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German Chancellor Angela Merkel won her fourth term in a vote that saw her party taking its lowest share of votes since 1949. She spoke about building a coalition government a day after her win.

The earthquake struck on 19 September 2017 with a magnitude estimated to be 7.1 and strong shaking for about 20 seconds, approximately 55 km south of the city of Puebla. It caused damage in the Mexican states of Puebla, Morelos and the Greater Mexico City area, including the collapse of more than forty buildings.

After tearing through a chain of Caribbean islands hurricane Irma was on track to wreak havoc in Florida last week. Leaving at least 21 people dead and thousands homeless across the Caribbean the damage bill forecast is as much as $200 billion.

Trump has decided to end a program that prevents the deportation of immigrants illegally brought to the US as children. The group is known as Dreamers. Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced the decision of Donald Trump to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals known as DACA program and called it “an unconstitutional exercise”.

Harvey was the strongest storm to hit the US since 2004 as it struck near Rockport as a Category 4 hurricane. The storm has hit a cluster of refineries that process 5 million barrels of oil a day. Its path through the gulf shuttered 24 percent of oil production.

On Tuesday President Donald Trump has threatened to bring the US government to the brink of a shutdown if needed in order to put pressure on Congress to fund the border wall that was on the 2016 political agenda. Democratic lawmakers have objected to his plans to construct the wall on the US Mexican Border.

President Trump faced criticism from inside his party this week due to the remarks he passed whereby he equated neo-Nazis to counter-protesters in Virginia and that he failed to personally denounce white nationalists, neo-Nazis and others who held a rally in Virginia that ended with a driver of a car slamming into pedestrians.

The United States has remained technically at war with North Korea since the 1950-53 Korean conflict ended in an armistice rather than a peace treaty. Tensions in the region have risen since North Korea carried out two nuclear bomb tests last year and two ICBM tests in July. On Wednesday North Korea said that it is considering plans for a missile strike on the US Pacific territory of Guam,

Venezuela which is an oil rich country is going through a crisis. On Sunday Nicolas Maduro has cast his ballot to elect a new, all-powerful “Constituent Assembly” and promises to end his country’s crisis by rewriting the constitution.

There are no big plans by OPEC and its allies to change the supply deal even if the price of oil remains at $50 a barrel. In a meeting held in Russia it was discussed there are no plans to cap the oil production from Nigeria and Libya which currently are exempt from the current agreement.

On Monday Republicans in the US Congress were in chaos after a second attempt to pass a health care bill collapsed as two republican senators did not support the latest version of the bill. President Trump is calling for an outright repeal of Obamacare and others seeking a change in direction toward bipartisanship.

President Trump on Thursday arrived in Paris after an invitation to meet Emmanuel Macron for the July 14 Bastille Day military parade and the commemorations of the entry 100 years ago of US troops into World War One.