2015-01-10 06:59
Geneva - Human tests of two possible Ebola vaccines have proven
safe and efficacy tests will begin within weeks in the three west
African countries ravaged by the deadly virus, the World Health
Organization said Friday.
"These trials are about to begin for the
two lead vaccines," WHO assistant director general Marie-Paule Kieny
told reporters, adding that the vaccines would be tested on thousands of
people across Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.
The Phase III
testing to ensure the vaccines actually protect against the virus that
has killed 8,259 people in the three countries is set to begin in
Liberia by the end of the month, she said.
Separate tests are scheduled to start in Sierra Leone and Guinea in February, she added.
The vaccine manufacturers must determine before then what the appropriate dosage is, she said.
There
is no licensed treatment or vaccine for Ebola, and the WHO has endorsed
rushing potential ones through trials in a bid to stem the epidemic.
The
two potential vaccines that have been undergoing Phase 1 safety tests
on humans are ChAd3, made by Britain's GlaxoSmithKline, and VSV-ZEBOV,
manufactured by the Public Health Agency of Canada and licenced by US
firm NewLink Genetics.
Tests of the two potential vaccines have
been conducted on volunteers in a range of countries, including
Switzerland, Mali, Gabon, Britain, Germany, Canada and the United
States.
Johnson & Johnson meanwhile announced this week that
human trials of its proposed vaccine had begun in Britain, and Kieny
said the company also expected to soon be able to start efficacy trials.
Describing
2014 as the year when "the Ebola virus challenged humanity," Kieny
voiced confidence that this year would be remembered as the one when
"humanity used our best scientific minds to fight back."
News, Events, Entertainment, Lifestyle, Fashion, Beauty, Inspiration and yes... Gossip! *Wink*
Saturday, 10 January 2015
Man United seek spark as Southampton close in
2015-01-10 12:50
London - Manchester United will attempt to stave off an assault on their third-place position in the Premier League table when they welcome closest pursuers Southampton to Old Trafford on Sunday.
United have gone 10 games without defeat since losing 1-0 at joint-leaders Manchester City on November 2, but they have taken only six points from a possible 12 after drawing three of their last four matches.
It has prevented Louis van Gaal's side from fully exploiting recent slip-ups by co-leaders Chelsea, who they trail by nine points, and has allowed Southampton to close to within one point.
After a run of four straight defeats in late November and early December, including a 2-1 loss in the reverse fixture, Ronald Koeman's side have won three and drawn one of their last four games.
United were fortunate to claim victory at St Mary's last month, with Robin van Persie's brace representing two of the three shots on goal they managed to muster in the 90 minutes.
But United are in much finer fettle than they were a month ago.
Their injury glut has cleared to the extent that Ashley Young (hamstring) is the only player currently unavailable, while the squad was bolstered on Thursday with the eye-catching acquisition of former Barcelona goalkeeper Victor Valdes.
It leaves Van Gaal with an enviable selection dilemma on his hands.
Over the festive period, the Dutchman devised a system that accommodated Wayne Rooney, Juan Mata, Van Persie and Radamel Falcao, and he must now find a way of fitting Angel di Maria into his team as well.
The Argentine winger made a goal-scoring return from a pelvic injury in United's 2-0 win at third-tier Yeovil Town in the FA Cup third round last weekend and could start against Southampton.
"Angel di Maria has played only 20 minutes and that's because of the match rhythm that I gave," said Van Gaal.
"I have said I have only one injured player (Young), but I don't have 100 percent match-fit players. That's a different thing.
"But of course Di Maria is for example further than Daley Blind or (Marcos) Rojo.
"I have to select the best team and also I have to watch the qualities of Southampton, how I can reduce that quality by my line-up, but also by our game-plan."
Left-back Luke Shaw is expected to overcome an ankle problem and play, while Dutch utility man Blind could make his return from a two-month absence due to a knee injury.
United have taken 25 points from a possible 27 at home since losing to Swansea City on the season's opening weekend, while Southampton have not won at Old Trafford since January 1998.
But Koeman, who fell out with Van Gaal during their time at Ajax, believes that United should not be satisfied with their current position in the table.
