Politics

Bloomberg Luxembourg’s foreign minister wants Switzerland to redouble its efforts to overcome labour unions’ opposition to a treaty with the European Union, so that it can be finalised this year, according to a newspaper interview. Bern and Brussels are at odds over an agreement to streamline relations, and the impasse has spilled over to stock trading, with the Swiss disallowing ...

Bloomberg Theresa May will stand down as Britain’s prime minister next month but she is not giving up. With three weeks left before she hands over to someone else, the premier is busier than ever trying to build an ambitious legacy. May flew to Japan for the Group of 20 summit, where she tried to persuade Vladimir Putin to stop ...

Bloomberg Donald Trump said he’d cross into North Korea at the country’s border to meet Kim Jong-un this weekend as the US president looks to restart stalled nuclear talks. “I will be in South Korea — I let him know,” Trump told reporters in Osaka, Japan, after a tweet in which he invited Kim for a handshake. “We’ll see. If ...

Bloomberg The Senate rejected legislation that would require President Donald Trump to seek congressional approval for military action in Iran — one of the few measures considered by the Republican-led chamber to curtail his war-making ability. The 50-40 vote was far short of the 60 needed to adopt the measure. The vote was kept open for about 10 hours to ...

Bloomberg German Chancellor Angela Merkel endorsed Manfred Weber and Frans Timmermans as the candidates left in the race to lead the European Union’s executive arm. Without mentioning them by name, Merkel made clear that the center-right German, from her political family, and the center-left Dutchman are the official and only contenders to head the European Commission. That leaves liberal Margrethe ...

Bloomberg Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro called off a meeting in Japan with Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping after his delegation was left waiting. While delays in meetings at multilateral summits are not unusual — timetables often slip, and Russian President Vladimir Putin is famous for running behind, for example — it is less usual for a leader to call off a ...

Bloomberg The US sanctioned Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro’s son in an escalation of Trump administration efforts to punish the socialist regime for corruption and authoritarian practices. Nicolas Maduro Guerra, 29, is a constituent assembly member and was appointed the head of the newly formed Corps of Inspectors of the Presidency in 2014, shortly after Maduro took power. In a statement ...

Bloomberg Iran’s supreme leader scorned the idea of negotiations to ease his country’s tense standoff with the US in his first comments since being sanctioned by Donald Trump. “If we agree in negotiations to their demands, they will make the nation miserable,” Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said, arguing Washington was attempting to strip Iran of its economic and defense capabilities. “And ...

Bloomberg Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed vowed to press ahead with his reform agenda, saying he won’t be deterred by attacks on the country’s leadership. “We will learn from the obstacles to prevent it from happening again,” Abiy said in a statement posted on his office’s Twitter account. “We will not steer away from our reforms, not even for a ...

Bloomberg Secretary of State Michael Pompeo said in a visit to Afghanistan that the US is close to finishing a draft deal with the Taliban to ensure the country doesn’t become a terrorist haven, paving the way for talks on withdrawing American troops after 18 years of war. Pompeo made the remarks from the US embassy in Kabul during the ...