Politics

Bloomberg Brazil’s Supreme Court postponed a decision on whether to release former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva from jail while rejecting other requests that could have freed him temporarily. Five justices from the second chamber of the nation’s Supreme Court initially ruled against a habeas corpus for the former president, who has been imprisoned since April last year. A ...

Bloomberg Boris Johnson toughened his Brexit rhetoric with a “do or die” pledge to leave the European Union on October 31 as Jeremy Hunt, his underdog rival to become UK prime minister, battled to persuade Tory party members the strategy is flawed. The front-runner challenged Hunt to match his commitment to leave “come what may” in a letter posted on ...

Bloomberg Iran said the path to a diplomatic solution with the US had closed after the Trump administration imposed sanctions against its supreme leader and other top officials, raising tensions days after the downing of an American drone brought the Middle East to the brink of war. President Donald Trump unveiled sanctions on Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and eight senior military ...

Bloomberg The European Union’s center-right alliance is determined to defy French President Emmanuel Macron in the race to nominate the next EU Commission chief, according to senior party officials. European conservatives were enraged that Macron blocked their candidate for commission president, Manfred Weber, at last week’s summit in Brussels, and suspect he is seeking to undermine their role, even though ...

Bloomberg Poland’s sweeping judicial overhaul, which includes lowering the retirement age of Supreme Court judges, violates European Union rules, the bloc’s top court said in a stinging rebuke of measures described by government critics as a political “purge.” The Polish reform “is not justified by a legitimate objective” and “undermines the principle of the irremovability of judges, which is essential ...

Bloomberg Boris Johnson said he believed the British Parliament would now support a no-deal Brexit, even as senior figures in his Conservative Party warned they had the numbers to stop him if he tried to push one through. Johnson, a former foreign secretary, and the favourite to succeed Theresa May as prime minister, used a BBC interview to argue that ...

Bloomberg President Donald Trump is threatening Iran with additional sanctions on Monday, but there’s not much left for the US to target because most of the Islamic Republic’s economy has been crippled by earlier penalties. The US is already sanctioning significant sectors including oil, banks and steel, leaving smaller targets including certain exports and government officials. Trump could hit Iran’s ...

Bloomberg Russia accused the US of stoking mass anti-government protests in neighbouring Georgia that were triggered by public anger at Moscow’s influence in the ex-Soviet nation. The surge in tensions came after at least 240 people were hurt in clashes between police and demonstrators in the Georgian capital, Tbilisi. Protesters were angered by pictures of a Russian lawmaker, Sergei Gavrilov, ...

Bloomberg Palestinians demonstrated in the West Bank on Monday against a Trump administration plan to raise tens of billions of dollars to boost their economy, calling it a “snow job” meant to persuade them to give up their goal of statehood. About 2,000 people converged on central Ramallah carrying a coffin meant to symbolise the death of this week’s US-backed ...

Bloomberg Andrej Babis, the billionaire Czech prime minister, is brushing off the nation’s biggest protest in 30 years, when the nation rose up and toppled communism. As many as 250,000 people rallied in Prague, seeking to pressure Babis to resign over his business interests and concern he may meddle with the courts. The premier, who won power in 2017 on ...