NEWS OF THE DAY
From Around the World
_1 Mass shooting: Six people were killed and two others wounded in a shooting in the southwestern German town of Rot am See on Friday that appears to have resulted from a family dispute, police said. A man called police and told them he had killed several people, regional police chief Reiner Moeller said. Police arrested a 26yearold German national as the suspect in the slayings, Moeller said. Officers found the bodies of six people — three women and three men — in and behind a building where a bar is located. The suspect’s mother and father were among the dead, the police chief said.
_2 Storm deaths: The death toll from flooding and landslides from torrential rains in Madagascar has risen to 26, authorities said Friday. An additional 15 people remained missing, the national disaster management office said. More than 92,000 people have been affected by the heavy rains that started Monday on the Indian Ocean island nation. Nearly 10,000 homes have been inundated in the northern part of the country. Authorities said the military has deployed to help evacuate people at risk from rising waters. Major roads in the north have been cut off, leaving some villages isolated.
_3 Nuclear pact: The European Union’s top diplomat said Friday that more time is required to unravel a dispute between countries involved in the Iran nuclear agreement. On Jan. 15, Britain, France and Germany reluctantly triggered the accord’s dispute resolution mechanism to force Iran into discussions on possible violations of the deal, starting the clock on a process that could result in the “snapback” of U.N. and EU sanctions on Iran if no solution is found. The dispute mechanism provides for a period of about one month, which can be prolonged if all parties agree, to resolve any disagreement. EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said the three European powers involved in the 2015 deal agree “that more time is needed due to the complexity of the issues involved . ... The timeline is therefore extended.”
_4 Border migrants: The situation at the border Friday between Ciudad Hidalgo, Mexico, and Tecun Uman, Guatemala, was returning to normal after thousands of migrants had massed in recent days in a bid to cross into Mexico. The international bridge reopened early Friday and cars and motorcycles were crossing freely. This week, armored National Guard troops and immigration agents broke up the latest effort to form a migrant caravan and loaded the migrants onto buses and took them to a detention center in the nearby city of Tapachula. President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said he had been briefed on the operation and commended military commanders. Mexico and Guatemala have returned hundreds of migrants to their home countries since they set out last week, mostly to Honduras.
_5 Climate activist: Teenage climate activist Greta Thunberg brushed off mockery from U.S. Treasury chief Steven Mnuchin, saying Friday his comments have “of course no effect” on her and fellow campaigners. The 17yearold Swedish star’s comments marked a final coda to the fourday World Economic Forum summit in Davos, Switzerland, where a major theme was tension between environmental activists who want to protect the Earth and Trump administration officials and business titans who want to exploit its resources. Mnuchin had a day earlier dismissed Thunberg’s suggestion that governments and companies cut back dramatically on fossil fuels with a condescending barb. “Is she the chief economist? Who is she?” he said. Then, following a brief pause, he said it was “a joke.”