Politics

Bloomberg US Secretary of State Michael Pompeo called on three other Indo-Pacific democracies to band together against coercion from China, in a bid to keep pressure on Beijing amid the coronavirus crisis rocking Washington. The so-called Quad — also including Australia, India and Japan — began its second ministerial-level meeting in Tokyo on Tuesday, in an event expected to help ...

Bloomberg Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam defended disciplining teachers for promoting anti-China views, after the Asian financial center for the first time revoked an educator’s registration over the content of their lessons. Lam told reporters she was obliged to protect students from being drawn into the political disputes that have fuelled a historic wave of unrest in the former British ...

Bloomberg Europe’s drugs regulator started an early review of an experimental Covid-19 vaccine from Pfizer Inc and BioNTech SE, potentially speeding the shot’s assessment and reducing its time to market. Called a “rolling review,” the process will allow the European Medicines Agency to look at how the vaccine is performing in real time as data emerges from trials, instead of ...

Bloomberg Germany said European allies will weigh action against Russia — including possible sanctions — after an international chemical-weapons watchdog confirmed that a nerve agent from the banned Novichok group had been used in the poisoning of Kremlin critic Alexey Navalny. “Any use of chemical weapons is a grave act and cannot go without consequences,” German government spokesman Steffen Seibert ...

Bloomberg President Donald Trump’s re-election campaign has seen its candidate, campaign manager and party chairwoman all laid low by Covid-19. He is short on cash, Democrat Joe Biden is pulling away in the polls and his best hope to climb back — the raucous rallies that fuelled his 2016 win — is on hold indefinitely as the last month of ...

Bloomberg Sudan’s main sea ports were blockaded by protesters opposed to part of a peace deal with rebels, targeting some of the ravaged economy’s major conduits for trade. Demonstrations forced facilities to close at Port Sudan and Suakin, both on the Red Sea, according to the head of a local labour committee that backs the action, Abdou Alshirbini. Protesters planned ...

Bloomberg Russia’s Federal Statistics Service said 45,663 people have died with Covid-19 in April through August, more than double the death toll released by the government’s virus-response staff. The latest figures from the statistics agency, known as Rosstat, include deaths both directly attributed to the novel coronavirus and cases where it was listed as an “important condition” leading to the ...

Bloomberg Tropical Storm Delta is forecast to become a hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico later this week, clipping western Cuba and becoming the record 10th storm to hit the US when it makes landfall between Louisiana and Florida by Friday. Its winds could reach 169 kilometres per hour as it crosses the Gulf, making it a Category 2 storm ...

Bloomberg Najib Razak’s 1MDB trial was delayed as the former Malaysian premier is in quarantine after traveling to the Borneo state of Sabah, a new hotspot for the country’s coronavirus outbreak. The trial will resume on October 19 as Najib remains under two-week quarantine at his home after returning from a political campaign, according to court proceedings on Monday. He ...

Bloomberg US Secretary of State Michael Pompeo will shorten his travel to Asia this week as the White House deals with the spread of the coronavirus among its top officials. Pompeo will visit Tokyo till October 6 for a meeting of the foreign ministers of four of the Indo-Pacific region’s biggest democracies, State Department spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus said in a ...