"They have great players. It is normal that they will fight for titles, I think. They have to," the Southampton coach told his pre-match press conference.
"How you can spend that money, how you can sign that kind of players and not be fighting to win titles?
"Everything is up to Man United. They have a very successful coach, they have great players, they have money, they have got great public (fans), great stadium. It is normal that you win titles."
Koeman could hand a debut to skilful Dutch winger Eljero Elia, who signed on loan from Werder Bremen last month, while right-back Nathaniel Clyne and midfielder Jack Cork have both overcome ankle injuries.
However, centre-back Maya Yoshida is on international duty with Japan and winger Sadio Mane has been named in Senegal's squad for the Africa Cup of Nations, despite currently suffering from a calf problem.
London - Manchester United will attempt to stave off an assault on their third-place position in the Premier League table when they welcome closest pursuers Southampton to Old Trafford on Sunday.
United have gone 10 games without defeat since losing 1-0 at joint-leaders Manchester City on November 2, but they have taken only six points from a possible 12 after drawing three of their last four matches.
It has prevented Louis van Gaal's side from fully exploiting recent slip-ups by co-leaders Chelsea, who they trail by nine points, and has allowed Southampton to close to within one point.
After a run of four straight defeats in late November and early December, including a 2-1 loss in the reverse fixture, Ronald Koeman's side have won three and drawn one of their last four games.
United were fortunate to claim victory at St Mary's last month, with Robin van Persie's brace representing two of the three shots on goal they managed to muster in the 90 minutes.
But United are in much finer fettle than they were a month ago.
Their injury glut has cleared to the extent that Ashley Young (hamstring) is the only player currently unavailable, while the squad was bolstered on Thursday with the eye-catching acquisition of former Barcelona goalkeeper Victor Valdes.
It leaves Van Gaal with an enviable selection dilemma on his hands.
Over the festive period, the Dutchman devised a system that accommodated Wayne Rooney, Juan Mata, Van Persie and Radamel Falcao, and he must now find a way of fitting Angel di Maria into his team as well.
The Argentine winger made a goal-scoring return from a pelvic injury in United's 2-0 win at third-tier Yeovil Town in the FA Cup third round last weekend and could start against Southampton.
"Angel di Maria has played only 20 minutes and that's because of the match rhythm that I gave," said Van Gaal.
"I have said I have only one injured player (Young), but I don't have 100 percent match-fit players. That's a different thing.
"But of course Di Maria is for example further than Daley Blind or (Marcos) Rojo.
"I have to select the best team and also I have to watch the qualities of Southampton, how I can reduce that quality by my line-up, but also by our game-plan."
Left-back Luke Shaw is expected to overcome an ankle problem and play, while Dutch utility man Blind could make his return from a two-month absence due to a knee injury.
United have taken 25 points from a possible 27 at home since losing to Swansea City on the season's opening weekend, while Southampton have not won at Old Trafford since January 1998.
But Koeman, who fell out with Van Gaal during their time at Ajax, believes that United should not be satisfied with their current position in the table.
"They have great players. It is normal that they will fight for titles, I think. They have to," the Southampton coach told his pre-match press conference.
"How you can spend that money, how you can sign that kind of players and not be fighting to win titles?
"Everything is up to Man United. They have a very successful coach, they have great players, they have money, they have got great public (fans), great stadium. It is normal that you win titles."
Koeman could hand a debut to skilful Dutch winger Eljero Elia, who signed on loan from Werder Bremen last month, while right-back Nathaniel Clyne and midfielder Jack Cork have both overcome ankle injuries.
However, centre-back Maya Yoshida is on international duty with Japan and winger Sadio Mane has been named in Senegal's squad for the Africa Cup of Nations, despite currently suffering from a calf problem.
Over 13 000 killed in Nigeria’s insurgency
2015-01-10 12:50
Nigeria’s President Goodluck Jonathan said in 2014 that “over 13 000 people have been killed” in the violent Boko Haram campaign against the Nigerian state.
“Over the past five years, we have been, and are still confronting threats posed by Boko Haram to peace and stability,” he told the UN Security Council in New York. “The costs are high: over 13 000 people have been killed, whole communities razed, and hundreds of persons kidnapped.”
