Politics

Bloomberg Grounded in Washington by the government shutdown, Secretary of State Michael Pompeo delivered a Trump-style speech by video to the Davos summit defending disruptive politics, touting US economic strength and claiming foreign policy successes. “New winds are blowing across the world,” Pompeo said in the long-distance address to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. “The central question is ...

Bloomberg A group of former ambassadors and academics is calling on China to immediately release two Canadians it detained in the wake of the arrest of a top Huawei Technologies Co executive in Vancouver. The open letter addressed to Chinese President Xi Jinping, said its 141 signatories are “deeply concerned” by the detentions of Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor by ...

Bloomberg South Korean Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha defended US efforts to advance North Korea talks, saying in an interview that it would be “excessive” to say Washington is compromising on its denuclearisation goals. “There’s no shifting — not a bit — about what the goal is. It’s complete denuclearisation,” Kang told the Yonhap News Agency in an interview published. Kang ...

Bloomberg Italy’s populists looking for an arch enemy to concentrate their nationalist rhetoric ahead of European Parliamentary elections have found one: France and its Europhile president Emmanuel Macron. France has summoned the Italian ambassador over comments by Deputy Premier and Five Star Movement leader Luigi di Maio that France “never stopped colonising Africa” and is contributing to the waves of ...

Bloomberg It was still dark, but Venezuela’s army had already smothered a mutiny and turned to tear-gassing protesters supporting the rebels. The loyalist Supreme Court announced that it would depose the National Assembly’s head and nullify its motion declaring President Nicolas Maduro’s rule invalid. Then, Brazil’s president predicted a speedy regime change. Governing this hungry and restive nation has become ...

Bloomberg European Union governments disagree over how long they think the UK should delay Brexit, with some pushing for an extension of as much as a year, diplomats said. While some countries think the EU should offer Britain a generous period to negotiate a deal that will win the backing of Parliament, possibly after a second referendum, others oppose a ...

Bloomberg Militants operating in northern Mali killed 10 Chadian soldiers and injured 25 others in one of the deadliest attacks on the United Nation’s peacekeeping mission in the west African nation. An unknown number of assailants in armed vehicles struck the base in Aguelhok in northern Mali, according to a statement from the local UN peacekeeping mission. Peacekeepers pursued the ...

Bloomberg President Xi Jinping stressed the need to maintain political stability in a rare meeting of China’s top leaders — a fresh sign the ruling party was growing concerned about the social implications of the slowing economy. Xi told a “seminar” of top provincial leaders and ministers in Beijing that the Communist Party needed a greater sense of urgency “to ...

Bloomberg Donald Trump and senior Democrats took their first steps towards a possible compromise deal on immigration and border security over the weekend, even as the president ramped up his feud with Speaker Nancy Pelosi with the government shutdown in its fifth week. It’s not clear whether Trump’s olive branch will yield fruitful negotiations, given that Democrats want the government ...

Bloomberg As Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe heads for talks in Moscow this week in hopes of resolving a 70-year-old dispute over four small islands, President Vladimir Putin is showing him a deal won’t be painless. While Abe has pushed for progress in a dispute that has prevented the countries from formally ending their World War II hostilities, Russian rhetoric ...