Politics

Bloomberg China denounced a rare message from Secretary of State Michael Pompeo to Taiwan’s president as “wrong and very dangerous,” as tensions between the two sides flared anew over US overtures toward the democratically ruled island. The Ministry of National Defense said in a statement on Wednesday that the military would “take all necessary measures to firmly safeguard” China’s sovereignty, ...

Bloomberg Mozambique called for regional help in fighting an emboldened group of insurgents in the country’s gas-rich north who’ve aligned with the IS. The appeal by President Filipe Nyusi is the government’s strongest admission yet that it’s struggling to contain an insurgency that began in 2017 and has grown rapidly in both sophistication and confidence in recent months. It’s temporarily ...

Bloomberg The Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, who campaigned on promises to lead for just one term, said he’d consider a second as the challenges facing his country have grown. “I’ll think about a second term,” Zelenskiy told a news conference on Wednesday in Kiev marking his first year in the job. “One term won’t be enough to complete the whole ...

Bloomberg US President Donald Trump threatened to withdraw altogether from the World Health Organization (WHO), a move that would leave Chinese leader Xi Jinping as the most prominent voice leading the global fight against the pandemic. In a four-page letter detailing his grievances with the WHO, Trump called on the group to “demonstrate independence from China,” renewing a complaint that ...

Bloomberg The US Supreme Court ruled in favour of the victims of the 1998 terror bombings of US embassies in Africa that killed more than 200 people and injured thousands more. The ruling leaves Sudan exposed to a $10.2 billion judgment delivered by a federal court in 2012, which was partially overturned on appeal. The 2014 appellate ruling determined that ...

Bloomberg The biggest cyclonic storm over the Bay of Bengal in about two decades has slightly weakened before hitting the coasts of India and Bangladesh on Wednesday, with authorities making preparations to evacuate more than 5 million people to safer places. Cyclone Amphan, equivalent of a category 4 hurricane at present, was expected to have a sustained wind speed of ...

Bloomberg The number of acutely food insecure people in East Africa and the Horn of Africa is likely to increase to between 34 million and 43 million from May through July due to the socio-economic impact of the coronavirus pandemic, according to the World Food Programme. “The most vulnerable and at risk are poor, urban communities living hand-to-mouth in informal ...

Bloomberg Mumbai, India’s financial hub and the epicenter of the nation’s coronavirus outbreak, is converting several of its iconic structures into quarantine facilities as it races to prepare for a predicted peaking of infections this month. From a new hospital being built just a short stroll away from the US Consulate building and the India offices of Citigroup Inc to ...

Bloomberg Some 108 million people in China’s northeast region are being plunged back under lockdown conditions as a new and growing cluster of infections causes a backslide in the nation’s return to normal. In an abrupt reversal of the re-opening taking place across the nation, cities in Jilin province have cut off trains and buses, shut schools and quarantined tens ...

Bloomberg Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered the army to send military staff and medical equipment to help the country’s largest gold miner, Polyus PJSC, fight the Covid-19 outbreak at its Siberian unit. Personnel and more than 2 tons of medical equipment, including respirators, masks, gloves and protective suits, were delivered by aircraft to the city of Krasnoyarsk, the defense ministry ...