Xinhua world news summary at 0030 GMT, Jan. 16
Xinhua, January 16, 2016 Adjust font size:
An Al-Qaida affiliate has claimed responsibility for the hotel attack which has so far killed 20 in the capital of Burkina Faso Friday, a U.S.-based monitor group said on its website.
SITE Intelligence group, a jihadist monitoring group, said "Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) claimed credit for the raid at the Splendid Hotel in Ouagadougou, the capital of Burkina Faso, reporting its execution by the recently-joined al-Murabitoon Battalion." (Burkina-Attacks-Hotel)
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DAMASCUS -- A suicide bomber with the Islamic State (IS) militant group blew himself up near the headquarters of Kurdish forces in northeastern Syria on Friday, killing two people, a monitor group and state TV reported after midnight.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a London-based watchdog group, said the IS suicide bomber blew himself up near a position of the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG), adding that the bomber likely exploded inside the headquarters of the YPG in the southwestern countryside of al-Hasakah province. (Syria-IS-Sucide Bombing)
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MOSCOW -- Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev on Friday suggested that the country's 2016 budget be slashed and a host of projects be scrapped amid economic downturn.
"We will assess what expenses could be cut, and they must now be substantially cut, unfortunately," Medvedev said at a meeting on execution of 2016 federal budget. (Russia-Budget Cut)
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MEXICO CITY -- A new film about the life of Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman Loera was screened in Mexico on Friday, providing a fictional account of the drug cartel boss' daring escape from a maximum-security prison last July.
Coming a week after Guzman Loera was re-captured in the northern Mexican state of Sinaloa, the film's release commands high public attention. (Chapo-Guzman-film) Endi