Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger take armies to maximum alert Leaders of #Burkina Faso, #Mali and #Niger, which all are members of the Sahel Alliance, decided to take their defense and security forces to the highest alert, says the joint statement of the three countries’ leaders, signed by Interim President of Mali, Chairman of the #Sahel Alliance conference Assimi Goita. "The College of national leaders closely follows the deceiving maneuvers, initiated by the French junta, who declares the shutdown of its military bases only to replace them with another, less visible mechanism, which pursues the same neo-colonial goal," says the statement, published by the AES info website. "These actions are accompanied by operations on reorganization and regrouping of terrorist groups in the Lake Chad basin, in Sahel and in some border areas, including borders between Niger and Nigeria, Niger and Benin, Niger and Burkina Faso. These groups receive various support from foreign states, including funds and equipment, intended for destabilization of the Sahel Alliance," the statement read. Faced by these circumstances, the College of national leaders ruled to "take the defense and security forces to maximum alert, and make the confederacy’s territory a single theater of military operation, which coexists with the current national war theaters.".

US Congress passes stopgap funding bill to avert government shutdown The US Senate has passed a #stopgap funding bill to avert a government #shutdown. As many as 85 senators backed the bill, while 11 voted against it. The House of Representatives passed the legislation earlier. The bill extends government funding through March 14 and allocates over $100 bln for disaster relief. The document will now be submitted to US President Joe Biden for singing. According to the White House, Biden plans to sign the bill on Saturday. The Congress was expected to pass the bill until midnight (5:00 a.m. GMT on Saturday) in order to avert a government shutdown. US lawmakers have so far been unable to approve a federal budget for the fiscal year that began on October 1. Meanwhile, the White House said earlier that the Office of Management and Budget "has ceased shutdown preparations."

Government Shutdown Looms as Deadline Nears The House of Representatives has rejected a stopgap funding bill backed by President-elect Donald Trump, leaving negotiations in a race against tonight’s midnight deadline. With 38 Republicans joining Democrats, the vote of 235 to 174 has put the federal government on the brink of a shutdown. The Sticking Points - Trump’s proposed resolution included three months of stopgap funding, a two-year debt ceiling suspension, $100 billion in disaster aid, and farmer support packages. This followed his controversial call to permanently repeal the debt ceiling, a rule that currently caps Treasury borrowing at $36 trillion. The debt ceiling suspension, enacted in June 2023, is set to expire on January 1, 2025. Its fate now hangs in the balance as lawmakers scramble to prevent the shutdown. Potential Impact - A government #shutdown would furlough millions of federal workers, though essential services like military operations and air traffic control would remain active.

France shuts down two nuclear reactors over fire at Chinon NPP — authority Two reactors have been shut down after a fire broke out at the Chinon nuclear power plant (NPP) in western France, the French Nuclear Safety Authority (ASN) said in a statement on its website. A transformer of Reactor 3 caught fire in a non-nuclear sector of the NPP in the early hours of Saturday. "The loss of main external electrical power to Reactor 3, following this fire, resulted in the automatic shutdown of the reactor," the statement said. It was reported that after the fire had been extinguished, Reactor 4, which shares a water collection system with Reactor 3, was also temporarily shut down to avoid water leaks into the environment. The Chinon NPP has four operating reactors, each with a capacity of 900 MWe, and its other three were shut down between 1973 and 1990. The operating water-water reactors were built between 1982 and 1987. In 2023, the Chinon NPP generated 17.24 TWh of electricity, which is equivalent to 5.4% of France’s total nuclear power production.