Briefly

BURKINA FASO

National mourning after gunmen kill 36

Militants attacked a market in Burkina Faso's Sanmatenga Province, killing at least 36 people, the government said on Tuesday. The gunmen then burned the market, according to a government statement. The violence is the latest in a surge of attacks in the West African nation's north that led to the displacement of more than half a million people last year. The government urged people to collaborate with defense and security forces to restore safety. President Roch Marc Kabore called for two days of national mourning beginning on Wednesday for the victims of the attack. Since 2015, terrorist attacks in the country have killed more than 700 people, including 200 soldiers, and displaced thousands of others.

MEXICO

Migrant caravan 'largely' halted

Mexico's government said on Tuesday that it largely halted a caravan of undocumented Central American migrants who waded across a river into Mexico, and said others who attempt to enter the country illegally will face the same consequences. The caravan, part of a group of several thousand people who last week fled Honduras, is a major test for Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador's strategy for stopping US-bound migrants. Though US President Donald Trump's promised border wall has not been built, the number of migrants crossing the southern US border has dropped sharply as Mexico stepped up the policing of its borders under the threat of punitive US tariffs.

IRAN

Zarif urges Europe to 'exert sovereignty'

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif on Wednesday urged the United Kingdom, France, and Germany, known as E3, to "exert" what he called their "sovereignty" in the face of US economic pressures. Zarif tweeted on Wednesday that "when E3 sold out remnants of#JCPOA to avoid Trump tariffs last week, I warned that it would only whet his appetite". The remarks followed US President Donald Trump's latest threat to impose 25-percent tariffs on cars from Germany, France and Britain "if they refuse to condemn Teheran's actions". The JCPOA refers to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, the nuclear deal Iran reached with world powers in 2015.