline — the largest pipeline system for refined oil products in the U.S. — and beef processing giant JBS last month.FILE – A JBS Processing Plant stands dormant after halting operations on June 1, 2021 in Greeley, Colorado. JBS facilities around the globe were impacted by a ransomware attack, forcing many of their facilities to shut down.Biden vowed to confront Putin over ransomware. But while no breakthrough over cybersecurity emerged from the summit, the two leaders agreed to start consultations over the issue.  Cyber consultations  Experts from the two countries will be tasked to work on “specific understandings of what’s off-limits” and to follow up on cyberattacks that originate in either country, Biden said.   What that will entail remains to be seen, but cybersecurity experts say the talks will likely be conducted by working groups composed of low-level officials from across the Biden administration and their Russian counterparts.   Sixteen exemptions The president said he handed Putin a list of 16 sectors such as energy and water services that the U.S. insists are out of bounds to attacks. These were designated as critical infrastructure sectors under a 2013 presidential directive.   “I talked about the proposition that certain critical infrastructure should be off-limits to attack, period — by cyber or any other means,” Biden told reporters.  FILE – A gasoline station posts signage saying that it has run out of unleaded and mid-grade fuel and has a $20 limit on super, following a ransomware attack on Colonial Pipeline, at the pump in Atlanta, May 11, 2021.In addition to energy and water systems, the list includes information technology, health care and public health, and food and agriculture — all of which have been the FILE – John Demers of the National Security Division speaks during a press conference at the Justice Department in Washington, Oct. 7, 2020.John Demers, the outgoing head of the Justice Department’s national security division, said that while the U.S. has in the past asked Russia for information on cybercriminals, it has all but given up on seeking cooperation.    “I think we’ve reached the stage today where there’s very little point in doing so,” Demers said at an event Tuesday sponsored by public sector media company CyberScoop.  Biden said Russia will be judged by its actions.”Of course, the principle is one thing,” the president said. “It has to be backed up by practice. Responsible countries need to take action against criminals who conduct ransomware activities on their territory.”  U.S. cyber offensive capability  Biden said that while he issued no threats during the roughly three-hour meeting, he made it clear there will be consequences for Russian actions, telling Putin, “If you do that, then we’ll do this.”    In recent years, the U.S. has significantly bolstered its offensive cyber capabilities. The United States Cyber Command is tasked with carrying out cyberspace operations against malicious foreign actors. As part of an offensive cyber operation, Cyber Command can block a target’s internet access, destroy its databases or take down the group’s entire computer network. “I pointed out to him we have significant cyber capability, and he knows it,” Biden said of Putin. “He doesn’t know exactly what it is, but it’s significant.”  In 2018, a U.S. cyber operation reportedly blocked Russian troll farm Internet Research Agency’s internet access. Last year, Cyber Command, along with the National Security Agency, reportedly carried out a cyber operation against hackers working for Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps after they sent threatening emails to U.S. voters to undermine confidence in the November presidential elections.
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U.S. President Joe Biden and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan agreed in a meeting this week that Turkey would take a lead role in securing Kabul’s airport as the United States withdraws troops from Afghanistan, U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivan said Thursday. The two leaders, however, could not resolve the long-standing issue of Turkey’s purchase of a Russian S-400 defense system, Sullivan said, a bitter dispute that strained ties between the NATO allies. He added that dialogue on the issue would continue. Sullivan told reporters that Biden and Erdogan, in their meeting on Monday at the NATO summit, had discussed the Afghanistan issue. Erdogan sought certain forms of U.S. support to secure the airport, and Biden committed to providing that support, Sullivan said. “The clear commitment from the leaders was established that Turkey would play a lead role in securing Hamid Karzai International Airport, and we are now working through how to execute to get to that,” Sullivan said, giving the first details from the U.S. side of the meeting, for which the Turkish presidency has not provided details. FILE – People arrive at the domestic terminal of the Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul, May 8, 2018.Turkey and the United States have been at odds over a host of issues including Ankara’s purchase of Russian weaponry and policy differences in Syria and the Eastern Mediterranean, and expectations for a breakthrough in first face-to-face meeting between Erdogan and Biden were slim. The leaders sounded upbeat after their meeting, although they did not announce what concrete progress they made. One potential area of cooperation has been Afghanistan, where Ankara has offered to guard and operate the Kabul airport after U.S. and NATO forces withdraw in coming weeks. The security of the airport is crucial for the operation of diplomatic missions