Bloomberg A Scottish court challenge to Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s proposal to suspend parliament will be heard on September 6 under an accelerated timetable, a judge said on Tuesday. A group of more than 70 British lawmakers want the court in Edinburgh to say it wouldn’t be legal to ask the Queen to suspend parliament. Johnson has refused to rule ...
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Duterte ‘selling out’ Philippines to China
Bloomberg Philippine Vice President Leni Robredo said citizens were worried Rodrigo Duterte was “selling out†to Beijing and called on the president to take a stronger stand to protect the country’s sovereignty in the disputed South China Sea. Robredo, who is keeping her options open regarding the presidential race in 2022, said in an interview the president had not taken ...
Read More »Thai govt majority under threat as party pulls out
Bloomberg Thailand’s ruling coalition has moved closer to losing its razor-thin majority after one party pulled its support less than a month after the Cabinet was sworn in. The Thai Civilized Party, with one seat in parliament, is leaving the coalition because it’s unsatisfied with government policies, its leader Mongkolkit Suksintharanon said at a briefing in Bangkok. The party will ...
Read More »Bannon floats idea of Michelle Obama run against Trump
Bloomberg Democrats eager to oust President Donald Trump in 2020 could pin their hopes on an eleventh-hour bid by former first lady Michelle Obama rather than the roughly two dozen candidates now in the mix, former White House strategist Steve Bannon suggested. “I don’t see anybody that’s on this stage right now that can take President Trump one-on-one,†Bannon, a ...
Read More »Kim says North Korean missile test sends warning to US, South
Bloomberg Kim Jong-un said North Korea’s latest missile tests were intended as a warning against ongoing US-South Korea military exercises, while President Donald Trump’s new defense chief defended the training as necessary to maintain readiness. North Korean state media said that Kim personally oversaw what allied military officials said was a pair of short-range ballistic missile launches a day earlier ...
Read More »China summons HK officials to Shenzhen to discuss unrest
Bloomberg China’s top agencies in charge of Hong Kong affairs held a special meeting across the border in Shenzhen to discuss unrest in the financial hub that’s become a wider challenge to Beijing and raised questions about whether it should intervene more directly. The seminar was jointly held by the Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office of the State Council ...
Read More »China warship collision ‘led to standoff’
Bloomberg The Taiwanese coast guard intervened to end an hour-long standoff between a freighter and an unidentified Chinese warship after the two vessels collided in the contested Taiwan Strait. The Taiwanese-registered bulk carrier Yutai No. 1 collided with a Chinese naval vessel around 20 nautical miles southeast of Taiwan-controlled Kinmen Island late on July 31, Fu Shih-hour, the cargo ship’s ...
Read More »Malaysia Bersih calls PM to set succession date
Bloomberg Malaysian civil society groups are urging PM Mahathir Mohamad to set a date for when he will hand over power to former rival Anwar Ibrahim. And they want it to be between a year from now to May 2021. The groups include Bersih, or Coalition for Clean and Fair Elections, which was behind one of the country’s biggest protests ...
Read More »Trump’s words not so different from El Paso shooter’s
Bloomberg President Donald Trump has encouraged white supremacy to come out of the shadows, Democratic presidential front-runner Joe Biden was expected to say, adding that there’s very little that distances Trump’s rhetoric from the anti-immigrant screeds of mass shooters like the suspect in the recent El Paso, Texas, attack. “How far is it from Trump’s saying this ‘is an invasion’ ...
Read More »Pakistan says military will go to ‘any extent’ to help Kashmiris
Bloomberg Pakistan’s foreign minister wrote to the United Nations, while its army pledged to go to “any extent’’ against India’s move to revoke the autonomous status of Kashmir, that’s claimed in full by the two South Asian nations. Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi wrote a letter to the secretary general of the United Nations informing him about the “critical situation†...
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