Politics

Bloomberg Thousands of people gathered in a square in Hong Kong’s city centre on Sunday for a peaceful rally under the watchful gaze of riot police who kept their distance from the event while patrolling the area. The authorised meeting was held by Hong Kong Civil Assembly Team, which described it as a “pre-march assembly” for a rally scheduled for ...

Bloomberg Thousands of people joined a rally in Thailand to protest against the military-backed government and call for more political freedom, less than a year after a disputed general election. The demonstrators gathered on Sunday in a Bangkok park for an early-morning protest jog against the administration led by prime minister Prayuth Chan-Ocha. Former army chief Prayuth seized power in ...

Bloomberg Iran admitted it accidentally shot down a Ukrainian jetliner that it mistook for a threat during hostilities with the US, marking a dramatic reversal after repeatedly denying such a scenario and accusing Western governments of spreading lies. Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752 was flying close to a sensitive Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps military site when it was downed because ...

Bloomberg A convoy of US troops was hit by a roadside bomb in Afghanistan’s province of Kandahar on Saturday, AP reported, citing unidentified NATO and local officials. Two US troops were killed and two injured when the explosive device hit the military vehicle, military officials said. The Taliban earlier claimed responsibility for the attack through its spokesman Qari Yousuf Ahmadi. ...

Bloomberg President Tsai Ing-wen won a landslide victory over China-friendly opposition challenger Han Kuo-yu to clinch a second term in Taiwan’s presidential election, dealing a blow to Beijing, which has long sought to bring the democratically run island under its control. Han conceded defeat just before 9 pm at his headquarters in the southern city of Kaohsiung. Tsai had a ...

Bloomberg North Korea won’t rely on the personal relationship between its leader Kim Jong-un and US President Donald Trump as it doesn’t intend to trade its nuclear weapons for a lift of sanctions, its state-run media said, citing a foreign ministry adviser. “There will never be such negotiations as that in Vietnam, in which we proposed exchanging a core nuclear ...

Bloomberg Raghuram Rajan, former head of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and an outspoken critic of several of prime minister Narendra Modi’s economic and social policies, said student-led protests in the country show that the ideals of the secular nation are still valued by the youth. “It is they, who never marched to win freedom, but today march to ...

Bloomberg Tunisia’s parliament rejected the government put together by PM Habib Jemli, a move that could delay efforts to implement reforms in the North African nation. Jemli won the votes of 72 of the 217 deputies in parliament in the vote of confidence, according to the Watania 1 television station. The move gives President Kais Saied a key role in appointing ...

Bloomberg Iran fired more than a dozen missiles at US-Iraqi airbases in retaliation for an American airstrike that killed a top Iranian general, yet the potential for a dramatic escalation was mitigated by the fact that there were no US casualties. A US official said guided missiles were used in the attacks, and Iran appeared to be shooting to miss. ...

Bloomberg With the world on edge over rising tensions in the Middle East, one leader seems unfazed: Russia’s Vladimir Putin. The Russian president arrived in Damascus in just his second visit to Syria since the start of the country’s civil war nearly nine years ago. The timing is significant. The US and its allies are assessing the damage after Iran ...