out of Afghanistan as Western forces pull out. Last week, a Taliban spokesman said Turkey should withdraw its troops from Afghanistan under the 2020 deal for the pullout of U.S. forces, but Sullivan said the Taliban comments did not deter the “detailed and effective” security plan the United States was putting together. “Obviously we take seriously the concern that Taliban or other elements in Afghanistan will attack the Western or the international presence. … We do not believe that what the Taliban has said publicly should or will deter the efforts under way right now to establish that security presence,” he said. As president, Biden has adopted a cooler tone toward Erdogan than had predecessor Donald Trump. Biden quickly recognized the 1915 massacre of Armenians as genocide — a position that angers Turkey — and stepped up criticism of Turkey’s human rights record. But it was not clear whether Biden raised the human rights issue with Erdogan during his meeting, and Sullivan provided little detail on how, if at all, the impasse over the S-400, which prompted Washington to remove Ankara from the F-35 fighter jet program and impose sanctions, would be resolved. FILE – First parts of a Russian S-400 missile defense system are unloaded from a Russian plane near Ankara, Turkey, July 12, 2019.”They discussed it. There was not a resolution of the issue. There was a commitment to continue the dialogue on the S-400, and the two teams will be following up on that coming out of the meeting,” he said. 
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During their summit in Geneva on June 16, U.S. President Joe Biden raised the issue of Kremlin pressure against RFE/RL’s Russian-language services in Russia with Russian President Vladimir Putin.   The United States has accused Russia of attempting to drive RFE/RL out of the country by listing it as a “foreign agent” media organization and imposing fines against it for failing to comply with requirements that all its materials be prominently labeled.   President Joe Biden speaks during a news conference after meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, June 16, 2021, in Geneva, Switzerland.”I also raised the ability of Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty to operate and the importance of a free press and freedom of speech,” Biden said at his press conference in Geneva when listing some of the issues the two leaders discussed.   The same day, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) agreed to hear an appeal by RFE/RL against the Russian government over the “foreign agent” label and the labelling requirements.   At his own separate news conference following the summit talks, Putin said that Biden “raised the question of the work of Liberty and, uh, their Free Europes in Russia.”   Russian President Vladimir Putin gestures as he speaks during a news conference after his meeting with U.S President Joe Biden at Villa La Grange in Geneva, Switzerland, June 16, 2021.He repeated the Kremlin’s assertion that the labeling of RFE/RL’s Russian-language outlets — including Current Time, a network run by RFE/RL in cooperation with VOA — as “foreign agents” was a response to a 2017 decision by the United States to compel Russian state-controlled network RT, sometimes known as Russia Today, to register under a 1938 law called the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA). Russia Using Foreign Agent Law to Attack Journalism, Media SayExorbitant fines, repressive accounting of all personal spending, and labels that sow distrust are part of Russia’s ‘fight against the spread of ideas,’ say those affected by legislation”It should be noted that Russia Today fulfills all the demands of the [U.S.] regulators and the law — they registered as required and so on,” Putin said. “Unfortunately, the American media don’t completely comply with the requirements of Russian law.”   FARA does not require that every news story be prominently labeled as the product of a “foreign agent” media organization. The U.S. decision to compel RT to register came after a January 2017 U.S. intelligence finding that RT and Russia’s Sputnik news agency spread disinformation as part of a Kremlin effort to undermine faith in the U.S. democracy and influence the 2016 presidential election in favor of Republican candidate and eventual winner Donald Trump.   Moscow has denied any such effort.   In Geneva, Putin expressed the “hope” that “we will manage to settle this” diplomatically.   ‘Patriotic Russians’ In a statement following the Geneva summit, RFE/RL President Jamie Fly rejected the “foreign agent” label.   “RFE/RL journalists are not ‘foreign agents,'” Fly said. “They are patriotic Russians who are only trying to serve their fellow citizens by giving them objective news and information. The Kremlin’s ongoing attacks against our journalists and other independent media outlets only serve to deprive the Russian people of their right to access uncensored information.”   Russia’s so-called “foreign agent” legislation was adopted in 2012 and has been modified repeatedly. It requires nongovernmental organizations that receive foreign assistance and that the government deems to be engaged in political activity to be registered, to identify themselves as “foreign agents,” and to submit to audits.   Later modifications targeted foreign-funded media. In 2017, the Russian government placed RFE/RL’s Russian Service on the list, along with six other RFE/RL Russian-language news services and Current Time. The Russian Service of VOA was also added to the list.   