Canada leading indicator edges up 0.1 percent in November

OTTAWA (Reuters) - The composite leading indicator for Canada rose 0.1 percent in November, slowing down from October on a housing market downturn and weak manufacturing as the economy hits a soft patch.
The index rose 0.2 percent in October and was up every month in 2012 except July, said a report on Monday by the Macdonald-Laurier Institute. The think tank developed the modified indicator last year to replace the one discontinued by the country's official statistics agency.
"The marginal gains in the leading indicator augur slow economic growth into early 2013, although the manufacturing sector turned down as uncertainty grew about the global economy," the institute said in a release.
The housing index fell 3.3 percent in November, the fifth consecutive decline as housing starts and existing home sales weakened.
In manufacturing, new orders fell 0.7 percent and the average workweek shrank by 0.3 percent.
Employment insurance claims rose for the first time in eight months in spite of strong employment data in the fourth quarter.
The stock market and commodity prices were the main areas of strength offsetting the weakness elsewhere.

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France says US is providing communications and transport help to Mali military intervention

BAMAKO, Mali - France claimed new successes in its campaign to oust Islamist extremists from northern Mali on Sunday, bombarding the major city of Gao with airstrikes targeting the airport and training camps used by the al-Qaida-linked rebel group controlling the city.
France's foreign minister also said the 3-day-old intervention is gaining international support, with communications and transport help from the United States and backing from Britain, Denmark and other European countries.
The French-led effort to take back Mali's north from the extremists occupying it has included airstrikes by jets and combat helicopters on at least four northern towns, of which Gao is the largest. Some 400 French troops have been deployed to the country in the all-out effort to win back the territory from the well-armed rebels, who seized control of an area larger than France itself following a coup in Mali nine months ago.
"French fighter jets have identified and destroyed this Sunday, Jan. 13, numerous targets in northern Mali near Gao, in particular training camps, infrastructure and logistical depots which served as bases for terrorist groups," the French Defence Ministry said in a statement.
Residents of Gao confirmed that the targets included the city's airport, as well as the building that served as the base for the town's feared Islamist police, which — in their adherence to a strict version of Muslim law — have carried out numerous punishments including amputating limbs of accused thieves.
Gao resident Abderahmane Dicko, a public school teacher, said he and his neighbours heard the jets screaming across the sky between noon and 1 p.m. local time.
"We saw the war planes circling. They were targeting the camps uses by the Islamists. They only hit their bases. They didn't shoot at the population," he said.
But the intervention has come with a human cost in the city of Konna, the first to be bombed on Friday and Saturday. The town's mayor said that at least 10 civilians were killed, including three children who threw themselves into a river and drowned trying to avoid the falling bombs.
French President Francois Hollande authorized the military operation, code-named "Serval" after a sub-Saharan wildcat, after it became clear that the advancing rebels could push past the defences in the town of Mopti, the first town on the government-controlled side, which has the largest concentration of Malian soldiers.
The decision catapulted the world and Mali's neighbours into a military operation that diplomats had earlier said would not take place until at least September. France's defence minister said they had no choice because of the swift rebel advance.
On Saturday, the body representing nations in West Africa announced that the member states would send hundreds of troops of their own, including at least 500 each from Niger, Burkina Faso and Senegal, as well as from Nigeria.
They will work alongside French special forces, including a contingent that arrived Saturday in Bamako to secure the Malian capital against retaliatory attacks by the al-Qaida-linked groups occupying Mali's northern half.
TV footage showed the French troops walking single-file out of the Bamako airport, weapons strapped to their bodies or held over their shoulders, like skis.
French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said the military effort succeeded in blocking the advance that had prompted the intervention. "The Islamist offensive has been stopped," Fabius said on RTL radio Sunday. "Blocking the terrorists ... we've done it."
He sought to stress that the operation is gaining international backing, despite concern about the risks of the mission in a stretch of lawless desert in weakly governed country. "We have the support of the Americans for communications and transport," Fabius said, but gave no details.
U.S. officials have said they had offered to send drones to Mali and were considering a broad range of options for assistance, including information-sharing and possibly allowing limited use of refuelling tankers. British Prime Minister David Cameron also agreed to send aircraft to help transport troops.

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UN Security Council to meet Monday at France's request to discuss situation in Mali

A spokesman for the French U.N. Mission says the Security Council will meet Monday at France's request to discuss Mali.
Spokesman Brieuc Pont said in a tweet posted Sunday that the council will meet Monday afternoon "to examine the situation in Mali." French troops have intervened to oust al-Qaida-linked Islamist extremists who control northern Mali.
The 3-day-old, French-led effort to take back Mali's north from the extremists has included airstrikes by jets and combat helicopters on at least four northern towns. Some 400 French troops have been deployed to the country in the all-out effort to win back the territory from the well-armed rebels, who seized control of an area larger than France itself following a coup in Mali nine months ago.

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