Politics

Bloomberg Tokyo prosecutors arrested a ruling party lawmaker on suspicion of receiving bribes from a Chinese company seeking to invest in the casino industry, dealing a blow to already unpopular plans to open the country to the gaming industry. Liberal Democratic Party politician Tsukasa Akimoto, who had served as a vice minister in charge of promoting the establishment of casinos ...

Bloomberg The looming dissolution of Thailand’s highest-profile opposition party is set to strengthen the military-backed government’s grip on power as authorities signal their next move against the movement’s popular leader. The Future Forward party of Thanathorn Juangroongruangkit, the third-largest in parliament, faces a trial as early as January for funding violations that it denies. Separately, Thanathorn and one other party ...

Bloomberg The US and its allies called on United Nations members to reveal whether they’re complying with UN-imposed sanctions requiring the repatriation of North Korean workers, part of an effort to squeeze Pyongyang of much-needed foreign currency inflows. As part of a series of resolutions passed in 2017, UN member states were required to send back all North Korean laborers ...

Bloomberg In a landmark summit, the leaders of Japan and South Korea signaled they wouldn’t let relations spin out of control even as they made little progress in resolving disputes that have plunged relations to new depths. South Korean President Moon Jae-in told Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe that cooperation was crucial in the face of regional security threats as ...

Bloomberg Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government said it will start building a comprehensive identity database of all those living in India, amid a growing public uproar over the administration’s move to grant citizenship to undocumented migrants based on religion. The plan to create a National Population Register has been criticized by the opposition as a precursor to countrywide citizens register ...

Bloomberg An intensifying storm struck the Philippines on Christmas Eve, disrupting holiday travel plans in Asia’s largest Catholic nation. Typhoon Phanfone, called Ursula locally and upgraded from a tropical storm, hit the central Philippines on Tuesday, stranding thousands of travelers and prompting authorities to advise residents in flood- and landslide-prone areas to leave their homes. Phanfone made landfall in Eastern ...

Bloomberg Democrats scored a series of damaging revelations about Donald Trump when they launched their impeachment investigation, but now they’ll begin a crucial election year with the challenge that the most dramatic moments are likely behind them. Even by the time Nancy Pelosi banged her speaker’s gavel on Trump’s impeachment — once for abuse of power, again for obstruction of ...

Bloomberg Emmanuel Macron’s pledge to give up presidential privileges and follow the same pension rule he’s proposing for all French isn’t doing much to appease striking workers. In response to a question about his own pension rights from French daily Le Parisien, Macron said he too would respect the same rules he was seeking to introduce for workers in France. ...

Bloomberg The powerful Algerian army chief who played a key role in the resignation of President Abdelaziz Bouteflika died aged 79, injecting fresh drama into the OPEC member’s simmering political crisis. Ahmed Gaid Salah suffered a heart attack at 6 a.m local time, Algerian state media reported on Monday. Three days of mourning were declared. President Abdelmadjid Tebboune, who was ...

Bloomberg Former US National Security Advisor John Bolton told news service Axios that President Donald Trump’s administration should admit its approach to end North Korea’s nuclear arms program has “failed.” Bolton suggested the Trump administration is bluffing about stopping North Korea’s nuclear ambitions and it would be “very unusual” for his former employer to say that they got it wrong, ...