France

Cyprus Energy Minister Giorgos Lakkotrypis said on Wednesday that Italy's ENI, France's Total, and Qatar Petroleum with American ExxonMobil - headed by US president-elect Donald Trump's choice for secretary of state, Rex Tillerson - are the energy firms that will negotiate licenses to explore for oil and gas in three blocks within the island's exclusive economic zone (EEZ) on its southern coast

The chosen by President-elect Donald Trump for Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, was until now the CEO of Exxon Mobile, the company which along with Qatar Petroleum were chosen by the Cypriot government to develop field No10 in the island’s EEZ.

Turkish construction and investment firm Rönesans Holding's healthcare unit is working with French fund Meridiam on public-private partnership (PPP) investments in Morocco and Senegal, the Rönesans board chairman told Reuters on Dec. 20, also giving details about the planned financing deals for the group's city hospital projects. 

Berlin police said on Tuesday that investigators assume the driver of a truck that plowed into a crowd at a Berlin Christmas market, killing 12 people and injuring 48 others, did so intentionally in a suspected terrorist attack.

A truck plowed into a crowded Christmas market in the German capital Berlin in the evening on Dec. 19, killing 12 people and 48 others wounded, police said, adding that they were treating the incidemt as an "intentional" and "probable terrorist attack."

A truck plowed into a crowded Christmas market in the German capital Berlin in the evening on Dec. 19, killing nine people and injuring up to 50 others, police said.

A special court in France has declared the IMF head Christine Lagarde guilty of negligence and complicity in the 2008 Tapie Affair.

Lagarde, who was at the time the finance minister of France, approved a payment of EUR 400 million to controversial businessman Bernard Tapie.

The United Nations Security Council, with Russia's backing, voted on Dec. 19 to quickly deploy U.N. observers to Aleppo to monitor evacuations and report on the fate of civilians who remain in the besieged Syrian city, which France says is critical to prevent "mass atrocities."

Some 20,000 people have been evacuated from the city so far, said Turkish FM Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu. 

International Monetary Fund (IMF) head Christine Lagarde has been found guilty of negligence committed at the time she was Finance Minister of France, international media report.

She has been convicted over the approval of an award of EUR 404 M in 2008 to Bernard Tapie, a French businessman.

The French court has not imposed any penalty on Lagarde, according to France 24.

Ukraine said five of its troops were killed Dec. 18 by pro-Russian insurgents in the bloodiest clash in the war-scarred ex-Soviet republic in months.

Kyiv military spokesman Leonid Matyukhin told AFP that another six soldiers were wounded in the battle for control of the strategic city of Debaltseve.