Politics

Bloomberg Belgium is getting its first female prime minister. Budget and Civil Service Minister Sophie Wilmes will succeed Charles Michel, who has served in an acting capacity since an inconclusive election in May. He’s taking office as president of the European Council, which involves chairing meetings of European Union leaders, on December 1. According to Belga news agency, Wilmes, 44, ...

Bloomberg More than a million people poured into Santiago’s public squares and thoroughfares in one of the biggest street protests ever seen in the Chilean capital. Downtown areas such as the iconic Plaza Italia came alive with people, mainly student-age and twenty-somethings but also older people and families, waving flags and banners seeking better pay, pensions, healthcare and education. Many ...

Bloomberg Maria Butina, a Russian who was freed after serving a US prison sentence for failing to register as an agent of a foreign government, arrived in Moscow and thanked diplomats and groups who supported her. “Russians don’t give up,” she said in a brief statement at the airport, accompanied by her father and Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova. A ...

Bloomberg President Donald Trump’s administration asked the US Supreme Court to throw out a California immigrant-sanctuary law that restricts local police from helping federal authorities round up and deport people who are in the country illegally. In an appeal, the administration said the 2017 measure undermines federal immigration enforcement efforts. The law “makes it more difficult for federal officers to ...

Bloomberg The House impeachment investigation of President Donald Trump shifts into an accelerated phase as the three Democratic-led committees leading the inquiry hold their first weekend session to question the State Department’s top diplomat for Europe. The closed-door testimony by Philip Reeker, the acting assistant secretary of European and Eurasian affairs, precedes a full slate of interviews set for next ...

Bloomberg Argentine President Mauricio Macri’s election prospects are talked about in the markets, by pundits and by diplomats as largely set in stone. He is expected to lose on Sunday to opposition candidate Alberto Fernandez. The slimmest of windows exists for him to force the presidential race into a second-round runoff vote in November. But that’s enough for 45 year-old ...

Bloomberg Hong Kong pro-democracy activists are preparing to demonstrate for the 21st straight weekend as unrest spreads around the globe, from South America to Europe to the Middle East. Protesters in the financial hub will look to keep up momentum in the months-long fight with officials in Beijing for greater democracy. Reports surfaced that China’s leaders were mulling a plan ...

Bloomberg The top US envoy to Ukraine testified that a senior diplomat told him in early September that President Donald Trump made US security aid to Ukraine entirely dependent on a public promise to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden and the 2016 election. Acting Ambassador to Ukraine William Taylor also quoted senior diplomat Gordon Sondland as saying Trump wanted ...

Bloomberg US Secretary of State Michael Pompeo has said efforts to revive the Indo-Pacific security grouping known as the Quad will help the Washington contain China’s rise. “We’ve reconvened ‘the Quad’ — the security talks between Japan, Australia, India and the United States that had been dormant for nine years,” Pompeo said in a speech to the conservative Heritage Foundation ...

Bloomberg Russia on Wednesday landed the world’s biggest military aircraft in South Africa, the Tupolev Tu-160 ‘Blackjack’ bomber, in a rare display of cooperation between the defense forces of the two countries. The two bombers, which are capable of launching nuclear missiles, are the first to ever land in Africa and were escorted by fighter jets from the South African ...