BEIJING (Reuters) -- China called the United States “extremely irresponsible” for “groundlessly suspecting” there are information security risks in China’s drone systems, its commerce ministry said on Tuesday. China is strongly dissatisfied with and firmly opposes the U.S. investigating its drone systems and said it will closely monitor the situation. China also urged the U.S. to respect facts and immediately stop what it called “erroneous practices”. The U.S. Commerce Department said on Thursday it was considering new rules that would impose restrictions on Chinese drones to restrict or ban them in the United States, citing national security concerns.

 

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PARIS (Reuters) -- French President Emmanuel Macron said that Ukraine needs to have a realistic position on territorial issues as part of efforts to bring about a negotiation with Russia. Speaking at an annual conference to French ambassadors to outline their strategy for the year, Macron’s comments were the first time he had suggested that Kyiv should consider a position beyond seeking to regain all territory seized by Russia. Moscow, which annexed Crimea in 2014, currently controls about a fifth of Ukraine, including most of the eastern Donbas region. “The Ukrainians need to hold a realistic discussion on the territorial questions and only they can do that, and the Europeans are counting on building security guarantees that will be their responsibility,” Macron said. The United States’ role should be to convince Russia to come to the negotiation table, he said, while adding that no solution to the conflict could be agreed without the direct involvement of Ukraine and Europe. He made no specific new commitments to help Ukraine. “There will not be a quick and easy solution,” Macron said, referring to U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s promise to end the war quickly.

 

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ABUJA (Reuters) -- Gunmen have kidnapped at least 46 people, including women and children, in a raid on Gana town in Nigeria’s northwest Zamfara state, according to residents and a local traditional leader. The attack, which follows a similar mass kidnapping in the state last month, saw dozens of gunmen on motorbikes unleashing a barrage of gunfire on the community and setting fire to several homes and businesses, residents said. Northwest Nigeria has been plagued by armed gangs, known locally as bandits, who routinely terrorize communities, leaving a trail of death and kidnapping victims, including residents, farmers, students and motorists, who are often held for ransom. Alhaji Garba Haure, a traditional leader in Gana, said the intervention of government security forces prevented the assailants from setting the entire town ablaze. No lives were lost, he said.

 

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PARIS (Reuters) -- Jean-Marie Le Pen, founder of the far-right National Front party who tapped into working class concerns over immigration and globalization, shaking up the French political establishment, has died at the age of 96. His death was confirmed by his daughter Marine Le Pen’s political party, National Rally. In one way or another, Jean-Marie Le Pen spent his life fighting, whether as a soldier in France’s colonial wars, as a founder of the far-right National Front party, for which he contested five presidential elections, or in feuds with his daughters and ex-wife, often conducted publicly and furiously. An unabashed nationalist, Le Pen was the scourge of the European Union which he saw as a supranational project usurping the powers of nation states, tapping the kind of resentment that saw Britain vote to leave the EU.

 

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NEW YORK (Reuters) -- U.S. President-elect Donald Trump lost a bid to put off his sentencing on Friday for his criminal conviction stemming from hush money paid to a porn star. Citing both presidential immunity and the demands of Trump’s impending Jan. 20 inauguration, his lawyers on Monday morning said Justice Juan Merchan’s intention not to penalize Trump was “of no moment.”  “Presidential immunity violations cannot be ignored in favor of a rushed pre-inauguration sentencing,” the lawyers wrote in a court filing.  In a written ruling later on Monday, Merchan said Trump’s motion was mostly “a repetition of the arguments he has raised numerous times in the past.” The judge declined to push back Trump’s Jan. 10 sentencing, a date he had set just last week. 

 

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ACCRA (Reuters) -- John Dramani Mahama was sworn in for a second term as Ghana’s president on Tuesday at a ceremony in the capital Accra, pledging to overcome public discontent by boosting the economy and creating much-needed jobs. The opposition leader, 66, won the Dec. 7 presidential election by a wide margin to stage a political comeback in the West African nation, the world’s number-two cocoa producer. He replaces Nana Akufo-Addo, who steps down after serving two terms, continuing Ghana’s democratic tradition in a region gripped elsewhere by military coups and jihadist insurgencies. Over 20 presidents and heads of state from around the world attended the rite in Accra’s independence square, the scene of Ghanaian presidential inaugurations since Kwame Nkrumah was sworn in over six decades ago.