Corona sweeps France with 200 thousand daily injuries and warnings of a “flood of injuries”

Akar: We are closely following the developments in the Balkans and will continue to support Kosovo and Bosnia

Hulusi Akar affirmed that his country will do its best to contribute to security and defense issues in the Balkans.

Turkish Defense Minister Hulusi Akar confirmed that his country is closely following developments in the Balkans, especially in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo.

This came in a speech during his inspection of the Turkish forces operating within the peacekeeping force in the city of Prizren, as part of an official visit to Kosovo.

Akar stated that his country will continue to stand by Kosovo, and will do its best to contribute to security and defense issues.

He added, "The comfort, security and stability of our brothers and friends here (in the Balkans) makes us happy, and otherwise sad."

He pointed out that the Turkish army, in addition to its tasks in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the United Nations, the European Union and the European Organization for Security and Cooperation "AGİT", is present in many brotherly and friendly countries within the framework of bilateral relations.

At the end of his tour, he visited the Turkish consulate in Prizren, then toured the city center, where he was well received by the citizens.

The year of deflation in Africa the outcome of France's defeats in the Sahel region in 2021

France has experienced a year of successive defeats in Africa, led by the Sahel region, whose influence there has reached its weakest level, shrinking in the face of popular rejection and military coups on the one hand, and Russian pressure armed with "Wagner" mercenaries on the other.

Since the failure of its adventure in Libya on the doorstep of Tripoli in 2020, France has been receiving successive blows on the brown continent. This explains the significant decline in its influence in the Sahel region throughout the year that we are close to bidding farewell to it. In front of the expansion of Russian influence through the tool of its mercenaries, taking advantage of the general discontent that the presence of the old colonizer reaps on the lands of its former colonies.

Popular anger, the most prominent characteristic of which is the certainty that France has failed in all that it promised to those poor countries, on top of that achieving security and fighting “terrorist groups” in the region, which Paris used as a pretext for its military presence there. In addition to the coup in Mali, the war in Chad in which the Elysee man, President Idriss Deby, was killed, and the French-Algerian relations reached the highest levels of tension. All facts combined to form a year of trouble in Paris.

Popular anger

The French military presence in the Sahel did not succeed in achieving the goal for which it claimed that it was presented, to fight armed groups that terrorize civilians. These groups are still spread in Mali, and their influence extends to parts of Niger and Burkina Faso. Last June, these groups carried out an attack within the Burkinabe border, killing nearly 160 civilians, including 20 children. Also, on March 21, Niger was subjected to major attacks on villages in the Tila region near the Mali border, which left 141 people dead.

Since 2020, the attacks of armed groups in the Sahel region of West Africa have sharply increased, causing nearly 500 deaths, most of them civilians, in Burkina Faso alone. The violations committed by the French-led coalition forces against civilians also increased, and in March a UN investigation revealed that an air strike carried out by the French army in Mali, on January 3, had killed 19 civilians.

Faced with this reality, the peoples of those countries rose up, and in May hundreds of millions of people took to the streets to demand the withdrawal of the French military forces. As in Burkina Faso, protesters chanted: "We want France to leave" and "Kaya says to the French army: Go back to your country."

Bleeding allies

Just as France lost the popular support for its existence, it also lost the leaders of those countries loyal to it, which began to fall under the weight of the coups. Most notably, the second coup in Mali on May 24, which was led by Colonel Asimi Gueta, who leaned toward the Russians. France learned at the time that its influence in the region was fading, by withdrawing its 5,100 soldiers and ending Operation Barkhane, which it has been leading since 2013. The French president said at the time, "Our commitment in the Sahel will not continue in the same way. We will begin a profound change of our military presence in the Sahel."

In Chad, the French situation was also not good, as the country's president and the trusted man of Paris, Idriss Deby, fell dead in battles led by his army to prevent the "Fact" rebels from entering the capital, N'Djamena, while his son Ahmed Kaka assumed the presidency of the country, which created two dilemmas for France. The first is that the Chadian people's rejection of what they saw as a succession of power contradicts the republican principle of the state. The second predicament is Kaka's pursuit of national reconciliation with the anti-French rebel movement trained by Russian Wagner mercenaries.

In August, the Chadian authorities announced that their forces participating in Barkhane had been reduced by half. What observers saw as another setback suffered by France, in conjunction with the dangerous security escalation that claimed hundreds of civilian deaths throughout the year.

On the other hand, Macron's insulting statements led Algeria to lose a strategic ally in the region. Algeria responded by announcing the withdrawal of its ambassador, Mohamed Antar Daoud, from Paris, and the closure of its airspace to the passage of French military aircraft heading to the Sahel region as part of Operation Barkhane, in addition to economic restrictions that were also on the table for the Algerian response, as previously revealed by an Algerian news agency. .

The coast is in the hands of the Russians

On the other hand, the French retreat led to the expansion of the Russian influence, after it penetrated the region. This is what happened in the case of the Central African Republic, which Moscow succeeded in infiltrating the joints of the poor country. Russia has increased its military presence there using the "Wagner" mercenaries, which are accused of committing serious violations. On the other hand, France froze all military cooperation agreements with the Bangui government.

The same scenario is likely to be witnessed by France again in Mali, with circulating reports of the country’s government using a number of Wagner mercenaries in order to secure its interests and train its forces, in a contract with the security contractor close to the Kremlin, which was said to amount to 10 million dollars per month. The Malian government denied what was attributed to it in this regard, saying that it "is submitting an official denial of these allegations regarding the alleged spread of elements of a private security company in Mali." On the other hand, a number of Western countries warned of the consequences of the presence of Russian forces in Mali.

On the ground, a cargo plane carried four helicopters, weapons and ammunition from Russia to Mali last October as part of what the government in Bamako described as a commercial deal with the Russian state. "We will continue to defend Bamako's legitimate interests at the United Nations, as well as provide assistance to our partners in Mali in the military and military technical fields through government channels," Moscow said, according to a senior diplomat in its foreign ministry.

Corona sweeps France with 200 thousand daily injuries and warnings of a “flood of injuries”

France is witnessing a "tsunami of infections" with Covid-19, as it recorded 208 thousand new infections during the past day, in a record number at the local and European levels, according to the French Minister of Health, while the "World Health" warned of a "flood of injuries" due to the spread of the mutants Delta and Omicron.

French Health Minister Olivier Veran told lawmakers on Wednesday that France is experiencing a "tsunami" of Covid-19 infections, with 208,000 new cases recorded during the past 24 hours, a record daily at the French and European levels.

According to data from the " Covid Tracker.FR " website, which tracks injuries in the country, France has repeatedly broken records for the number of Covid-19 cases over the past few days, as on Tuesday it recorded 180,000 injuries, which was already the highest in a country in Europe.

Ferrand said that two people were infected with Covid-19 every second in France, and added that the situation in hospitals was worrying because of the delta mutant, explaining that the mutant Omicron had no effect yet.

He added that the flu would complicate matters further for hospitals.

For his part, the Director-General of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said in a press briefing on Wednesday that the spread of the delta and omicron mutants of the Corona virus is causing a “flood of infections.”

Tedros reiterated his call for countries to share vaccines more equally, and warned that focusing on booster doses in rich countries could deprive poor countries of essential doses.

Globally, Covid-19 infections reached record levels during the past seven days, with the spread of the mutant Omicron on an increasing basis, which keeps many workers in their homes and increases the demand for examination centers.