Politics

Bloomberg The strain is starting to tell on Angela Merkel. Left to climb the solitary path she’s chosen during Europe’s refugee crisis, the German chancellor mocked fellow European leaders this week for refusing to come to her aid by stalling a resettlement plan. At a private meal last month with German newspaper executives critical of her stance, she proudly served ...

Bloomberg The largest party in Brazil’s lower house of Congress re-elected a pro-government leader, strengthening President Dilma Rousseff’s hand in fending off impeachment. In a 37 to 30 vote, deputies of the Brazilian Democratic Movement Party, or PMDB, re-elected Congressman Leonardo Picciani, who has spoken out against efforts to remove Rousseff from office on charges she broke the budget law. ...

Bloomberg Turkey’s leaders vowed to retaliate for a bombing of a military bus that killed at least 28 people, raising the risk that the country will step up its intervention in the war in Syria to strike groups suspected in the attack. There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the blast in the capital, Ankara, which killed both civilians ...

Bloomberg Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni is expected to extend his 30-year rule in an election that’s being held on Thursday amid tight security and fears of violence. Former guerrilla commander Museveni is competing with seven other candidates to run a landlocked country that’s Africa’s biggest coffee exporter, is planning oil production in two years and may build a pipeline for ...

Washington / Bloomberg President Barack Obama will pay a historic visit to Cuba in the coming weeks, senior Obama administration officials said, becoming the first president to set foot on the island in nearly seven decades. The brief visit in mid-March will mark a watershed moment for relations between the US and Cuba, a communist nation estranged from the US ...

Bloomberg Kenya’s army said it killed the head of Al Shabaab’s intelligence wing and 10 other leaders in a strike on one of the extremist-militant group’s training camps in southern Somalia. Mahad Karate, who was also a deputy commander of Al Shabaab, died in a “major strike” by the Kenya Defence Forces(KDF) on Feb. 8 at Nadaris, about 300 kilometers ...

Damascus / AFP Trucks carrying aid entered four besieged towns in Syria on Wednesday, in what the United Nations described as a test for the country’s warring sides ahead of a hoped-for ceasefire. The Red Crescent said trucks laden with supplies entered Moadimayet Al Sham, near Damascus, the first delivery of aid since world powers agreed on an ambitious plan ...

Beirut / AFP More than 60 health facilities in Syria supported by the Doctors Without Borders (MSF) charity were hit in attacks last year, with a dozen completely destroyed, the group said on Thursday. In a new report, MSF warned Syria’s health infrastructure “has been decimated”, with frequent aerial assaults and shelling of hospitals and clinics, in violation of international ...

Bloomberg China deployed surface-to-air missiles this month on a contested island in the South China Sea, keeping tensions high even as leaders of Southeast Asian nations pledged to try and peacefully resolve territorial disputes in the waters. Satellite images showed two batteries of eight HQ-9 surface-to-air missile launchers and a radar system on Woody Island, part of the Paracel chain ...

Harare / AFP Zimbabwean former vice president Joice Mujuru announced on Wednesday that she is forming a new party to challenge President Robert Mugabe’s all-powerful ZANU-PF, in a move that could shake up the country’s politics. Mugabe, who turns 92 on Sunday, has ruled since independence in 1980 during an era marked by vote-rigging, mass emigration, accusations of human rights ...