His claim was widely reported in Nigerian press. Africa Check examined the evidence.
Numbers vary
There are varying figures for the numbers of people killed since Boko Haram began its insurgency in 2009. (For more on the group, read Africa Check's factsheet.)
The Nigeria Social Violence Project, under the auspices of the Johns Hopkins University Africa programme, has recorded 11 121 deaths since the start of the insurgency. Their figures include killings by the militants and by the Nigerian security forces, who have repeatedly been accused of extrajudicial killings by human rights organisations like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch.
Other reports focus on shorter time-frames. Human Rights Watch has said that attacks by Boko Haram “killed at least 2 053 civilians... during the first half of 2014“.
Killings by Boko Haram and the Nigerian military
According to Amnesty International “more than 4 000” people have been killed “by the Nigerian military and Boko Haram” in 2014.
Between May and December 2013, according to the United Nations Humanitarian Agency (OCHA), 1 224 people were killed by Boko Haram.
As for the deaths of civilians and militants at the hands of the armed forces, Amnesty International says it “received credible information from a senior officer in the Nigerian army that over 950 people died in military custody in the first six months of 2013”.
Add this to the 4 000 fatalities reported thus far in 2014, and the widely-held estimates of 3 000 to 4 000 deaths between 2009 and mid-2013, and the total number of people killed by Boko Haram and the Nigerian military would be, conservatively speaking, 9 000 to 10 000.
‘Three to five times more people killed than reported’
Higher figures are reported by the Nigeria Security Tracker, a project run by Africa programme of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). It estimates the death toll from May 2011 (when it began its work) to August 2014 at over 17 500. This includes 6 742 deaths linked directly to Boko Haram, and a further 10 806 killings involving “Boko Haram and state perpetrators”. The latter category covers instances in which armed forces and insurgents have directly engaged each other, and in which it is not always clear who the victims are. CFR measures extra-judicial killings by state forces separately.
Asked why their figures are significantly higher than those reported by human rights organisations, Allen Grane, a research assistant on CFR’s Africa programme said: “When we add a violent occurrence to the tracker we always take the highest reported number. We do this as we have been told by multiple non-profits on the ground that the figures range from three to five times what is actually reported.”
The limits of counting deaths
The inconsistent death toll figures are understandable. According to the CFR: “Relying on press reports of violence presents methodological limitations. There is a dearth of accurate reporting across certain regions, death tolls are imprecise, and accounts of incidents vary. There is the potential for political manipulation of media.”
For its part, the Nigerian Social Violence Project cautions that its “categories overlap”, and therefore “deaths may be counted in more than one category”.
Conclusion: The 13 000 death toll is broadly accurate
The available data suggests that as few 9 000 and as many as 17 500 people have died in the insurgency. The latter figure includes killings by both Boko Haram and the Nigerian military.
It is unclear whether President Jonathan’s claim of 13 000 deaths referred to those at the hands of the insurgents or through the conflict in general. However, the statement would appear to be broadly accurate if killings at the hands of the military are also included.
- "Africa Check a non-partisan organisation which promotes accuracy in public debate and the media. Twitter @AfricaCheck and www.africacheck.org".
- Full report.
Nigeria’s President Goodluck Jonathan said in 2014 that “over 13 000 people have been killed” in the violent Boko Haram campaign against the Nigerian state.
“Over the past five years, we have been, and are still confronting threats posed by Boko Haram to peace and stability,” he told the UN Security Council in New York. “The costs are high: over 13 000 people have been killed, whole communities razed, and hundreds of persons kidnapped.”
His claim was widely reported in Nigerian press. Africa Check examined the evidence.
Numbers vary
There are varying figures for the numbers of people killed since Boko Haram began its insurgency in 2009. (For more on the group, read Africa Check's factsheet.)
The Nigeria Social Violence Project, under the auspices of the Johns Hopkins University Africa programme, has recorded 11 121 deaths since the start of the insurgency. Their figures include killings by the militants and by the Nigerian security forces, who have repeatedly been accused of extrajudicial killings by human rights organisations like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch.
Other reports focus on shorter time-frames. Human Rights Watch has said that attacks by Boko Haram “killed at least 2 053 civilians... during the first half of 2014“.
