Politics

  Bloomberg Boris Johnson was told of a complaint against Conservative MP Chris Pincher two years before promoting him, a minister said, in a major concession from the government after days of speculation about what the UK prime minister knew and when. An internal probe into Pincher’s conduct when he was a Foreign Office minister in October 2019 found he ...

Bloomberg Dozens of Venezuelan opposition figures, who turned Colombia into their unofficial headquarters in recent years, say the election of Gustavo Petro as Colombia’s first leftist president puts them at risk, and they plan to leave. Activists, party leaders, former officers and military deserters are making the move, according to seven people with knowledge of the plans. They’re afraid they’ll ...

Bloomberg Italy declared a state of emergency in five northern and central regions devastated by a recent drought, as a severe heat wave takes its toll on agriculture and threatens power supplies. High temperatures and exceptionally dry conditions have brought water levels in the Po, the country’s largest river, to its lowest in 70 years. Even amid a historically arid ...

  Bloomberg Hong Kong’s new leader, John Lee, declared the city must balance reducing travel inconvenience with limiting the spread of Covid-19, signaling a cautious virus approach. Lee said Tuesday that he’d asked Health Secretary Lo Chung-mau to assess the “evidence and statistics to see how we can, while on the one hand, contain the spread of the pandemic and, ...

Bloomberg The US ambassador to China called on the Foreign Ministry in Beijing to stop spreading Russia’s “lies,” in an unusually direct and public rebuke by the top American diplomat in the country. Ambassador Nicholas Burns made the “request” in response to a question at a government-backed forum Monday about what China could do to resolve the crisis over Russia’s ...

  Bloomberg The British Army’s Twitter and YouTube accounts have been hacked, according to a statement from an Army spokesperson. A series of posts promoting non-fungible tokens were retweeted on the Army’s account on Sunday. Its YouTube account has been renamed “Ark Invest” and features several videos from a panel hosted by Ark Investment Management LLC last year on Bitcoin. ...

  Bloomberg A Chinese-Canadian tycoon who was seized at a Hong Kong hotel five years ago and has lost much of his business empire to the Chinese government is going on trial on Monday. The Canadian embassy in Beijing said in a statement that it was aware Xiao Jianhua’s trial would take place. “Canadian consular officials are monitoring this case ...

Bloomberg Boris Johnson is under pressure to explain what he knew and when after a string of allegations surfaced over the weekend about the past sexual behavior of Chris Pincher, the Conservative MP who quit last week as one of the prime minister’s enforcers, citing his own drunken behavior. The UK prime minister suspended Pincher from the Conservative Party, almost ...

Bloomberg Japan’s ruling coalition parties are set to win a majority in a July 10 election for the upper house of parliament, with the main opposition party failing to pick up support from voters worried about rising prices, a major poll showed. Prime Minister Fumio Kishida’s Liberal Democratic Party and its junior partner Komeito are together likely to secure 65-80 ...

  Bloomberg French President Emmanuel Macron shuffled his cabinet after losing his outright majority in parliament last month but made few changes, in a sign that he’s failed to convince major opposition figures to join his coalition. The 44-year-old centrist is keeping Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire, Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin and Foreign Affairs Minister Catherine Colonna in their posts. ...