Politics

Bloomberg Voters in Niger are picking a new president on Sunday in a runoff election set to mark the first-ever transfer of power through the ballot box in the West African nation. Mohamed Bazoum, an ally of incumbent President Mahamadou Issoufou, received 39% of the vote in a first round that fielded 30 candidates. He now faces a single opponent, ...

Bloomberg Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny could be transferred to a prison camp within days after losing an appeal on Saturday of his jailing, which has sparked mass protests and a spike in tensions with the West. The ruling by a Moscow court removes the last legal obstacle to sending Vladimir Putin’s most prominent critic to serve out the term, ...

Bloomberg Prosecutors are pursuing a wider conspiracy case against the Oath Keepers, charging six more people with links to the far-right group for their alleged roles in last month’s deadly breach of the US Capitol. A new indictment added to growing evidence that members of extreme right-wing organisations planned and coordinated the January 6 assault in Washington, gathering battle supplies ...

Bloomberg President Joe Biden urged US allies to uphold democracy in his first major speech to an international audience, warning that the world faces an “inflection point” in history that could result in a tilt towards autocracy. “We are in the midst of a fundamental debate about the future direction of our world,” Biden said in remarks delivered remotely to ...

Bloomberg Thailand Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-Ocha survived a no-confidence vote in parliament after a four-day debate in which the opposition criticised his government for its handling of the Covid-19 outbreak, the economy and alleged corruption. The no-confidence motion against the premier was rejected by 272 lawmakers, while 206 voted supported it, according to a televised broadcast of the proceedings in ...

Bloomberg Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte won parliamentary backing for a contested nighttime curfew to contain the coronavirus, capping a roller-coaster week that tested his popularity less than a month before a general election. The legislation passed by the Senate in The Hague means the nighttime curfew, which began on January 23 and triggered riots in Dutch cities, can stay ...

Bloomberg President Joe Biden said the racial strife that’s gripped the US since George Floyd’s death is an opportunity to make significant strides toward addressing inequity, likening the era to the civil rights movement of the 1960s. “We have a chance now, a chance now, to make significant change in racial disparities,” Biden said at a CNN town hall event ...

Bloomberg The first court hearing of ousted Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi since the February 1 coup began earlier than scheduled and without her lawyer present, further signalling the military’s intention to end her political career. Speaking by phone on Wednesday, her lawyer Khin Maung Zaw said that Suu Kyi appeared in front of the court via video link ...

Bloomberg Taiwan’s attempts to purchase five million doses of BioNTech SE’s Covid-19 vaccine fell apart at the last minute, Taiwan’s health minister said on Wednesday, voicing concern that political pressure from Beijing may have scuppered the deal. Taiwan’s government was making final preparations to sign a deal with Germany-based BioNTech in January but then “things changed,” minister Chen Shih-chung said ...

Bloomberg Gunmen kidnapped students and staff from a school in Nigeria, the second attack of its kind in recent months, a presidential spokesman said. The criminals abducted a “yet to be ascertained” number of people from a boys’ school in Kagara in Nigeria’s central Niger state, President Muhammadu Buhari’s spokesman, Garba Shehu, said in an emailed statement. Hundreds of students ...