Politics

Bloomberg Afghan troops have clashed with Taliban fighters as they tried to reach the crash site of a US military aircraft that went down in eastern Afghanistan. The extremist group claimed it had downed a “special American aircraft” on an intelligence mission, while the US military said there was no indication the plane was hit by hostile fire. The police ...

Bloomberg Justin Trudeau’s top diplomat said Canada will keep pressing Cuba to help resolve Venezuela’s political crisis. Foreign minister Francois-Philippe Champagne made the pledge alongside Juan Guaido, the Venezuelan opposition leader seeking to oust President Nicolas Maduro. His comments come more than a year after the Canadian government began playing an activist role in the effort to help break Maduro’s ...

Bloomberg The Pentagon plans a “very aggressive” expansion of its hypersonic weapons efforts this year, with at least four initial flight tests of prototypes for glide weapons that can fly five times the speed of sound and maneuver en route, officials said. A new Hypersonics Transition Office that Congress funded this year will also bankroll a university consortium to conduct ...

Bloomberg A surge in militant violence in Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger has left as many as 5 million children needing humanitarian assistance this year as access to education, healthcare and drinking water shrinks, according to the United Nations. Children in the central Sahel region are increasingly under threat, with hundreds of thousands having suffered “traumatic experiences,” the UN Children’s ...

Bloomberg An explosive leak from former National Security Advisor John Bolton’s unpublished book that says President Donald Trump wanted to freeze aid to Ukraine until its government investigated his political rival threatens to scramble the politics of the impeachment trial and bring new pressure on Republicans to call witnesses. Bolton’s account in the draft of his book, as described by ...

Bloomberg Five Katyusha rockets were fired at the fortified Green Zone in Baghdad, one directly hitting the US Embassy building, Iraq’s security forces reported. US helicopters were seen evacuating injured people, al-Sumaria News reported, citing an anonymous security official. The State Department released a statement that did not comment on any injuries or deaths. But it noted there have been ...

Bloomberg Slovenian PM Marjan Sarec unexpectedly stepped down, abandoning his minority government after saying that it lacked sufficient support in parliament. The collapse puts the Alpine euro-area country on track for its sixth government in 10 years, a period that included a double-dip recession, a banking bailout and repeated political upheaval. The resignation also underscores the difficulty faced by newcomers from ...

Bloomberg A military plane has crashed in an area controlled by Taliban militants in eastern Afghanistan, according to a senior official at the country’s Civil Aviation Authority. “The plane was apparently dispatched for military operations and it took off from Afghanistan territory,” said Ghulam Masoom Massumi, the director of air traffic management at the authority, by phone. “The military plane ...

Bloomberg The Democratic Party, the main establishment force in Italy’s government, roared back to life with an authoritative victory in a key regional vote that shut down talk of a snap election. Italian bonds surged. In retaining control over the center-left stronghold of Emilia-Romagna, the Democrats signalled a power shift in PM Giuseppe Conte’s coalition, rejuvenating a four-month-old government that’s ...

Bloomberg Myanmar signalled that closer ties with China offer an economic buffer if human-rights concerns cause Western nations to curb trade privileges or investment. The persecution of the country’s Rohingya Muslim minority has sparked global condemnation, and led to an International Court of Justice order last week for emergency steps to protect Rohingya from genocide. The controversy imperils Myanmar’s European ...