Eight years after their triumphant arrival, French soldiers leave Timbuktu (Mali)
On the modest place d'armes of the Barkhane Operation camp in Timbuktu, three soldiers carefully repaint the base of the French flag whose days are numbered in white: Tuesday evening, the small base in northern Mali will have been returned to the Malian army. The departure of the French army from Timbuktu, after Kidal and Tessalit, marks a strong symbolic turning point: it is in this city, a holy city of Islam listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, that President François Hollande formalized the beginning of the French intervention. It was February 2, 2013, a few days after the drop of legionnaires on the city placed for eight months under the yoke of jihadist groups. Mr. Hollande, landed from Paris, and his Malian counterpart at the time, Dioncounda Traoré, were all smiles: the Malian and French armies had liberated the city.
7.3 magnitude earthquake in Indonesia, warning of a possible tsunami
A 7.3 magnitude earthquake struck eastern Indonesia on Tuesday, the USGS institute said, and the Tsunami Warning Center has issued a warning of the possibility of dangerous waves. The earthquake occurred at 03:20 GMT in the Flores Sea, about 100 km from the town of Maumere, and at a depth of 18.5 km, according to the USGS. This institute initially estimated the magnitude at 7.6 and the depth at 76 km. "Dangerous waves are possible along coasts within 1,000 km of the epicentre," the Honolulu-based Pacific Tsunami Warning Center warned. The USGS assessed the risk that this earthquake caused casualties to be low.
IN SHORT
US soldiers implicated in a drone strike that killed ten civilians including seven children in Kabul at the end of August, during the chaotic withdrawal of troops from the airport, will not be punished, the Pentagon announced on Monday.
Named personality of the year by the American magazine Time on Monday, Elon Musk, boss of Tesla and SpaceX and the richest man on the planet, is not unanimous, arousing both admiration and harsh criticism. At 5O, he is at the head of a fortune estimated by Forbes at more than 260 billion dollars.
Six people were arrested after the attack in November on the customs office in Pointe-à-Pitre, the public prosecutor of this city of Guadeloupe said on Monday, adding that several of them had been presented on Monday. to an examining magistrate.