Top World News

Sep 11, 2026 - World

Her Horizon Fund seeks $100m to stop practice harming 230m women and girls globally Frontline activists and leaders in the fight against female genital mutilation, which has affected more than 230 million women and girls worldwide, have welcomed an unprecedented $15.5m (£11.4m) fund aimed at creating “unstoppable momentum” to finally end the practice.The launch of the fund comes as women’s rights are increasingly under attack and donor funding is in sharp decline, particularly for work led by FGM survivors in local communities. It is thought to be the largest single philanthropic contribution to ending the practice of FGM. Continue reading...

Sep 11, 2026 - World

Secretary of State Marco Rubio's three-country tour through Latin America this week backfired despite visiting nations led by Trump-friendly presidents, Politico reported.According to a Thursday report, Rubio visited Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru over three days. All three countries are governed by right-wing leaders who campaigned on combating crime and partnering closely with Washington, Politico noted. In Colombia, he spoke of a "golden era" between the two countries.Politico reported that the visit exposed sharp tensions inside the countries, where critics and commentators accused Rubio of pressuring governments to work against their own interests. The friction was clearest over China, a dominant economic force across the region, and the Trump administration's Shield of the Americas military alliance, according to Politico.In Peru, which Rubio announced would join the alliance, he used the moment to attack Beijing, charging that Chinese-backed projects "circumvent Peru's legal frameworks," according to Politico. Peru's government welcomed the step as part of its push against organized crime, Politico reported.Others were far less enthusiastic. Mirtha Vasquez, a left-wing Peruvian senator and former prime minister, said her country "needs to have a relationship with the U.S. but also with other powers," Politico reported.A survey released this week by the Kellogg Institute and Vanderbilt University found that citizens across the three nations place more trust in the Chinese government than in the U.S. administration, according to Politico. Benjamin Gedan, a former State and Treasury Department official, said the election of pro-Trump leaders was "clearly not enough to move the needle" in the U.S.-China contest.The timing sharpened the backlash, as Rubio arrived soon after a Venezuelan oil deal that drew heavy criticism across the region as gunboat diplomacy. In Colombia, defeated left-wing candidate Ivan Cepeda called the visit "an act of surrender" of regional sovereignty in a social media video, according to Politico.Beijing moved fast to press the advantage. Before Rubio landed in Peru, the Chinese embassy in Lima posted that the Western Hemisphere is "no one's backyard," Politico reported. Rubio was pressed by reporters on whether Washington would act alone against groups it labels as terrorist threats. He said the United States has "the capacity to act unilaterally."

Sep 11, 2026 - World

Vice President JD Vance quietly went around the Pentagon to call military commanders directly for blunt assessments of the Iran War.The New York Times reported Thursday that Vance wanted the commanders' individual judgments as they saw them before those views were merged into an official Pentagon position. The Times described Vance as opposed to the war from the outset, and he was tasked by President Donald Trump with helping to end it.The vice president reached commanders in the Middle East, Europe, and Asia, pressing them on the war's objectives, casualty estimates, how much punishment Tehran's government could absorb, and what was left in their weapons stockpiles, according to the report. The answers were sobering as officers were most alarmed by their shrinking supply of Patriot interceptors, which are the mainstay of U.S. air defenses. One theater of the conflict dropped below 100 of them by late spring, The Times reported.Those private assessments clashed sharply with what the administration has said in public. Trump has continued to falsely claim the United States has already won, that Iran's military has been demolished, and that there are no problems with American weapons supplies, The Times noted. Vance himself recently played down the notion that the country was even at war.Behind closed doors, the president has raged at coverage of the depleted stockpiles and branded the reporting treasonous, according to The Times. Investigators later subjected dozens of senior Pentagon officers to polygraph tests.The administration pushed back on the reporting. Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said the defense secretary had "facilitated direct access to combatant commanders" for the vice president and other senior White House officials.Joseph Holstead, a spokesman for General Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, insisted "there is no gap in the military advice" provided to the president, vice president, and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.

Sep 10, 2026 - World

Canadian PM Mark Carney hosts president in Calgary, where he grew up alongside large Ukrainian communityCanada offered support on Thursday to boost Ukraine’s air defenses and help replenish its drone stocks, as the countries pledged to deepen their alliance during a visit by Volodymyr Zelenskyy.Mark Carney hosted the president of Ukraine in Calgary in the western province of Alberta, where the Canadian prime minister grew up among a large community of people with Ukrainian heritage. Continue reading...

Sep 10, 2026 - World

U.S. Navy Acting Secretary Hung Cao was said to have made a “stunning admission” regarding the deeply unpopular U.S. war against Iran in an interview that was previewed Thursday.Journalist Ryan Morgan of the conservative outlet The Epoch Times revealed Thursday that he had interviewed Cao, and previewed some of Cao’s remarks in a social media post on X.“In an exclusive interview, Acting Navy Secretary Hung Cao told me that Iranian forces ‘blew the hell out of Bahrain,’” Morgan wrote.“While open-source analyses have long indicated that the U.S. Fifth Fleet Headquarters at Naval Support Activity Bahrain sustained extensive damage in the early days of the Iran conflict, Cao's comment represents a direct and high-level acknowledgment of the matter.”Past reporting has confirmed that the U.S. Navy base in Bahrain — a relatively small island country near Qatar and Saudi Arabia that sits in the Persian Gulf — was “repeatedly targeted” with Iranian strikes in the early days of the conflict. U.S. military officials, however, have claimed that no Americans were killed and that the damage did not “significantly impact operations,” according to The Wall Street Journal.Cao’s admission, however, appears to suggest the strikes may have been more damaging than the U.S. military had previously admitted, Fox News’ Jennifer Griffin suggested.“This is a pretty stunning admission by the Acting Navy Secretary Hung Cao, whose nomination is hung up in Congress, about how Iranian forces ‘blew the hell out of (US Navy’s 5th Fleet base in) Bahrain,’” Griffin wrote in a social media post on X. “Haven’t heard a senior US official admit this on the record until now.”As previously noted by the Journal, the damage to the U.S. base in Bahrain was so significant that some “structures that were attacked may not be rebuilt.”“Pentagon officials have frustrated lawmakers by declining to discuss the cost of the U.S. damage with Congress,” the Journal previously reported. “In response to a request for comment, the Pentagon pointed to remarks made by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Capitol Hill. Pressed for an estimate at a May congressional hearing, Hegseth replied: ‘What is the cost of Iran obtaining a nuclear weapon?’”This is a pretty stunning admission by the Acting Navy Secretary Hung Cao, whose nomination is hung up in Congress, about how Iranian forces “blew the hell out of (US Navy’s 5th Fleet base in) Bahrain.” Haven’t heard a senior US official admit this on the record until now. See… https://t.co/NMaxkhVOrh— Jennifer Griffin (@JenGriffinFNC) September 10, 2026