Politics

Bloomberg A group of assailants targeted Turkish diplomats at an eatery in the northern Iraqi city of Erbil, an attack that reportedly left a deputy consul dead, according to Iraqi and Turkish television channels. Turkey’s deputy consul in Erbil was killed along with two companions, Iraq’s Sumaria TV reported, citing a security official, which couldn’t be independently verified. Turkey’s Haberturk ...

Bloomberg The Kremlin raised the possibility of changing Russia’s constitution after a top lawmaker proposed bolstering parliament’s powers, in a move that could help to extend President Vladimir Putin’s rule. The idea of constitutional amendments, including allowing parliament a say in forming the government, received “a widespread response” and are “a matter for discussion,” Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, told reporters ...

Bloomberg Russia’s Foreign Ministry has denied visas for 30 new teachers at a Moscow school run by the US, British and Canadian embassies, in the latest sign of continuing diplomatic tensions with the west. The ministry informed the US Embassy that it will not process visas for the teachers at the Anglo-American School of Moscow in a move that may ...

Bloomberg Pakistan arrested Hafiz Saeed, the suspected planner of the 2008 Mumbai attacks, on terrorism related charges days before Prime Minister Imran Khan meets US President Donald Trump. Saeed, who heads the proscribed Jamaat-ud-Dawa group, was shifted to jail by the counter-terrorism police in Lahore, group’s spokesman Nadeem Awan said on phone. Saeed, who has been arrested and released many ...

Bloomberg North Korea warned that upcoming US-South Korea military drills could jeopardise new talks, saying that President Donald Trump pledged to suspend such exercises during his last meeting with Kim Jong-un. A spokesman for North Korea’s foreign ministry told state media on Tuesday that regime was monitoring the so-called Alliance 19-2 exercises planned for next month in South Korea. The ...

Bloomberg Casting himself against Afghanistan’s entrenched political elite and powerful warlords, Faramarz Tamanna is looking to galvanise a new generation of voters who have lived through near constant conflict since the American invasion 18-years ago. The 42-year-old academic and chancellor of the University of Afghanistan is pitching his outsider credentials to the country’s war-weary youth and is the youngest of ...

Bloomberg Mark Esper, President Donald Trump’s nominee for defense secretary, said the US needs more bases “throughout the Indo-Pacific region” to counter China’s “significant technological advancements.” “Alternate operating locations” will be sought as the Pentagon works “to develop new concepts, build a distributed and resilient force posture and field new capabilities to counter these threats,” Esper, who had been serving ...

Bloomberg A meeting of chief Brexit negotiators was one of the most difficult encounters of the last three years, according to European officials, who are bracing for talks to become more hostile under the next British government. The EU side is weighing up possible concessions it could offer the UK to avoid a chaotic no-deal Brexit, according to European officials ...

Bloomberg Deputy PM Matteo Salvini said that a probe into a plot by Ukranians to kill him led to the seizure of an air-to-air missile in the northern city of Turin. Police detained an alleged neo-Nazi and two other suspects in an investigation into weapons trafficking that uncovered the missile, authorities said in a statement. “The secret services alerted me ...

Bloomberg President Donald Trump was accused of being racist and divisive by many Democrats after suggesting that four female Democratic lawmakers, led by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, should return to the “broken and crime infested places from which they came.” Three of the four women Trump was apparently referencing were born in the US; none is white. The comments ...