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From Washington, this is VOA news. I'm Ray Kouguell reporting. Strong earthquake hits Chile.
A powerful magnitude 8.3 earthquake shook Chile's capital Santiago Wednesday night. Buildings swayed, people panicked and ran into the streets. Several strong aftershocks hit within minutes as tsunami alarms sounded in the nearby port of Valparaiso. There were no immediate reports of any injuries or damage. Chilean authorities have issued a tsunami alert for the country's entire coast and U.S. officials posted an alert for Hawaii. U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon denounced Hungary's treatment of migrants as unacceptable Wednesday after police fired tear gas and sprayed water cannon at hundreds of asylum-seekers on the country's border with Serbia. "I was shocked to see how these refugees and migrants were treated. It's not acceptable." The U.N. secretary-general said the migrants "were people fleeing war and persecution" and that "they must be treated with human dignity." Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic condemned what he said was Hungary's "brutal treatment" of the migrants fleeing war-torn Syria and other Middle East countries. Soldiers from Burkina Faso's presidential guard detained the country's interim prime minister and president Wednesday and are said to be holding them hostage. Military sources tell VOA's that soldiers broke into a cabinet meeting, arresting President Michel Kafando, Prime Minister Yacouba Isaac Zida and other government ministers. The prisoners were not being allowed to leave and soldiers were seen setting barricades around the presidential palace. It's not immediately clear if there are any casualties as gunfire did erupt as soldiers behind the standoff tried to break up protesters who were marching on the palace. This is VOA news. The United States says it is considering an offer from Russia to hold military-to-military talks about the Syria conflict even as it warned Moscow its support for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad threatens to escalate warfare there. Secretary of State John Kerry disclosed the proposal Wednesday a day after talking on the phone with his counterpart Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. "The Russians proposed in the conversation I had today and the last conversation specifically that we have military-to-military conversation and meeting in order to discuss the issue of precisely what will be done." Russia in recent day has sent tanks, military advisers, technicians and security guards to Syria apparently to create an air base near the coastal town of Latakia, a government stronghold. A Yemeni government spokesman says Yemen's cabinet returned to the country after months spent in self-imposed exile in Saudi Arabia. The spokesman says the cabinet ministers will work out of the southern port city of Aden with a goal of restoring stability to the country. There is no indication that President Abdu Rabu Mansour Hadi was set to return. He fled Yemen earlier this year. Shiite Houthi rebels closed in on his refuge in Aden. Multiple parties have been fighting for control of Yemen since the Iranian-backed group seized the capital of Sana'a one year ago. Billionaire real estate developer Donald Trump will be at center stage shortly during the second U.S. Republican presidential debate, with 10 opponents trying to cut into his lead for the party's 2016 nomination. Trump's anti-Washington rhetoric, along with demands to expel 11 million illegal immigrants from the country and taunts at his opponents, have propelled him to the top in surveys of Republican voters. Four lower-ranked candidates held an earlier debate, with of them targeting Trump. The Indian capital, New Delhi, is battling its worst outbreak of dengue fever in five years. Health authorities have announced a series of measures to ensure treatment for the patients. Anjana Pasricha reports. Delhi's Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal threatened to cancel the licenses of private hospitals if they denied admission to patients suffering from dengue fever. He said they would bring about a special law in the Delhi Assembly to deal with hospitals that turn away people. The outbreak of the mosquito-borne fever in the Indian capital hit the spotlight after the families of two schoolboys said their children died after a number of private hospitals refused to admit them. The parents of one of them jumped off a four-story building on September 10, citing the death of their seven-year-old son as the reason in a suicide note. Anjana Pasricha, for VOA news, New Delhi. The list is out for the 2024 Summer Olympic Games: the hopeful cities - Budapest, Hamburg, Paris and Rome, and the U.S. west coast city of Los Angeles. The final announcement in 2017. That's the latest world news from VOA. |