Politics

Bloomberg Italy’s biggest party is set to splinter over the country’s support for Ukraine, just as Prime Minister Mario Draghi defended in parliament his government’s stance on the conflict. Foreign Minister Luigi Di Maio may soon quit the Five Star Movement and set up a new parliamentary group of his own, in a clash with party leader Giuseppe Conte, according ...

  Bloomberg South Africa’s main opposition party has asked the US Federal Bureau of Investigation to probe whether President Cyril Ramaphosa was involved in money laundering, after it emerged that foreign currency had been stolen from his game farm. “Specifically, we have requested that the FBI considers investigating the source of the funds and whether the money was brought into ...

Bloomberg Colombia is bracing for the prospect of a radical change in economic and political direction after electing a former guerrilla to the presidency on a platform of transforming the country’s business-friendly model. Gustavo Petro, 62, defeated construction magnate Rodolfo Hernandez in Sunday’s runoff vote, giving him a shot at enacting a program that includes plans to tax big landowners, ...

Bloomberg President Emmanuel Macron made history in the French legislative elections, just not in the way he hoped. The 44-year-old centrist became the first president in decades to fail to garner an absolute majority in parliament, falling short of the 289-seat threshold. His alliance, however, will still remain the largest bloc. That means that while Macron may be able to ...

Bloomberg Russia said it hit military targets in Ukraine with sea-launched cruise missiles, including a strike on a planning meeting of Ukrainian commanders. The war in Ukraine “could last for years,” Nato Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg told Germany’s Bild am Sonntag, saying the military alliance “must not let up on supporting” Kyiv. The new head of the British Army said ...

Bloomberg Australian opposition leader Peter Dutton reiterated his earlier claims that the US could provide Australia with two nuclear submarines by 2030, without providing material evidence that such a deal would occur. Speaking on the national broadcaster’s “Insiders” program Sunday, Dutton said he had visited counterparts in Connecticut and “spoken with them there” about acquiring the equipment, even though the ...

  Bloomberg Biden administration officials have decided to reject a vague new assertion by China that the Taiwan Strait is not “international waters” and are increasingly concerned the stance could result in more frequent challenges at sea for the democratically-governed island, according to people familiar with the matter. Chinese officials have made such remarks repeatedly in meetings with US counterparts ...

  Bloomberg Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez’s Socialists are heading for a heavy electoral defeat in the country’s most populous region of Andalusia on Sunday, highlighting the scale of the challenge he faces to win re-election in a national vote due next year. Sanchez and his government have been struggling to cope with the economic fallout from Russia’s invasion of ...

  Bloomberg China launched its third and most modern aircraft carrier, a watershed moment for President Xi Jinping’s efforts to modernize the armed forces and narrow his country’s military gap with the US. The new carrier, christened the Fujian, was launched from Jiangnan Shipyard near Shanghai on Friday at ceremony attended by military and civilian leaders, state broadcaster China Central ...

Bloomberg US officials are working to arrange a possible call this summer between President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping, according to two people in Washington familiar with the plans, with tensions high between the world’s two biggest economies. The people didn’t have more details on what the US would want to be the focus of the call, but ...