At the end of 2020, the legislation was modified to allow the Russian government to include individuals, including foreign journalists, on its “foreign agents” list and to impose restrictions on them. Several RFE/RL contributors were placed on the list in December 2020.  Putin Signs Laws Imposing Fines for ‘Foreign Agent’ Law Violations, Protest-Related OffensesLatеst versions of the laws target foreign-funded media, including RFE/RL, and raise fines for acts of civil disobedienceThe Russian state media monitor Roskomnadzor last year adopted rules requiring listed media to mark all written materials with a lengthy notice in large text, all radio materials with an audio statement, and all video materials with a 15-second text declaration.   RFE/RL rejects the “foreign agent” designation and has refused to comply with the rules, so the agency has prepared hundreds of complaints against RFE/RL’s projects. The total fines levied could run to more than $3 million.   ‘Coercion and intimidation’ RFE/RL has called the fines “a state-sponsored campaign of coercion and intimidation,” while the U.S. State Department has described them as “intolerable.” Human Rights Watch has described the foreign agent legislation as “restrictive” and intended “to demonize independent groups.”   In April, U.S. State Department spokesman Ned Price said that “Russia’s actions against RFE/RL and other media organizations labeled as so-called ‘foreign agents’ reflect significant intolerance and oppressive restrictions.”   “Should the Russian government continue to move to forcibly shut down RFE/RL, we will respond,” Price said, without elaborating.   While RT distributes its programs freely in the United States on cable television, RFE/RL and VOA have no access to cable television in Russia.   RFE/RL once had distribution agreements with nearly 100 radio channels inside Russia, but had lost them all by 2012 following a campaign of pressure by the authorities.   RFE/RL is an editorially independent media company funded by a grant from the U.S. Congress through the U.S. Agency for Global Media. Each week, nearly 7 million people access RFE/RL’s news portals in Russia.   Robert Coalson is a senior correspondent for RFE/RL who covers Russia, the Balkans, and Eastern Europe. 
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In an effort to escape the insecurity and war in Afghanistan, thousands of Afghans make a difficult journey to Turkey illegally each year. VOA’s Lima Niazi brings us the story of two friends whose journey through Turkey and Europe ended, back in Afghanistan. Bezhan Hamdard narrates.Camera: Lima Niazi   Produced by: Lima Niazi 
 
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The United Nations warns accelerating climate change is causing a dramatic intensification of global drought disasters, which are threatening agricultural production, the world’s safe water supply and other essential aspects of human development.   The U.N. Office for Disaster Risk Reduction has launched a “Special Report on Drought 2021.”  U.N. researchers say drought has affected more people around the world in the past four decades than any other natural disaster.  The U.N. report warns the impact of the climate-driven drought emergency on the lives and livelihoods of people across the planet will worsen in the coming years.  The U.N. Secretary-General’s Special Representative for Disaster Risk Reduction Mami Mizutori says drought has directly affected 1.5 billion people so far this century.  She says most of the world will be living with water stress in the next few years as drought disasters grow.  She says drought is a major factor in land degradation and is responsible for declining yields of major crops.  She adds shifting rainfall patterns and variability pose a risk to the 70 percent of global agriculture that is rainfall-dependent.”A warming planet threatens to multiply the number of people without access to safe water and sanitation, thereby seriously increasing the spread of diseases, the risk of displacement and the potential even for conflict over scarce water resources,” Mizutori said. G-7 Ministers Discuss COVID Vaccines, Climate ChangeForeign ministers of world’s wealthiest democracies are meeting ahead of a summit of the group’s heads of state next month  While droughts always have been part of the human experience, the damage and costs resulting from them are seriously underestimated.  The report estimates the global economic costs arising from drought from 1998 to 2017 of at least $124 billion.The World Health Organization considers drought to be the most serious hazard to livestock and crops in nearly every part of the world.  It says water scarcity impacts 40 percent of the world’s population.  WHO projects as many as 700 million people are at risk of being displaced by 2030 because of drought.Leading co-author of the report Roger Pulwarty agrees the data contained within the report is grim but does not see an apocalyptic picture ahead.  “I do not think that there is in fact this issue surrounding the collapse of civilizations…We are not seeing truly an increase in the frequency of drought,” Pulwarty said. “But we are seeing that where they occur in the different regions in which they do exist, an increase in intensification when they occur and the rapid onset of drought.”   Over the millennia, Pulwarty notes people have found ways to adapt to risks from drought and other natural disasters.  He says lessons learned from over 20 cases around the world – including the Horn of Africa and the Euphrates and Tigris River system in Western Asia  – have been incorporated in the report. However, he says tried and true drought management measures taken in the past must be adapted to meet the challenges of today’s changing nature of drought risk.
