Current World Issues

Officials are calling the  devastation in Puerto Rico  a humanitarian disaster. Six days after Hurricane Maria hit, millions are struggling for basic necessities like adequate food, water, fuel and electricity. Eighty percent of the island's transmission lines are down, and power may not be restored for more than a month. In a series of tweets Monday night, President Trump said the U.S. territory's old electrical grid was "devastated." He also appeared critical of the island's financial problems, tweeting they owed "billions of dollars to Wall Street and the banks which, sadly, must be dealt with." Texas & Florida are doing great but Puerto Rico, which was already suffering from broken infrastructure & massive debt, is in deep trouble.. — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 26, 2017 FEMA has sent out over 10,000 federal forces to work around the clock, reports CBS News' David Begnaud. Supplies are coming in slowly from ...

(CNN) US troops were present when Russian warplanes bombed US backed anti-ISIS fighters in Syria on Saturday, two US officials told CNN, highlighting how close the two countries came to a major international incident. A team of US Special Operations Forces were advising US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces at the location the Russians struck in Deir Ezzor in eastern Syria, one US official said. US personnel were "at most a couple of miles" away from the where the bomb landed, the official added. The US troops provided medical care to members of the Syrian Democratic Forces that were wounded in the airstrike, an image of which was tweeted out by the coalition. The US is still looking at the possibility the strike so close to US troops, and the SDF fighters it supports, may have been an error by the Russian pilot or a bomb that went astray rather than a deliberate attack on US troops by the Russians, the US official said. Regardless of the circumstances of the str...

JUCHITAN, Mexico (Reuters) - A powerful earthquake that struck Mexico last week has left some 2.5 million people in need of aid and killed 96 others, authorities said on Monday, as officials rushed to get food and water to stricken communities in the poor south. Oaxaca state governor Alejandro Murat told local television the death toll in his state had risen to 76. He said preliminary reports showed that at least 12,000 homes were damaged, and warned the number was likely to rise. Murat said 1 million people in Oaxaca needed food, water, electricity and help rebuilding damaged homes, while in neighboring Chiapas state, which was closest to the epicenter of the tremor, 1.5 million people were affected, according to officials. “We are united in facing this humanitarian crisis,” Murat said. The 8.1-magnitude quake off the coast of Chiapas rattled Mexico City and sowed destruction across the narrowest portion of Mexico on the isthmus of Tehuantepec. Mexico’s government on Mon...

Kenya's electoral commission has announced that the country's new presidential elections will take place on October 17, after the country's Supreme Court overturned the result of last month's poll that declared President Uhuru Kenyatta the winner "A fresh presidential election will be held on the 17th of October 2017," said a statement released on Monday signed by Wafula Chebukati, chairperson of the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC). "This is in conformity with the Supreme Court decision annulling the presidential election held on 8th August 2017." Kenya's opposition hopeful after nullification of president's election win Chebukati said only Kenyatta and opposition leader Raila Odinga, who brought the court challenge, would be on the ballot paper, along with their running mates. On Friday, Chief Justice David Maraga cancelled the results of the August poll saying the election commission had failed to hold a leg...