Globe Trot: French unity march masks divisions over terror response

FRANCE: More than 1.5 million people marched in Paris yesterday, including at least four heads of state—President François Hollande of France, Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, Prime Minister David Cameron of Britain, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, and Mahmoud Abbas, president of the Palestinian Authority. They marched in a show of unity against terrorism that masks deep divisions and anxiety over how to stop future attacks.

The attacks in Paris over four days killed 17, including hostages taken Friday plus the dozen killed at the offices of satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo. Security forces killed all three attackers Friday, but a video of gunman Amedy Coulibaly shows him giving allegiance to the Islamic State. Growing evidence suggests the killers also had ties to al-Qaeda in Yemen.

France deployed 10,000 troops today to protect Jewish and other sites across the country. The killing of four French Jews in last week’s hostage standoff at a Paris kosher market has deepened the fears among Europe’s Jewish communities, which already face rising anti-Semitism. One of the hostages who hid inside a freezer at the kosher market for five hours during the hostage-taking, said he would move his family of four children to Israel.

NIGERIA: Nine days after a Boko Haram massacre in Baga near Lake Chad—that may have killed 2,000—authorities are still unable to assess the site. Baga, local government officials say, is simply no more. It’s “virtually non-existent,” Musa Alhaji Bukar, a senior government official in the area, told the BBC. And The Washington Post states, “It’s hard to find contemporary precedent for the delight Boko Haram takes in killing.”

NEW YORK: Calling his actions “barbaric,” Judge Katherine Forres sentenced Abu Hamza al-Masri to life in prison on Friday for terrorist activities, including a plot to kidnap and kill Western tourists in Yemen and a plan to set up a terrorist training camp in Oregon.

HAITI: On this fifth anniversary of Haiti’s devastating earthquake, where has its $10 billion in global aid gone? “Nobody can claim that money has been squandered only by Haitians,” writes former Haitian ambassador to the U.S. Raymond Joseph. Two-thirds of USAID contracts for Haiti, went to “Beltway-based firms, while just 1.5 percent has gone to Haitian companies,” he said. In 2010, I profiled Joseph and his remarkable journey to Moody Bible Institute and back to Haiti.

CUBA has completed the release of 53 political prisoners as part of last month’s agreement to normalize relations with the United States.