Monday, January 18, 2016
After attack, 3 days of mourning begin
OUAGADOUGOU, Burkina Faso
Burkina Faso began three days of national mourning Sunday, and the president said security would be stepped up in the capital and the country’s borders after al-Qaida militants killed at least 28 people in an attack on a hotel and cafe popular with foreigners.
In a message to the nation, President Roch Marc Christian Kabore said the people of Burkina Faso must unite in the fight against terrorism. He also announced on the national broadcaster, Burkina 24, that security forces would be stepping up their efforts to thwart future attacks and asked people to comply with the new restrictions.
On Saturday, Burkinabe and French forces ended a more than 12-hour siege at the upscale Splendid Hotel in downtown Ouagadougou. When the gunfire and explosions finally stopped, authorities said 18 were killed in the hotel and 10 were killed at a nearby cafe.
Several Americans are missing in Iraq
BAGHDAD
The U.S. Embassy confirmed Sunday that “several” Americans have gone missing in Iraq, after news media reported that three Americans had been kidnapped in the Iraqi capital.
U.S. Embassy spokesman Scott Bolz said, “We are working in full cooperation with Iraqi authorities to locate the missing Americans.” Bolz did not identify the missing Americans or say what they were doing in Iraq.
State Department spokesman John Kirby said that “due to privacy considerations” he had nothing further to add about the missing Americans. “The safety and security of Americans abroad is our highest priority,” Kirby said.
The comments by U.S. officials came after the Arab news channel, al-Arabiya, citing its own sources, reported that three Americans had been kidnapped by militias in Baghdad.
Man dies, was in botched clinical trial
PARIS
A man died in a French hospital Sunday after taking part in an experimental drug trial for a painkiller, and five other participants remain hospitalized after one of France’s most-troubling medical incidents.
French prosecutors have launched a manslaughter investigation into the unusual case, which shined a spotlight on the practice of testing drugs on paid, healthy human volunteers. Scores of others also were given the drug.
The Portuguese pharmaceutical company testing the drug, Bial, said in a statement that it’s working with health authorities to determine what caused “this tragic and unfortunate situation.”
SpaceX rocket stage fails to land on ship
los angeles
Elon Musk’s SpaceX managed to launch a satellite into orbit Sunday, but suffered another setback in its attempt to retrieve a rocket stage by landing it on a sea-going platform.
SpaceX officials said the Falcon 9 rocket first stage experienced a “hard landing” and broke one of its stabilizer arms designed to hold it upright.
The rocket stage was left in pieces on the deck of the drone ship landing pad, and Musk quipped via Twitter that “as least the pieces were bigger” this time.
This was the third time the Hawthorne, Calif.-based company failed to accomplish a clean sea landing, although the company brought a Falcon rocket stage back to terra firma at Cape Canaveral, Fla., on Dec. 21 in what many hailed as an engineering feat.
Combined dispatches