Bloomberg Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders said his competitor, Joe Biden, could beat President Donald Trump in November, but added that he would be the stronger general-election candidate. “We are the stronger campaign to defeat Donald Trump but you have not heard me say that I think that Biden cannot defeat Trump,†Sanders told reporters in Phoenix, Arizona, as he ...
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Trump calls state governor ‘a snake’
Bloomberg President Donald Trump lashed out at the governor of Washington State — where 13 people have died of the coronavirus — calling him “a snake†during a press briefing on the illness. Trump’s remark, during a tour of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, came a day after the governor, Jay Inslee, had a cordial meeting ...
Read More »South Korea blasts Japan’s ‘irrational’ decision to quarantine its citizens
Bloomberg South Korea retaliated against Japan for what it called an “irrational and excessive†request for its citizens to voluntarily quarantine themselves, as Tokyo’s outbreak-control measures renewed tensions between the neighbours. South Korea is raising its advisory for all of Japan to Level 2, or “refrain from travel,†first deputy foreign minister Cho Se-young said in a statement. It also ...
Read More »Merkel’s bloc slumps to record low approval
Bloomberg Support for Chancellor Angela Merkel’s bloc dropped to its weakest on record, with her party embroiled in a leadership contest and Europe’s largest economy flirting with recession. If a general election were held this Sunday, Merkel’s CDU and its Bavarian sister party, the CSU, would together garner 26%, down one percentage point from a month earlier, according to a ...
Read More »Ukraine’s Zelenskiy backs reshuffle to deliver results
Bloomberg Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy defended a cabinet reshuffle that unnerved investors and dismayed voters who’d backed him to clean up the country’s notoriously murky post-Soviet politics. The revamp swapped young newcomers picked to sever ties with the past for experienced hands whose task is to revive stuttering reforms. The problem is that, in one of Europe’s most corrupt nations, ...
Read More »Iraq to halt Iran border trade
Bloomberg Iraq will halt border trade with Iran and Kuwait between March 8 and 15 to curb the spread of the coronavirus, the country’s health minister Jaafar Sadiq Allawi said in a televised press conference. Sea- and air-borne trade will continue as long as personnel and goods involved have the necessary paperwork from their originating countries to show that they ...
Read More »US strikes Taliban hours after Trump’s phone call to militants
Bloomberg Hours after Donald Trump spoke by phone with a top leader of the Taliban about peace in Afghanistan, the US conducted an airstrike against the militant group while it was attacking Afghan forces in Helmand province. US military spokesman Sonny Leggett confirmed the airstrikes on Twitter, calling on the Taliban to stop “needless†attacks. “To be clear — we ...
Read More »Malaysian leader delays confidence vote until May
Bloomberg Malaysia has delayed its parliament sitting by more than two months, forcing former leader Mahathir Mohamad to wait until May for a confidence vote against the new premier. Parliament will be in session from May 18 to June 23, from March 9 initially, with this year’s second and third sitting also delayed to July 27 and September 28, respectively, ...
Read More »Biden reopens path to ‘US nomination’
Bloomberg Democrats have waited three years for a winner to call their own and take on President Donald Trump. On Super Tuesday, Joe Biden laid his claim to becoming their champion. He won across the Deep South, showing his appeal with black voters at the heart of the party, and claimed victory in Minnesota, a predominantly white Rust Belt state ...
Read More »Nigerian doctor leads virus fight in isolation
Bloomberg The epidemiologist leading the fight against the spread of the deadly coronavirus in Africa’s most-populous nation is doing so from the most unlikely of places: his home. Since returning from a mission to China last week to learn about the new virus, the head of the Nigerian Centre for Disease Control, Doctor Chikwe Ihekweazu, has been working in self-isolation. ...
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