Killings by Boko Haram and the Nigerian military
According to Amnesty International “more than 4 000” people have been killed “by the Nigerian military and Boko Haram” in 2014.
Between May and December 2013, according to the United Nations Humanitarian Agency (OCHA), 1 224 people were killed by Boko Haram.
As for the deaths of civilians and militants at the hands of the armed forces, Amnesty International says it “received credible information from a senior officer in the Nigerian army that over 950 people died in military custody in the first six months of 2013”.
Add this to the 4 000 fatalities reported thus far in 2014, and the widely-held estimates of 3 000 to 4 000 deaths between 2009 and mid-2013, and the total number of people killed by Boko Haram and the Nigerian military would be, conservatively speaking, 9 000 to 10 000.
‘Three to five times more people killed than reported’
Higher figures are reported by the Nigeria Security Tracker, a project run by Africa programme of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). It estimates the death toll from May 2011 (when it began its work) to August 2014 at over 17 500. This includes 6 742 deaths linked directly to Boko Haram, and a further 10 806 killings involving “Boko Haram and state perpetrators”. The latter category covers instances in which armed forces and insurgents have directly engaged each other, and in which it is not always clear who the victims are. CFR measures extra-judicial killings by state forces separately.
Asked why their figures are significantly higher than those reported by human rights organisations, Allen Grane, a research assistant on CFR’s Africa programme said: “When we add a violent occurrence to the tracker we always take the highest reported number. We do this as we have been told by multiple non-profits on the ground that the figures range from three to five times what is actually reported.”
The limits of counting deaths
The inconsistent death toll figures are understandable. According to the CFR: “Relying on press reports of violence presents methodological limitations. There is a dearth of accurate reporting across certain regions, death tolls are imprecise, and accounts of incidents vary. There is the potential for political manipulation of media.”
For its part, the Nigerian Social Violence Project cautions that its “categories overlap”, and therefore “deaths may be counted in more than one category”.
Conclusion: The 13 000 death toll is broadly accurate
The available data suggests that as few 9 000 and as many as 17 500 people have died in the insurgency. The latter figure includes killings by both Boko Haram and the Nigerian military.
It is unclear whether President Jonathan’s claim of 13 000 deaths referred to those at the hands of the insurgents or through the conflict in general. However, the statement would appear to be broadly accurate if killings at the hands of the military are also included.
- "Africa Check a non-partisan organisation which promotes accuracy in public debate and the media. Twitter @AfricaCheck and www.africacheck.org".
- Full report.
Boko Haram massacre victims mostly women, children
2015-01-10 12:50
Yola - Fighting continued on Friday for Baga, a Nigerian town on the border with Chad, where Islamic extremists seized a key military base on 3 January and attacked again on Wednesday.
Meanwhile, hundreds of bodies remain strewn in the bush from the attack which Amnesty International suggested on Friday is the "deadliest massacre" in the history of Boko Haram.
"Security forces have responded rapidly, and have deployed significant military assets and conducted airstrikes against militant targets," Mike Omeri, the government spokesperson on the insurgency, said in a statement.
Human carnage
District head Baba Abba Hassan said most victims are children, women and elderly people who could not run fast enough when insurgents drove into Baga, firing rocket-propelled grenades and assault rifles on town residents.
"The human carnage perpetrated by Boko Haram terrorists in Baga was enormous," Muhammad Abba Gava, a spokesperson for poorly armed civilians in a defence group that fights Boko Haram, told The Associated Press.
He said the civilian fighters gave up on trying to count all the bodies. "No one could attend to the corpses and even the seriously injured ones who may have died by now," Gava said.
An Amnesty International statement said there are reports the town was razed and as many as 2 000 people killed.
If true, "this marks a disturbing and bloody escalation of Boko Haram's ongoing onslaught," said Daniel Eyre, Nigeria researcher for Amnesty International.
Condemnation
In Washington, US State Department spokesperson Jen Psaki condemned the attacks.
"We urge Nigeria and its neighbours to take all possible steps to address the urgent threat of Boko Haram. Even in the face of these horrifying attacks, terrorist organisations like Boko Haram must not distract Nigeria from carrying out credible and peaceful elections that reflect the will of the Nigerian people," Psaki said in a statement.
