Politics

Bloomberg Hungarian labour unions are staging nationwide protests and threatening the first general strike since the end of communism to pressure Prime Minister Viktor Orban into repealing a controversial new law on overtime. Rallies were planned in Budapest and more than a dozen other cities on Saturday against what critics have dubbed the “slave law”, which allows companies to ask ...

Bloomberg The wife of missing ex-Interpol Chief Meng Hongwei has applied for asylum in France because she is scared for her life, Reuters reported, citing her lawyer. Grace Meng was followed by strangers, received suspicious phone calls and had her car license plates photographed by mysterious people, according to the report, which cited an interview she did with France Info’s ...

Bloomberg The UK stands at its most dangerous crossroads in decades after Parliament emphatically rejected Theresa May’s Brexit deal and left her facing an uncomfortable vote to oust her government. The humiliating defeat on Tuesday evening, the biggest for any government in modern history, leaves May’s divorce agreement with the European Union all but dead and opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn ...

Bloomberg The US and South Korea are discussing “corresponding measures” to reward North Korea’s steps towards denuclearisation, South Korea’s foreign minister said, as President Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un prepare for a possible second summit. Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha told a news conference in Seoul that the allies were reviewing various packages of incentives that Washington could bring to the ...

Bloomberg China is likely developing a long-range bomber capable of delivering nuclear weapons and a space-based early warning system it could use to more quickly respond to an attack, according to a new report from the US Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA). The development of the bomber, when combined with China’s land-based nuclear weapons programme and a deployed submarine with intercontinental ...

Bloomberg The attack on an upmarket hotel complex in Kenya’s capital that claimed at least 14 lives may impact the East African nation’s key tourism industry, which was recovering from a wave of extremist assaults earlier this decade. Al-Qaeda-linked militants in Somalia have claimed responsibility for the terror attack on 14 Riverside in Nairobi, their first significant assault in Kenya ...

Bloomberg Venezuela’s opposition-dominated National Assembly is making a concerted effort to unseat autocratic President Nicolas Maduro, invoking constitutional measures that would seat an acting chief executive and offering blanket amnesty to military and government officials who help in bringing down the regime. In a matter of a week, Venezuela’s beaten down and divided opposition has rallied around a 35-year-old lawmaker, ...

Bloomberg Secretary of State Michael Pompeo arrived in the Middle East a week ago on a mission to prove the Trump administration can be a reliable partner in tackling the region’s thorniest problems. He returns having failed to stifle doubts that have dogged the US for years. With stops in eight countries in eight days, Pompeo sought to hammer home ...

Bloomberg South Korea dropped a reference to North Korea as its “enemy” in a Defense Ministry white paper for the first time since 2010, reflecting warming ties between the neighbours still technically at war. In a report released on Tuesday, the ministry said that North Korea’s weapons of mass destruction remained a threat to “peace and security on the Korean ...

Bloomberg The opposition leader who delivered the biggest blow to Narendra Modi’s ruling party in five years has vowed to replicate recent state-level victories in India’s upcoming general poll. India’s main opposition Congress party scored its biggest win yet against Modi when it turfed his Bharatiya Janata Party from three state governments in December elections. Congress lawmaker and Wharton alumni ...