Politics

Bloomberg Julian Assange was denied bail by a UK judge on Wednesday, two days after the court blocked the WikiLeaks founder’s extradition to the US on mental-health grounds. The ruling means the 49-year-old will remain in London’s high-security Belmarsh prison, where he’s been for nearly two years. He will be held while the US government tries to appeal the extradition ...

Bloomberg President-elect Joe Biden’s pick for US secretary of state denounced Hong Kong’s arrest of dozens of opposition figures under a controversial national security law, an unprecedented crackdown that included an American lawyer. Police said they had swept up 53 people in the operation and that around 1,000 officers had been dispatched to carry out the detentions. Those arrested included ...

Bloomberg Tensions are rising in the largest party in Malaysia’s ruling coalition over whether a general election should be held amid the nation’s worsening coronavirus epidemic. Ties between Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin’s Bersatu party and United Malays National Organisation, his key ally, have steadily deteriorated since UMNO threatened to pull out of the coalition in October, even though Muhyuddin survived ...

Bloomberg Battling a resurgence in violence including a campaign of targeted killings of journalists, Afghanistan’s government resumes peace talks with the Taliban on Tuesday, with efforts expected to be focused on securing a cease-fire agreement in the dying days of Donald Trump’s presidency. Since the intra-Afghan talks began in September in the Qatari capital of Doha, where the Taliban has ...

Bloomberg President Donald Trump will make his last stand to overturn his election loss on Wednesday when Vice President Mike Pence presides over a congressional session to ratify November’s results, an event that threatens to strain the relationship between the two men. Trump’s refusal to concede and his obsession with overturning the will of voters means the ceremony poses a ...

Bloomberg A London judge blocked Julian Assange’s extradition to the US to face espionage charges on health grounds, a victory for the WikiLeaks founder after close to a decade of imprisonment or self-imposed exile. Judge Vanessa Baraitser ruled that extradition would be oppressive because of 49-year-old’s mental health, saying he was clearly “a depressed and sometimes despairing man genuinely fearful ...

Bloomberg All 10 living former US defense secretaries called for a peaceful transition of power this month and warned that any effort to involve the military in resolving election disputes “would take us into dangerous, unlawful and unconstitutional territory.” Three days before Congress meets to certify President-elect Joe Biden’s victory, the group, who served Democratic and Republican presidents, evoked the ...

Bloomberg Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen opened 2021 by reaffirming her willingness to talk with China, while vowing to stand up to mounting military pressure from Beijing. Tsai used a brief News Year’s Day address to criticise the near-daily patrols of Chinese military ships and aircraft that have stretched Taiwan’s more limited military resources. She warned that the actions had “threatened ...

Bloomberg Mali’s state prosecutor charged six people, including former Prime Minister Boubou Cisse, of planning a coup against the interim government. The alleged crimes include attempts to destabilise and disrupt the current regime, according to a statement by the state prosecutor. Cisse, who hasn’t been detained, denied the allegations in a statement on December 22. His lawyers will file charges ...

Bloomberg Boris Johnson urged members of Parliament to approve his Brexit trade agreement and complete Britain’s four-year divorce from the European Union. Parliament was recalled from its Christmas break for an emergency session on Wednesday to rush the deal into law in a single day, 24 hours before the UK leaves the EU single market and customs union. Failure to ...