Politics

Bloomberg The Pentagon said it’s ramping up the deployment of US forces to the Middle East to “assure and enhance the defense of Saudi Arabia” against Iran at the same time President Donald Trump has vowed to start bringing troops home from the region. Combined with other recent deployments, about 3,000 personnel are being sent or having their missions extended ...

Bloomberg A majority of Americans support the House Democratic impeachment inquiry into Donald Trump, a sharp pivot in opinion from the first two and a half years of his presidency, but are also wary about removing him from office, according to three recent polls. The surveys were published by the Washington Post-Schar, Quinnipiac and NBC/Wall Street Journal. Over Trump’s time ...

Bloomberg The Trump administration is slapping visa bans on Chinese officials linked to the mass detention of Muslims, the latest in an escalating series of US steps to pressure Beijing over what Secretary of State Michael Pompeo has called “the stain of the century.” Pompeo is imposing the restrictions on government leaders and Communist Party officials who are found responsible ...

Bloomberg Just days ahead of President Xi Jinping’s visit to India, the Chinese leader demonstrated his country’s resolute support for Pakistan over its dispute with India in the Himalayan Kashmir region, vowing to support Islamabad’s “core interests and key concerns.” “The rights and wrongs of the situation in Kashmir are clear,” China Central Television reported on Wednesday, citing Xi who ...

Bloomberg Russia blacklisted the anti-graft fund of opposition leader Alexei Navalny as a “foreign agent,” stepping up pressure on it as part of wider crackdown on Kremlin opponents after a summer of street protests. The Justice Ministry said it was adding Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation to the register of foreign agents, subjecting it to strict regulation reserved for non-government organisations that ...

Bloomberg President Donald Trump said the US “should never have been” in the Middle East and it was “the worst decision ever made” amid reports that Turkey has begun its operation to force back US wartime allies in Syria. In a series of tweets defending his decision that the US would stand aside and allow a Turkish incursion in an ...

Bloomberg Donald Trump’s surprise announcement that US forces would stand aside if Turkey invades Syria sowed chaos in his administration, drew criticism from his allies in Congress and left Kurdish fighters feeling betrayed. Yet after a day of confusion, it wasn’t clear how much American policy had really changed. It was, in short, another example of how foreign policy gets ...

Bloomberg Gordon Sondland, the US ambassador to the European Union, on Tuesday cancelled his scheduled testimony before House impeachment investigators looking into President Donald Trump’s activities involving Ukraine. The State Department directed Sondland to cancel his scheduled testimony on Tuesday, according to a letter from his attorney. Robert Luskin, the lawyer representing Sondland, said his client was ready to appear ...

Bloomberg The blame game over the likely failure to reach a Brexit deal escalated, with Downing Street accusing German Chancellor Angela Merkel of making an agreement effectively impossible. The pound fell. According to a British official, Merkel told Prime Minister Boris Johnson that Northern Ireland must remain part of the EU’s customs union if he wants to secure a divorce ...

Bloomberg Russia’s government denied it has any troops in Mozambique, after reports that a Russian soldier was killed in the southern African country. “There are no Russian soldiers in Mozambique,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Tuesday in Moscow. Portuguese news agency Lusa reported that Mozambique received military equipment from Russia to help battle IS-linked insurgents. The support will assist ...