Bloomberg Dutch voters turned out in force to back pro-European parties and help Prime Minister Mark Rutte’s Liberals easily beat off an election challenge by the anti-Islam Freedom Party of Geert Wilders, drawing a line in the sand over the spread of populism. With votes counted in all but one of the country’s 388 municipalities, the Liberal Party had ...

  YANGON/ AP A commission chaired by former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan has recommended that the government allow aid workers and journalists free access to an area in western Myanmar where security forces are accused of major human rights abuses against the Muslim Rohingya minority. Annan spoke on Thursday in a video shown at a news conference in Yangon, where ...

  JERUSALEM / AP Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is vowing to keep his promise to build Israel’s first new West Bank settlement in two decades — even as Netanyahu and President Trump’s envoy continue discussions on future settlement building. Netanyahu will meet with Trump envoy Jason Greenblatt on Thursday as part of efforts to reach an “agreed-upon policy” on ...

  LONDON / AP A bill authorizing Britain to start its exit from the European Union received royal assent and became law on Thursday, empowering Prime Minister Theresa May to begin divorce proceedings from the bloc. House of Commons Speaker John Bercow announced that the European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Act has received the assent of Queen Elizabeth II. The ...

  GREENBELT / AP President Donald Trump’s revised travel ban has suffered another federal court setback after a judge in Maryland rejected a revised measure that bans travel targeting six predominantly Muslim countries. Judge Theodore Chuang ruled on Thursday in a case brought near the nation’s capital by the American Civil Liberties Union and other groups representing immigrants, refugees and ...

  MANILA / AP Australia urged Southeast Asian nations and China to conclude a legally binding code of conduct in the South China Sea as soon as possible, voicing concern on Thursday about the scale of reclamation and construction by China in the disputed territory. Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop, speaking in Manila, urged the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian ...

  TAIPEI / AP Taiwan is planning to upgrade its F-16 fighter jets and will seek cutting-edge stealth aircraft from the United States in the face of a growing military threat from rival China, the Defense Ministry said on Thursday. The announcement follows the release of this year’s $11.4 billion defense budget, an increase of less than 1 percent from ...

  Bloomberg US stocks fell with the dollar and Treasuries as investors speculated the Federal Reserve will err in favour of more accommodation as it assesses the path for future rate hikes. Crude slipped below $49 a barrel. The S&P 500 Index failed to add to its best advance in two weeks, with health-care shares leading declines. Emerging-market equities surged ...

  Bloomberg Middle Eastern stock markets rose on Thursday, led by Egypt, after the US Federal Reserve hiked interest rates as expected but signalled no acceleration in the pace of monetary tightening. But Gulf bourses lagged emerging markets in general because of concern that low oil prices and government austerity measures will continue to weigh on corporate earnings. Among planned ...

  Reuters Saudi Arabia’s King Salman oversaw the signing of deals worth potentially $65 billion on the first day of a visit to Beijing on Thursday, as the world’s largest oil exporter looks to cement ties with the world’s second-largest economy. King Salman, who has overseen the launch of an ambitious economic reform plan since his accession two years ago, ...