The previous bloodiest day in the uprising involved soldiers gunning down unarmed detainees freed in a 14 March 2014 attack on Giwa military barracks in Maiduguri. Amnesty said then that satellite imagery indicated more than 600 people were killed that day.
The five-year insurgency killed more than 10 000 people last year alone, according to the Washington-based Council on Foreign Relations. More than a million people are displaced inside Nigeria and hundreds of thousands have fled across its borders into Chad, Cameroon and Nigeria.
Refugee camps
Emergency workers said this week they are having a hard time coping with scores of children separated from their parents in the chaos of Boko Haram's increasingly frequent and deadly attacks.
Just seven children have been reunited with parents in Yola, capital of Adamawa state, where about 140 others have no idea if their families are alive or dead, said Sa'ad Bello, the co-ordinator of five refugee camps in Yola.
He said he was optimistic that more reunions will come as residents return to towns that the military has retaken from extremists in recent weeks.
Suleiman Dauda, 12, said he ran into the bushes with neighbours when extremists attacked his village, Askira Uba, near Yola last year.
"I saw them kill my father, they slaughtered him like a ram. And up until now I don't know where my mother is," he told The Associated Press at Daware refugee camp in Yola.
Yola - Fighting continued on Friday for Baga, a Nigerian town on the border with Chad, where Islamic extremists seized a key military base on 3 January and attacked again on Wednesday.
Meanwhile, hundreds of bodies remain strewn in the bush from the attack which Amnesty International suggested on Friday is the "deadliest massacre" in the history of Boko Haram.
"Security forces have responded rapidly, and have deployed significant military assets and conducted airstrikes against militant targets," Mike Omeri, the government spokesperson on the insurgency, said in a statement.
Human carnage
District head Baba Abba Hassan said most victims are children, women and elderly people who could not run fast enough when insurgents drove into Baga, firing rocket-propelled grenades and assault rifles on town residents.
"The human carnage perpetrated by Boko Haram terrorists in Baga was enormous," Muhammad Abba Gava, a spokesperson for poorly armed civilians in a defence group that fights Boko Haram, told The Associated Press.
He said the civilian fighters gave up on trying to count all the bodies. "No one could attend to the corpses and even the seriously injured ones who may have died by now," Gava said.
An Amnesty International statement said there are reports the town was razed and as many as 2 000 people killed.
If true, "this marks a disturbing and bloody escalation of Boko Haram's ongoing onslaught," said Daniel Eyre, Nigeria researcher for Amnesty International.
Condemnation
In Washington, US State Department spokesperson Jen Psaki condemned the attacks.
"We urge Nigeria and its neighbours to take all possible steps to address the urgent threat of Boko Haram. Even in the face of these horrifying attacks, terrorist organisations like Boko Haram must not distract Nigeria from carrying out credible and peaceful elections that reflect the will of the Nigerian people," Psaki said in a statement.
The previous bloodiest day in the uprising involved soldiers gunning down unarmed detainees freed in a 14 March 2014 attack on Giwa military barracks in Maiduguri. Amnesty said then that satellite imagery indicated more than 600 people were killed that day.
The five-year insurgency killed more than 10 000 people last year alone, according to the Washington-based Council on Foreign Relations. More than a million people are displaced inside Nigeria and hundreds of thousands have fled across its borders into Chad, Cameroon and Nigeria.
Refugee camps
Emergency workers said this week they are having a hard time coping with scores of children separated from their parents in the chaos of Boko Haram's increasingly frequent and deadly attacks.
Just seven children have been reunited with parents in Yola, capital of Adamawa state, where about 140 others have no idea if their families are alive or dead, said Sa'ad Bello, the co-ordinator of five refugee camps in Yola.
He said he was optimistic that more reunions will come as residents return to towns that the military has retaken from extremists in recent weeks.
Suleiman Dauda, 12, said he ran into the bushes with neighbours when extremists attacked his village, Askira Uba, near Yola last year.
"I saw them kill my father, they slaughtered him like a ram. And up until now I don't know where my mother is," he told The Associated Press at Daware refugee camp in Yola.
