Politics

Bloomberg On a cool Delhi evening in November 2016, Narendra Modi hastily called a national address to make the most consequential decision of his premiership: Effective at midnight, some 86 percent of India’s cash would no longer be valid in a bid to stamp out corruption. Panic quickly ensued as India’s 1.3 billion people—many with no bank accounts or credit ...

Bloomberg Indonesian President Joko Widodo won last month’s bitterly contested election by a double-digit margin, official results showed on Tuesday, an outcome rejected by his rival who threatened a legal challenge amid threats of street protests by his supporters. Widodo, known as Jokowi, won 55.5 percent of the national vote, compared to his challenger Prabowo Subianto’s 44.5 percent, the General ...

Bloomberg Theresa May faces a showdown with her cabinet on Tuesday as she seeks their backing for one last push for her divorce deal with the European Union. Pro-Brexit ministers and those looking to succeed May as prime minister are expected to lead objections as they debate proposals to make the agreement more attractive to the opposition Labour Party, potentially ...

Bloomberg Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz is set to face a no-confidence vote as soon as next week, raising the specter of a deepening state crisis. His decision to sack nationalist Interior Minister Herbert Kickl, triggering the resignation of the remaining Freedom Party cabinet members, estranged his erstwhile partners and raised the chances that the parliamentary motion will pass with Freedom ...

Bloomberg Five Catalan separatist leaders emerged from jail to take up their seats in Spain’s parliament on Tuesday in an act of political theatre that may inflame passions on both sides of a divided country. Oriol Junqueras, the leader of the Esquerra Republicana party, is among four pro-independence campaigners who won seats in the lower house in Spanish general elections ...

Bloomberg President Donald Trump’s decision to fight “all the subpoenas” is pushing Democrats towards a complicated and risky choice: take on the White House in a lengthy court battle or begin an impeachment. The impeachment process would strengthen Democrats’ legal case for enforcing subpoenas, but it would open them to political attacks from Republicans saying they are rushing toward a ...

Bloomberg The Palestinian Authority said it will boycott a conference launching the Trump administration’s Middle East peace plan because it’s focused on economic issues rather than the political disputes at the heart of the conflict with Israel. The White House announced that it will hold a conference in Bahrain next month to promote economic development in the Palestinian territories as ...

Bloomberg The US is projecting “strategic confusion” in the South China Sea, the Philippines’ top diplomat said, prompting the Southeast Asian nation to deepen its ties with China. President Rodrigo Duterte prefers China’s offer of loans and investments in the absence of a clearer stance from the US in the disputed sea amid growing rivalry between the two nations, Philippine ...

Bloomberg Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer is fighting to preserve her position as Angela Merkel’s heir apparent after her attempts to accelerate the transfer of power backfired. Kramp-Karrenbauer, who replaced Merkel as head of the Christian Democratic Union in December, embarked on a charm offensive to demonstrate her loyalty to the German chancellor after failing to win support for an effort to persuade ...

Bloomberg Deputy Premier Matteo Salvini’s top aide turned against Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte as tensions within the populist government escalated over immigration before this week’s European vote. Giancarlo Giorgetti, who’s also Cabinet secretary, voiced long-running frustration among lieutenants of the right-wing League party against the anti-establishment Five Star Movement, which picked Conte a year ago. “Conte is no longer impartial,” ...