Politics

Bloomberg Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte is standing by China over a collision involving the two nations’ boats in the South China Sea, with his spokesman casting doubts on local fishermen’s accounts of the incident. In his first public statement about what he described as a “maritime incident,” Duterte said China’s side should be heard on the collision that resulted in ...

Bloomberg The UK’s former ambassador to the European Union blasted the “denial, delusion-mongering and deception” in British politics, which he predicts is leading the country to a damaging no-deal Brexit. Ivan Rogers, who served as Theresa May’s envoy in Brussels until 2017, attacked the political elite “which has great difficulties discerning and telling the truth.” All the candidates in the ...

Bloomberg Rory Stewart, the rank outsider in the contest to become Britain’s next leader, is suddenly winning support and giving his bigger-name rivals a reason to worry. Officials working for three better-known contenders privately said they believed Stewart could deliver a major upset in the Conservative Party leadership votes this week. His rivals have now begun taking him seriously as ...

Bloomberg Iran warned European nations on Monday that it would breach in 10 days the landmark 2015 nuclear agreement unless they take action to alleviate the pressure of tightening US sanctions in the coming weeks. The spokesman for Iran’s atomic energy agency, Behrouz Kamalvandi, said the country would exceed a cap on stockpiles of low-grade uranium on June 27 and ...

Bloomberg Egypt’s former president Mohamed Mursi died. He was 67. He fainted while attending a cou-rt hearing and later passed away. A former opposition lawmaker, Mursi was elected to the country’s top office in June 2012, less than 18 months after joining a jail break amid the chaos of a mass uprising that swept away the three-decade rule of Hosni ...

Bloomberg At least 30 people were killed and 38 injured in attacks in Nigeria’s northeastern town of Konduga carried out by three female suicide bombers, the National Emergency Management Agency said. The attackers detonated their explosive devices simultaneously in a crowded area of the town, Bello Dambatta, a spokesman for the agency, told reporters in the northeastern city of Maiduguri. ...

Bloomberg Chinese President Xi Jinping will travel to North Korea on Thursday for talks with Kim Jong Un, state media in Beijing and Pyongyang reported. The state visit will take place on June 20-21, China’s official Xinhua News Agency and the Korean Central News Agency reported on Monday, without elaborating. This will be Xi’s first visit as Chinese leader to ...

Bloomberg As Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam fights to survive, she’s taking heat from another government whose population is similarly skeptical of Beijing: Taiwan, an island claimed by China. Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen has strongly supported the hundreds of thousands of demonstrators who’ve opposed Lam’s “evil bill” to allow extraditions from Hong Kong to the mainland for the first time. ...

Bloomberg Slovakia’s former president launched a political party to capitalize on public discontent with the ruling leftists who are struggling to contain the fallout from a journalist’s murder before the 2020 election. Anti-government sentiment has been rising in the ex-communist European Union nation for over a year since the killing of an investigative reporter exposed links between politicians, law enforcement ...

Bloomberg Tens of thousands of demonstrators poured into central Hong Kong as organisers remained defiant even after the city’s leader suspended consideration of the China-backed extradition plan that sparked some of the biggest protests in the city in decades. Organisers pressed ahead with a march on Sunday afternoon, following the same route as last week’s demonstration, when hundreds of thousands ...