LOS ANGELES (Xinhua) – The number of black women killed in gun violence in the United States has been rising sharply, but no one seems to care, The Guardian said in a recent report. While the killing of Brianna Kupfer, a white woman, in Los Angeles this month garnered national attention, the death of Tioni Theus, Breahna Stines and Marneysha Hamilton, all Black women, in two other separate killings in Los Angeles, received scant attention and were largely treated as local news, said the report. “Black women and girls are being murdered and I don’t think anyone is paying attention,” the report quoted Lawanda Hawkins, a Los Angeles-based victim rights advocate, as saying, Xinhua news agency reported. Although discrepancies between the attention to white victims of violence and Black victims of violence are nothing new, community organizers and researchers worry about the message this phenomenon continues to send to young Black girls about their worth and potential, it said. Black residents, despite comprising 6 percent of California’s population, made up 31 percent of the state’s homicide victims, the report said, noting that across the United States, homicides increased by 30 percent between 2019 and 2020, the largest single-year jump in the 60 years.

***
PARIS (Reuters) – European states allegedly combating militants in Mali will try to find a way to keep their mission going, but there are limits to the price that France is prepared to pay to remain there, French Defence Minister Florence Parly said on Saturday. Relations between Mali’s military junta and its international partners are close to breaking down after it failed to organize an election following two military coups. On Wednesday, the junta told France to stop interfering in the affairs of its former colony and to keep its “colonial reflexes” to itself. French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said that the situation had become untenable, as the European allies agreed to draw up plans within two weeks on how to adapt their campaign, which covers Mali and the wider Sahel region, to changing circumstances. “The conditions of our intervention, whether military, economic or political, have become harder and harder to manage,” Parly said. “In short, we are not prepared to pay an unlimited price to remain in Mali.”

***
ROME (AFP) – Italy’s warring parties beg outgoing President Sergio Mattarella to stay for another term, fearing political chaos due to a possible failure to elect his successor. The 80-year old -- who has repeatedly ruled out serving again -- won nearly 400 votes at the seventh ballot, and the parties in the governing coalition said they had struck a deal to elect him at the next round. Mattarella will need to get 505 or more votes at the eighth ballot, which starts at 16:30pm (1530 GMT). Italy’s presidency is largely ceremonial, but the head of state wields serious power during political crises, from dissolving parliament to picking new prime ministers and denying mandates to fragile coalitions. Prime Minister Mario Draghi, a former European Central Bank chief brought in to lead the government almost a year ago, had been touted for months as the most eligible head of state.

***
ANTANANARIVO (AFP) – Residents in an inundated neighborhood of Madagascar’s capital Antananarivo are returning with dread to see what remains of their homes and harvests, three days after Tropical Storm Ana relented. Flooding has killed 51 people on the large Indian Ocean island off southeastern Africa since 10 days of intense rain began on January 17. The storm formed to the east of Madagascar last week, causing floods and landslides and affecting around 130,000 people, with many made homeless overnight. Ana then hit Mozambique and Malawi on the African mainland, killing 90 people across the three countries. Rescue crews are still battling to access regions where roads and bridges have been swept away after the storm cut off tens of thousands and left them without power. Travelling on makeshift boats, small groups row through water and a common floating plant called tsifakona normally given to pigs as food. Some refused to spend the 300 Malagasy ariary ($0.08) for transport and are forced to carry their children where the water level remains high. “I woke up at three o’clock in the morning to go to the toilet and found my house full of water,” said Ulrich Tsontsozafy, 66. Recalling the ordeal from the top of a pile of chairs in his waterlogged room, the retired soldier is trying to find ways to avoid having his feet constantly in the water. Residents in Antananarivo’s swampy Betsimitatatra plain are used to living with water thanks to an ingenious system of wooden pontoons that usually connect houses. But the storm has engulfed everything with a brownish water that reeks of silt, while rats seeking food swam at the surface for a few days.

***
BANGKOK (Reuters) – A beach in eastern Thailand was declared a disaster area on Saturday as oil leaking from an underwater pipeline in the Gulf of Thailand continued to wash ashore and blacken the sand. The leak from the pipeline owned by Star Petroleum Refining Public Company Limited (SPRC) started late on Tuesday and was brought under control a day later after spilling an estimated 50,000 liters (13,209 gallons) of oil into the ocean 20 km (12 miles) from the country’s industrialized eastern seaboard. Some of the oil reached the shoreline at Mae Ramphueng beach in Rayong province late on Friday after spreading over 47 sq km (18 sq miles) of sea in the gulf. The navy is working with SPRC to contain the leak and said the main oil mass was still offshore with only a small amount washing up on at least two spots along the 12-km-long beach. About 150 SPRC workers and 200 navy personnel had been deployed to clean up the beach and oil boom barriers had been set up, the navy said. Twelve navy ships and three civilian ships along with a number of aircraft were also working to contain the spill at sea with booms and dispersant spray. “We and the company are still working at sea to reduce the amount of oil by cornering the spill and sucking up the oil and spraying dispersant,” Rear Admiral Artorn Charapinyo, deputy commander of the first Naval Area command, told reporters.