Politics

Bloomberg Somalia said Kenya is politicising refugee camps, which have sheltered hundreds of thousands of Somali nationals for three decades, by moving to have them closed. Kenya upped pressure on the United Nations this week to come up with a plan to shut down the country’s Kakuma and Dadaab camps, saying their continued existence posed a security threat to East ...

Bloomberg North Korea fired off a pair of cruise missiles on the heels of an Asian trip by top US officials, putting a fresh spotlight on Biden administration deliberations over how to resolve a key security dilemma. The two missiles were fired from South Pyongan province and flew over the sea between the peninsula and China, the South Korean Defense ...

Bloomberg South Korea’s top diplomat said the US ally will stand by Washington’s side in its fight against hate crimes. “We will continue to actively support the efforts of the US government to fight against hate crimes, and stand firmly by its side against hatred and violence,” South Korea’s Foreign Minister Chung Eui-yong said in a text message to reporters ...

Bloomberg Like many nations, Paraguay faces an uphill battle to procure coronavirus vaccines. But its quest is being complicated by fraught relations between China on one side, and Taiwan and the US on the other. The Paraguayan government has been approached with offers of Chinese-made vaccines in exchange for breaking ties with Taiwan, the country’s foreign ministry said in statement ...

Bloomberg Brazil’s Supreme Court found that the judge who presided over corruption cases against former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva was biased, a ruling that could unravel the landmark Carwash anti-graft probe. A panel of justices voted 3 to 2 that former judge Sergio Moro, who spearheaded the operation, was prejudiced in convicting Lula of money laundering and corruption ...

Bloomberg Chancellor Angela Merkel asked the German people for forgiveness after making a rare public apology for sparking massive criticism with plans for a five-day Easter shutdown. Merkel dropped the proposal, calling it a “mistake,” after a hastily-arranged video conference with the heads of Germany’s 16 states around 33 hours after announcing the move. She defended one of Germany’s toughest ...

Bloomberg This week Joe Biden made good on his campaign promise to work more with allies to pressure China, coordinating with US partners to impose sanctions over alleged human-rights abuses in Xinjiang. Beijing’s response: Hit back at the allies as hard as possible. China wasted no time immediately retaliating with reciprocal sanctions against European Union officials while summoning the bloc’s ...

Bloomberg The US expressed concerns over the presence of more than 200 Chinese fishing vessels near a disputed South China Sea reef, saying Beijing uses “maritime militia to intimidate, provoke and threaten other nations.” Chinese boats “have been mooring in this area for many months in ever increasing numbers, regardless of the weather,” the US embassy in the Philippines said ...

Bloomberg An Australian adviser to Myanmar’s detained civilian leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, is being investigated by the authorities under two separate charges, the junta’s main spokesman said on Tuesday. Sean Turnell, who was detained shortly after the military takeover of the country in a coup on February 1, is being investigated for violations of Myanmar’s immigration and official secrets ...

Bloomberg Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon will seek to shift the focus back onto her push for an independence referendum after facing the biggest threat to her job since coming to power more than six years ago. The Scottish National Party leader is all but sure to survive a no-confidence vote that Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s Conservatives had hoped would ...