Politics

BLOOMBERG The UK and European Union (EU) will sign off on their new Brexit deal for Northern Ireland, despite ongoing opposition to the agreement from some unionists in the region. UK Foreign Secretary James Cleverly and EU Commission Vice-President Maros Sefcovic will meet in London to adopt the so-called Windsor Framework, after which new trading arrangements can be implemented, the Foreign ...

BLOOMBERG Xi Jinping’s meetings in Moscow with Vladimir Putin put the Biden administration in an uncomfortable position: on the sidelines as two adversaries discuss a Ukraine peace proposal that the US has deemed unacceptable. US officials have publicly expressed deep skepticism about the Chinese idea, saying its call for a cease-fire would reward Moscow’s invasion by cementing its territorial gains. ...

BLOOMBERG Rahul Gandhi, the senior leader of India’s main opposition Congress party, has been convicted by a local court of defamation and sentenced to two years in jail after allegedly making offensive remarks in 2019 about Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s surname. A court in the western city of Surat found Gandhi guilty, but granted him bail and suspended the sentence ...

BLOOMBERG UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak emerged unscathed from a day of Parliamentary drama after convincingly winning a key Brexit vote, while former Premier Boris Johnson cut a defensive figure as he denied lying to lawmakers during the so-called Partygate scandal. Sunak won the vote on a crucial element of the new deal he struck last month with the European ...

BLOOMBERG China’s ambassador to Australia has dismissed concerns over a war between the two countries as unrealistic, as defense officials from both governments met for talks in Canberra in the latest sign of a diplomatic thaw. Ambassador Xiao Qian wrote an opinion piece published in the Sydney Morning Herald and the Age newspapers on Thursday, in which he criticised the ...

BLOOMBERG Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr said the US will gain expanded access to military sites in northern Philippines close to Taiwan, as well as in Palawan province near South China Sea, paving the way for greater American presence in key locations as tensions with Beijing linger. Marcos said at a televised briefing that the four additional sites under the ...

BLOOMBERG Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy visited frontline positions near the besieged city of Bakhmut in the eastern Donetsk region, a focus of fierce battles with the Russian army in recent months, and was briefed about the situation on the ground. Zelenskiy earlier condemned what he called “murderous” Russian strikes on Ukraine overnight using drones, as well as fresh missile attacks ...

BLOOMBERG Turkey’s biggest non-aligned political party said it won’t field its own candidate in May’s presidential elections, in a boost to the main opposition coalition’s chances of unseating Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) and five allied left-wing groups will campaign against Erdogan’s “one-man rule,” Co-Chair Pervin Buldan said. While she didn’t explicitly endorse main opposition leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu, ...

BLOOMBERG South Korea plans to hold its “largest-ever” live-fire drills with the US in a move certain to anger North Korea, which has ramped up its provocations to new levels in response to recent military exercises. The joint drills, which will involve mobilising high-tech military equipment, are planned for June as part of a program to mark the 70th anniversary ...

BLOOMBERG Ethiopian lawmakers agreed to remove the Tigray People’s Liberation Front’s (TPLF) designation as a terrorist group, following a ceasefire signed four months ago to end a two-year civil war. The parliament approved the resolution on the basis of the November 2, 2022 peace agreement, state-controlled Fana Broadcasting Corp has reported. The TPLF and the Oromo Liberation Army were declared terrorist ...