Politics

Bloomberg South Africa’s chief prosecutor cautioned that arrests following a three-year judicial inquiry into state corruption will take time, as she announced plans to recruit a replacement for her top investigator who quit last week. A panel led by Acting Chief Justice Raymond Zondo is due to complete its graft probe this month, and it will fall to National Director ...

Bloomberg Olaf Scholz cleared the final hurdle on his path to becoming German chancellor when Green Party members overwhelmingly approved the coalition deal with his Social Democrats and the Free Democrats. The Greens said that 86% of some 71,000 members who voted backed the accord, which includes an ambitious climate agenda and plans to upgrade Germany’s technology infrastructure. The SPD ...

Bloomberg UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson won a court ruling over the way he dealt with allegations of bullying made against his Home Secretary Priti Patel. Johnson, the ultimate “arbiter” of the rules governing the behaviour of senior officials, didn’t “misdirect himself,” judges ruled in London. The claim was brought by the FDA trade union, which represents the most senior ...

Bloomberg The US Embassy in Tokyo issued a warning about foreigners being stopped and searched by Japanese police in what it said were suspected to be “racial profiling incidents.” The unusual move by the embassy of Tokyo’s only formal ally came after Japan closed its borders to new entries by foreigners amid concern over the omicron variant, just weeks after ...

Bloomberg President Vladimir Putin is expected to visit New Delhi on Monday as billions of dollars of Russian weaponry flow into India that would normally attract US sanctions. Eager to draw India into its efforts to contain China, the US may look away this time. Putin is making his first foreign trip in nearly six months for talks with Prime ...

Bloomberg Russia said it will protest officially to the US about an incident over the Black Sea, when civilian aircraft had to divert from their routes because of a US spy plane. “Increased US and Nato warplanes activity near Russian borders creates risks of dangerous incidents for civilian aviation,” Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on her Facebook page. ...

Bloomberg Germany’s Free Democrats overwhelmingly supported a coalition deal with the Social Democrats and Greens, bringing the party one step closer to governing Europe’s biggest economy. The pro-business FDP backed the 177-page pact outlining the government’s plan for the next four years with 92% of votes at a special party conference in Berlin. The SPD already approved the deal at ...

Bloomberg France’s Republicans nominated their first woman presidential candidate in a primary that sharpened the focus of the challenge facing Emmanuel Macron in next year’s election. Valerie Pecresse won the final round of the conservative’s ballot after 61% of members backed her. Eric Ciotti, a lawmaker from southern France often compared to far-right rival Eric Zemmour, took 39%. By selecting ...

Bloomberg Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said the US will stand up to an “increasingly assertive and autocratic” China in the Indo-Pacific region and beyond, calling its activity “disturbing.” One way to counter China’s military modernisation, growing nuclear capabilities and technological advances is to strengthen US alliances in the region, Austin told a security conference in California. “The activity that we ...

Bloomberg The US is reevaluating the travel ban on eight southern African countries as more information about the omicron variant and its spread becomes available, White House medical adviser Anthony Fauci said. “That ban was done at a time when we were really in the dark — we had no idea what was going on,” Fauci said. U.S. medical advisers ...