France deploys troops before million-strong march
2015-01-10 17:17
Paris - France deployed hundreds of troops around Paris on
Saturday, beefing up security on the eve of a march expected to draw
more than a million in tribute to 17 victims of a three-day killing
spree.
Fears remained acute and security levels were kept at France's highest level as the girlfriend of one of three gunmen killed in a fiery climax to twin hostage dramas on Friday remained on the loose.
But refusing to be cowed, people poured onto the streets in cities around France in poignantly silent marches paying tribute to those killed in the nation's bloodiest week in more than half a century.
The marches in the cities of Nice, Pau and Orleans were a taste of what was to come in Paris on Sunday, where a monster rally will be held for national unity, to be attended by President Francois Hollande and a host of world leaders.
The defence ministry said it was sending another 500 soldiers into the greater Paris area, bringing current numbers to what will be about 1 350 troops.
After Friday's dramatic events, Hollande warned grimly that the threats facing France "weren't over", comments followed by a chilling new threat from a Yemen-based al-Qaeda group.
Security forces were focused on hunting down 26-year-old Hayat Boumeddiene, the "armed and dangerous" partner of Amedy Coulibaly who took terrified shoppers hostage in a Jewish supermarket on Friday, killing four of them.
Before he was killed by elite police in a massive assault on the store, he told journalists he was a member of the Islamic State jihadist group.
Coulibaly and Boumeddiene are the prime suspects in the murder of a policewoman on Thursday just outside the French capital.
That attack further spooked a nation still reeling from the Wednesday assault at the Charlie Hebdo satirical weekly in Paris that saw two gunmen mow down 12 people including some of the country's best-known cartoonists.
In a sombre address after Friday's sieges, Hollande said: "I call on all the French people to rise up this Sunday, together, to defend the values of democracy, freedom and pluralism to which we are attached."
But as leaders urged the country to pull together in grief and determination, questions were also mounting over how the three men - brothers Cherif and Said Kouachi, and Coulibaly - had slipped through the security net after it emerged that all three were known to the intelligence agencies.
'Appalling anti-Semitic act'
France's darkest week in decades came to an explosive end on Friday after the gunmen holed up in two hostage dramas about 30km apart.
The massive manhunt for the two Kouachi brothers developed into a car chase and then a tense standoff as they held a hostage in a printing firm northeast of Paris.
The small town of Dammartin-en-Goele was transformed into what looked like a war zone, with elite forces deploying snipers, helicopters and heavy-duty military equipment as they surrounded the pair.
With all eyes on the siege outside Paris, suddenly explosions and gunfire shook the City of Light itself as Coulibaly stormed a Jewish supermarket on the eastern fringes of the capital.
In what Hollande called an "appalling anti-Semitic act", Coulibaly took terrified shoppers hostage hours before the Jewish Sabbath, killing four.
As the sun set on the horrified capital, the brothers charged out of the building with guns blazing in a desperate last stand, before being cut down.
Within minutes, elite commando units moved against Coulibaly, who had threatened to execute his hostages unless the brothers were released.
Coulibaly had just knelt for his evening prayer when the special forces struck. Explosions rocked the neighbourhood - one lighting up the shopfront in a fireball - and shooting erupted as the commandos burst in.
"It's war!" shouted a mother as she pulled her daughter away.
Up to five people - including a three-year-old boy - survived hidden inside a refrigerator for five hours, with police pinpointing their location using their mobile phones, prosecutors and relatives said.
In the printing firm, the brothers took the manager hostage, later releasing him after he helped Said with a neck wound, while a second man hid beneath a sink upstairs.
'Clear failings' As the drama reached its climax, links emerged showing the brothers and Coulibaly were close allies and had worked together.
All three had a radical past and were known to French intelligence.
Cherif Kouachi, 32, was a known jihadist who was convicted in 2008 for involvement in a network sending fighters to Iraq.
His brother Said, 34, was known to have travelled to Yemen in 2011, where he received weapons training from AQAP.
It also emerged that the brothers had been on a US terror watch list "for years".
Cherif told French TV he was acting on behalf of the Yemen-based al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula while Coulibaly said he was a member of the Islamic State group.
