Politics

Bloomberg Student groups across Indonesia resumed protests against a landmark labour law passed earlier this month that opponents say will erode workers’ rights and dismantle environmental protections. The renewed protests come after police detained thousands of people last week as demonstrators in Jakarta clashed with officers, hurling rocks and bottles and setting alight bus shelters. Labour unions plan to challenge ...

Bloomberg President Donald Trump demanded that Attorney General William Barr open an investigation of former Vice President Joe Biden’s son, just two weeks before Election Day. “We’ve got to get the attorney general to act,” Trump said in a phone interview with the TV show “Fox & Friends,” in response to a question about whether a special prosecutor should be ...

Bloomberg Russia bolstered its offer to the US for a one-year extension to their last remaining nuclear arms treaty on Tuesday by saying it’s ready to freeze its current arsenal. President Donald Trump’s administration rejected a Russian proposal to prolong the New START treaty for 12 months without conditions before it expires in February. It said doing so without capping ...

Bloomberg China criticised a meeting between the US’s new Special Coordinator for Tibetan Issues Robert Destro and Tibet’s president-in-exile Lobsang Sangay, accusing America of trying to destabilise the region. Destro “violated the commitment and the policy stance of the US side on not supporting Tibet’s independence and not acknowledging this government in exile,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian told ...

Bloomberg The first trials to deliberately infect people with the coronavirus to accelerate the development of vaccines could occur in the UK next year as part of an agreement reached by the government. Britain signed a contract with Open Orphan Plc and its London-based unit, hVivo, that paves the way for human challenge trials, the company said on Tuesday. The ...

Bloomberg Prime Minister Narendra Modi said his government will ensure that all 1.3 billion Indian have access to a Covid-19 vaccine as soon it is ready and asked citizens to exercise caution ahead of the country’s traditional festival season to check a spike in infection in the world’s second-worst affected nation. “We have covered a long distance in the fight ...

Bloomberg A Taliban official said signs that US President Donald Trump will hasten the exit of all American troops from Afghanistan would force the country’s warring groups to finally negotiate peace, but experts worry the move may give the militant group the upper hand. The group has welcomed Trump’s comments earlier this month about bringing remaining US troops “home by ...

Bloomberg Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said his country is in talks with Armenia and Azerbaijan on a mechanism to monitor a cease-fire that has already failed twice to halt fighting over the territory of Nagorno-Karabakh. “I hope that we will reach an agreement on such a mechanism in the nearest future,” Lavrov told a news conference in Moscow on ...

Bloomberg Protesters clashed with security forces, looted stores and burnt barricades in many Chilean cities on the one-year anniversary of an outbreak of social unrest that virtually paralysed South America’s most prosperous country. Thousands gathered in downtown Santiago’s Plaza Italia, which some people have turned to calling Plaza de la Dignidad (Dignity Plaza), flouting social distancing rules. As darkness fell, ...

Bloomberg Pakistan is bracing for more protests after an alliance of opposition parties kicked off a series of rallies calling for the resignation of PM Imran Khan. Khan’s administration is facing its biggest political challenge yet as it tries to manage a backlash over soaring food prices. Pakistan is importing sugar, tomatoes and the most wheat in a decade to ...