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About Twenty Soldiers Killed in Mali Attack, Government Says

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A passenger who recently traveled to China and was exhibiting flu-like symptoms was escorted off a Southwest Airlines plane heading from the Baltimore Washington International Thurgood Marshal Airport amid the coronavirus scare that has left thousands sickened and dozens dead in China. Medical officers removed the passenger off a Southwest flight from Las Vegas, Nevada, to Maryland “out of an abundance of caution,” the Maryland Department of Health said, according to NBC4. Video footage posted by the news outlet showed passengers on the plane wearing masks over their mouths as a health official told them: “Because of this heightened time, we are just using an abundance of caution.” The sick passenger “was referred to a medical facility for evaluation to determine whether additional follow-up is necessary,” the agency said, adding that…

About Twenty Soldiers Killed in Mali Attack, Government Says

About 20 soldiers were killed in a pre-dawn attack on an army camp in central Mali on Jan. 26, the government said.

The identity of the attackers was not immediately clear. In a statement, the government said “terrorists” entered the camp near the village of Sokolo, killed the soldiers and caused “significant material damage”.

“Reinforcements have been dispatched to the scene and an aerial reconnaissance is underway in the area to track down the attackers,” it said.

Islamist groups with links to al Qaeda and the ISIS terrorist group operate in arid central and northern Mali and have used the area as a base to attack soldiers and civilians in neighboring Burkina Faso, Niger, and beyond.

Former colonial power France intervened in 2013 to drive back militants who had seized northern Mali in 2012 and the U.N. Security Council deployed a peacekeeping mission, known as MINUSMA. The militants were pushed back initially but have since regrouped and strengthened. As a sign of their success, MINUSMA has become the U.N.’s deadliest mission.

About Twenty Soldiers Killed in Mali Attack, Government Says French President Emmanuel Macron attends a tribute ceremony at the Invalides monument for the 13 French soldiers killed in Mali, in Paris, France, on Dec. 2, 2019. (Eric Feferberg/AFP via Getty Images)

Large areas of the Sahel, the band of scrubland south of the Sahara, are no longer controlled by soldiers and police, to the dismay of local governments and their international partners, including the United States, which have struggled to contain the spread of jihadist groups across West Africa.

About Twenty Soldiers Killed in Mali Attack, Government Says Soldiers hold the UN and Malian flags during the ceremony of Peacekeepers’ Day at the operating base of MINUSMA in Bamako, Mali, on May 29, 2018. (Michele Cattani / AFP via Getty Images)

Twenty-four Malian soldiers were killed and 29 wounded when militants attacked a patrol in northern Mali in November. Twenty people were wounded earlier this month in the north, including 18 U.N. peacekeepers from Chad, in a rocket attack on a military base used by U.N., French, and Malian forces.

France’s armed forces minister Florence Parly will travel to Washington this week amid fears that U.S. forces could pull out of the region. France has 4,500 troops in Mali and the wider Sahel, but the United States provides much-needed intelligence, logistical and drone support.

 By Tiemoko Diallo; Additional reporting by Paul Lorgerie in Bamako

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China Writes Its Own Bible and Quran

Commentary In November last year, China made the official decision to rewrite both the Bible and the Quran in order to “reflect socialist values.” Naturally, this is a political tool that is needed as part of the crackdown on the Muslim Uyghur minority that has been such a thorn in the side of the Chinese socialist regime. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) declared that the revision will make sure that the content of the Bible and Quran do not contradict socialism. One of the founding fathers of modern-day socialism, Karl Marx, wrote that “Religion is the opium of the people.” While this is often discussed, it’s not the full quote from the original German text. The full quote is commonly translated as: “Religion is the sign of the oppressed creature,…