Coulibaly, 32 - who met Cherif Kouachi in prison - was sentenced to five years in prison in 2013 for his role in a failed bid to break an Algerian Islamist, Smain Ait Ali Belkacem, out of jail.
Boumeddiene and Cherif's girlfriend spoke "more than 500" times by phone in 2014, said Paris's chief prosecutor Francois Molins.
Prime Minister Manuel Valls said the carnage they left in their wake showed there had been "clear failings" in intelligence.
The Islamic State group's radio praised them as "heroes" and Somalia's Shebab militants, al-Qaeda's main affiliate in Africa, hailed their "heroic" act.
Meanwhile, AQAP top sharia official Harith al-Nadhari chillingly warned France to "stop your aggression against the Muslims" or face further attacks, in comments released by the SITE monitoring group.
AFP
Fears remained acute and security levels were kept at France's highest level as the girlfriend of one of three gunmen killed in a fiery climax to twin hostage dramas on Friday remained on the loose.
But refusing to be cowed, people poured onto the streets in cities around France in poignantly silent marches paying tribute to those killed in the nation's bloodiest week in more than half a century.
The marches in the cities of Nice, Pau and Orleans were a taste of what was to come in Paris on Sunday, where a monster rally will be held for national unity, to be attended by President Francois Hollande and a host of world leaders.
The defence ministry said it was sending another 500 soldiers into the greater Paris area, bringing current numbers to what will be about 1 350 troops.
After Friday's dramatic events, Hollande warned grimly that the threats facing France "weren't over", comments followed by a chilling new threat from a Yemen-based al-Qaeda group.
Security forces were focused on hunting down 26-year-old Hayat Boumeddiene, the "armed and dangerous" partner of Amedy Coulibaly who took terrified shoppers hostage in a Jewish supermarket on Friday, killing four of them.
Before he was killed by elite police in a massive assault on the store, he told journalists he was a member of the Islamic State jihadist group.
Coulibaly and Boumeddiene are the prime suspects in the murder of a policewoman on Thursday just outside the French capital.
That attack further spooked a nation still reeling from the Wednesday assault at the Charlie Hebdo satirical weekly in Paris that saw two gunmen mow down 12 people including some of the country's best-known cartoonists.
In a sombre address after Friday's sieges, Hollande said: "I call on all the French people to rise up this Sunday, together, to defend the values of democracy, freedom and pluralism to which we are attached."
But as leaders urged the country to pull together in grief and determination, questions were also mounting over how the three men - brothers Cherif and Said Kouachi, and Coulibaly - had slipped through the security net after it emerged that all three were known to the intelligence agencies.
'Appalling anti-Semitic act'
France's darkest week in decades came to an explosive end on Friday after the gunmen holed up in two hostage dramas about 30km apart.
The massive manhunt for the two Kouachi brothers developed into a car chase and then a tense standoff as they held a hostage in a printing firm northeast of Paris.
The small town of Dammartin-en-Goele was transformed into what looked like a war zone, with elite forces deploying snipers, helicopters and heavy-duty military equipment as they surrounded the pair.
With all eyes on the siege outside Paris, suddenly explosions and gunfire shook the City of Light itself as Coulibaly stormed a Jewish supermarket on the eastern fringes of the capital.
In what Hollande called an "appalling anti-Semitic act", Coulibaly took terrified shoppers hostage hours before the Jewish Sabbath, killing four.
As the sun set on the horrified capital, the brothers charged out of the building with guns blazing in a desperate last stand, before being cut down.
Within minutes, elite commando units moved against Coulibaly, who had threatened to execute his hostages unless the brothers were released.
Coulibaly had just knelt for his evening prayer when the special forces struck. Explosions rocked the neighbourhood - one lighting up the shopfront in a fireball - and shooting erupted as the commandos burst in.
"It's war!" shouted a mother as she pulled her daughter away.
Up to five people - including a three-year-old boy - survived hidden inside a refrigerator for five hours, with police pinpointing their location using their mobile phones, prosecutors and relatives said.
In the printing firm, the brothers took the manager hostage, later releasing him after he helped Said with a neck wound, while a second man hid beneath a sink upstairs.
'Clear failings' As the drama reached its climax, links emerged showing the brothers and Coulibaly were close allies and had worked together.
