Politics

Bloomberg For many Spanish voters now mulling their choice for prime minister, Pedro Sanchez, the incumbent, has made the most convincing case. Since calling a snap vote almost two months ago, the Socialist leader has watched opinion polls move in his favour. As voters contemplate their options on what is officially a “day of reflection” after the formal election campaign ...

Bloomberg Russia is interested in the details of a potential US plan to push for new arms-control agreements, Dmitry Peskov, spokesman for Russian President Vladimir Putin, told reporters in Beijing. US President Donald Trump has questioned the cost of maintaining a nuclear arsenal and has asked administration officials to prepare options for potential new arms-control agreements with Russia and China, ...

Bloomberg The US killed three suspected IS extremists in an airstrike in Somalia as part of a long-running campaign to curb the activities of extremist groups in the country. The raid took place in the semi-autonomous region of Puntland, the US military said in a statement on Saturday. The area is on the Gulf of Aden, near the key shipping ...

Bloomberg Towns around France braced for the 24th Saturday of Yellow Vest protests in the first test of whether President Emmanuel Macron’s latest policy announcements will succeed in stilling months of unrest. Police prepared for a large turnout in Strasbourg after Yellow Vest organisers urged people from other countries to join the protest in the city that’s home to the ...

Bloomberg North Korea accused the US of pressuring South Korea to follow a policy of implementing sanctions against the regime, its state media reported. The Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) report said there was a “serious situation of tension being created” on the peninsula amid halted denuclearisation talks with the US. The report was a commentary from the Committee for ...

Bloomberg Maria Butina, the self-styled Russian gun-rights activist who befriended senior officials from the National Rifle Association (NRA) and the Republican party in the run-up to the 2016 election, was sentenced to 18 months in prison for failing to register in the US as an agent of a foreign government. Butina told US District Judge Tanya Chutkan in Washington that ...

Bloomberg Russian President Vladimir Putin said he may extend an offer of citizenship to cover all Ukrainians after he sparked controversy by ordering passports to be made available to people in areas of the country controlled by pro-Moscow separatists. Russia’s offer of citizenship is “not only to the people who live” in the rebel-held areas of Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk and ...

Bloomberg Kim Jong-un is grappling for a way out of his stalemate in nuclear talks with Donald Trump as he meets Russian President Vladimir Putin for the first time on Thursday, seeking diplomatic support. The North Korean leader is expected to highlight his Kremlin counterpart’s backing for easing international sanctions on his tiny and battered economy when they meet on ...

Bloomberg A Hong Kong court sentenced Occupy protest organiser Benny Tai to 16 months in prison on charges he conspired to commit public nuisance, capping the China-backed government’s push to punish leaders of 2014’s mass pro-democracy demonstrations. Tai, 54, an associate law professor at the University of Hong Kong, was ordered to begin serving his time immediately by District Court ...

Bloomberg Shorn of their most important campaign weapon, scandal-ridden former President Jacob Zuma, South Africa’s biggest opposition parties are turning to populism as they scramble for votes in the most competitive election since the end of apartheid. The two main challengers to the ruling African National Congress (ANC) are increasingly echoing the anti-immigrant and race-baiting bias that’s come to dominate ...