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Spain’s Rafael Nadal will not play at Wimbledon or at the Tokyo Olympics, saying Thursday he has decided to skip the two tournaments after “listening” to his body.Nadal, who reached the French Open semifinals this month but lost to Novak Djokovic, won the title at Wimbledon twice. He also won the Olympic gold medal in singles at the 2008 Beijing Olympics.”The goal is to prolong my career and continue to do what makes me happy, that is to compete at the highest level and keep fighting for those professional and personal goals at the maximum level of competition,” Nadal said.He said the fact there was only two weeks between Roland Garros and Wimbledon “didn’t make it easier” on his body to recover from “the always demanding” clay-court season.
 
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French forces in Mali have captured a man they describe as a “high-ranking fighter of the Islamic State in the Greater Sahara” (EIGS), the French military said Wednesday.  Dadi Ould Chouaib, also known as Abou Dardar, was arrested June 11 in the flashpoint “tri-border” region between Niger, Mali and Burkina Faso, the site of frequent attacks by extremist groups, the military said in a statement. He was carrying “an automatic weapon, a night vision telescope, a combat vest, a telephone and a radio,” but surrendered without resistance. He was located during a helicopter sweep as part of a joint mission between troops from France’s Barkhane operation and Nigerien forces.  Niger’s army said in a statement late Wednesday that the joint operation, launched June 8, had led to a clash Tuesday with “armed terrorists” that left a Nigerien dead and “12 terrorists neutralized.”  The term “neutralized” means “killed” in West African military contexts.  Dardar was formerly a member of the al-Qaida-linked Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa (MUJAO), many of whose fighters had joined EIGS. First arrested in 2014, he was handed over to Malian authorities.  But he was one of around 200 prisoners released in October 2020 in exchange for four hostages, including French aid worker Sophie Petronin.  Dardar is suspected to have been one of the armed men who mutilated three people at a market in Tin Hama in northern Mali on May 2, cutting off their hands and feet, according to local sources. According to the United Nations’ Mali mission, MINUSMA, the armed men were suspected of belonging to EIGS.  Dardar’s arrest will come as welcome news for France, after President Emmanuel Macron promised in February to step up efforts to “decapitate” extremist groups in the Sahel region. FILE – French President Emmanuel Macron visits French troops in Africa’s Sahel region in Gao, northern Mali, May 19, 2017.France, the former colonial power in all three “tri-border” countries, is pursuing a strategy of targeting the leaders of militant groups. Its military presence in the semiarid Sahel, Operation Barkhane, recently called for the elimination of a high-ranking fighter of the al-Qaida group in the Islamic Maghreb, an adversary of EIGS in the area.Baye Ag Bakabo was responsible for the kidnapping and death of two French RFI journalists, Ghislaine Dupont and Claude Verlon, who were killed in northern Mali in 2013.  Macron recently announced that France will wind down its 5,100-strong Barkhane force, which has battled extremist groups in the Sahel for eight years.  He said earlier this month that he sees France’s future presence as being part of the so-called Takuba international task force in the Sahel, in which “hundreds” of French soldiers would form the “backbone.” FILE – The France-led special operations logo for the new Barkhane Task Force Takuba, a multinational military mission in sub-Saharan Africa’s troubled Sahel region, is seen Nov. 3, 2020.It would mean the closure of French bases and the use of special forces who would be focused on anti-terror operations and military training, he said. But Macron’s plans have fueled fears that certain areas of the Sahel, in particular northern Mali, will pass completely into the hands of extremist groups, as local authorities appear unable to restore their grip on the region. 
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U.S. President Joe Biden and Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin ended their summit with positive assessments of their meeting, but clear differences remain. White House Correspondent Patsy Widakuswara has this report from Geneva.
Producer: Kimberlyn Weeks
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