All three had a radical past and were known to French intelligence.
Cherif Kouachi, 32, was a known jihadist who was convicted in 2008 for involvement in a network sending fighters to Iraq.
His brother Said, 34, was known to have travelled to Yemen in 2011, where he received weapons training from AQAP.
It also emerged that the brothers had been on a US terror watch list "for years".
Cherif told French TV he was acting on behalf of the Yemen-based al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula while Coulibaly said he was a member of the Islamic State group.
Coulibaly, 32 - who met Cherif Kouachi in prison - was sentenced to five years in prison in 2013 for his role in a failed bid to break an Algerian Islamist, Smain Ait Ali Belkacem, out of jail.
Boumeddiene and Cherif's girlfriend spoke "more than 500" times by phone in 2014, said Paris's chief prosecutor Francois Molins.
Prime Minister Manuel Valls said the carnage they left in their wake showed there had been "clear failings" in intelligence.
The Islamic State group's radio praised them as "heroes" and Somalia's Shebab militants, al-Qaeda's main affiliate in Africa, hailed their "heroic" act.
Meanwhile, AQAP top sharia official Harith al-Nadhari chillingly warned France to "stop your aggression against the Muslims" or face further attacks, in comments released by the SITE monitoring group.
AFP
Bomb found outside Istanbul shopping centre
2015-01-10 15:46
Istanbul - Turkish police on Saturday defused a bomb outside a
shopping centre in Istanbul, with the city on a high security alert
following a suicide bombing earlier this week.
The homemade device was found in a suspect package in front of a shopping centre in the western suburb of Basaksehir after a passer-by raised the alarm, the official Anatolia news agency reported.
Police defused the device and took it to a laboratory for further investigation, it said. Reports described the device as a fragmentation bomb.
In another security alert on Saturday, police detonated in controlled explosion gas cannisters that had been found in a suspicious package in the suburb of Sefakoy, Anatolia said.
The female suicide bomber and a policeman were killed in Tuesday's bombing in the Sultanahmet district, the location of most of the biggest historic tourist attractions in Istanbul.
An extreme leftist Turkish group initially claimed the attack but then retracted the claim, saying the first statement was an error.
Authorities are now probing if the bomber - said to be a Russian citizen from the Muslim northern Caucasus - had jihadist links.
Security has been high in Turkey over the past few months, amid fears of attacks by Kurdish militants and jihadists controlling parts of Iraq and Syria up to the Turkish border.
AFP
The homemade device was found in a suspect package in front of a shopping centre in the western suburb of Basaksehir after a passer-by raised the alarm, the official Anatolia news agency reported.
Police defused the device and took it to a laboratory for further investigation, it said. Reports described the device as a fragmentation bomb.
In another security alert on Saturday, police detonated in controlled explosion gas cannisters that had been found in a suspicious package in the suburb of Sefakoy, Anatolia said.
The female suicide bomber and a policeman were killed in Tuesday's bombing in the Sultanahmet district, the location of most of the biggest historic tourist attractions in Istanbul.
An extreme leftist Turkish group initially claimed the attack but then retracted the claim, saying the first statement was an error.
Authorities are now probing if the bomber - said to be a Russian citizen from the Muslim northern Caucasus - had jihadist links.
Security has been high in Turkey over the past few months, amid fears of attacks by Kurdish militants and jihadists controlling parts of Iraq and Syria up to the Turkish border.
AFP
Girl, 10, detonates bomb in market
2015-01-10 16:53
Maiduguri - At least 19 people were killed and 18 injured on
Saturday when a young girl, thought to be aged about 10, blew herself up
at a crowded market in the northeast Nigerian city of Maiduguri, the
Red Cross said.
A civilian vigilante Ashiru Mustapha said the powerful explosion rocked the market about lunchtime when it was packed with traders and shoppers.
A Red Cross official said: "We have so far evacuated 10 bodies to the mortuary at the (Borno) state specialist hospital."
AFP
A civilian vigilante Ashiru Mustapha said the powerful explosion rocked the market about lunchtime when it was packed with traders and shoppers.
A Red Cross official said: "We have so far evacuated 10 bodies to the mortuary at the (Borno) state specialist hospital."
AFP
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