Politics

Bloomberg As the partial US government shutdown enters a third day, lawmakers have left Washington for the Christmas holiday with no sign of urgency to resolve the fight over President Donald Trump’s demand for border wall money. Unlike shutdowns of the past, Congress and the White House aren’t racing to reopen the government. Offices of congressional leaders who are responsible ...

Bloomberg Suicide bombers struck the Libyan Foreign Ministry’s headquarters in Tripoli, killing three people, officials said, in the latest blow to efforts to stabilise the war-ravaged North African nation. Gunmen opened fire on the ministry and one of them blew himself up, the Foreign Ministry said. At least 18 others were wounded, Interior Minister Fathi Bashagha said in a televised ...

Bloomberg At least 43 people were killed and 10 injured after militants detonated a car bomb before storming government offices in a building in Afghan capital Kabul, said Wahid Majrooh, a spokesman of the nation’s Ministry of Public Health. The gunmen also took hostages in the building of the National Authority for Disabled People and Martyrs’ Families, said Najib Danish, ...

Bloomberg A federal judge in Washington awarded $500 million in damages to the family of Otto Warmbier, an Ohio student who died after being detained in North Korea for 17 months. The wrongful death lawsuit was filed in April against the North Korean government by Warmbier’s parents, Fred and Cynthia Warmbier, accusing it of torturing their son. North Korea didn’t ...

Bloomberg Mongolia’s effort to get its citizens to pay taxes by enrolling them in a lottery is delivering a big payout — for the government. The north Asian country between Russia and China has expanded its tax base by almost half since 2016, according to government statistics, partly by printing a lottery ticket on every retail receipt when the 10 ...

Bloomberg A Pakistani court convicted former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif of corruption and handed him a seven-year prison term, sparking protests by his supporters. Arshad Malik, a judge of the accountability court, delivered the verdict in Islamabad on Monday after finding that Sharif had accumulated wealth through unknown means. Sharif, who was acquitted on the second charge and released from ...

Bloomberg Sudanese doctors went on strike as the army pledged its loyalty to President Umar al-Bashir amid some of the biggest anti-government protests in his rule. At least eight people have been killed in demonstrations that have rocked the African nation’s cities since mid-last week, as discontent with an economic crisis and soaring living costs have developed into calls for ...

Bloomberg Burundian authorities decided to move the political capital to the city of Gitega in the central province, from Bujumbura, government spokesman Prosper Ntahorwamiye said on Burundi National Television. Bujumbura will remain the economic capital as many of country’s business activities’ are based there, Ntahorwamiye said. At least five ministries and their agencies will start working from Gitega in Janaury ...

Bloomberg Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte said the government will keep pursuing its expansionary economic goals and vowed the populist coalition would complete its full five-year term. “The budget starts with a clearly expansionary signal, and maintains that even after the changes made following the negotiations with Brussels,” Conte told Italian daily La Stampa in an interview. The government initially ...

Bloomberg Theresa May urged Britons to abandon the Leave-Remain split that has beset the country since the Brexit referendum in 2016. After 2 1/2 years of division, it’s time to “put aside our differences and focus on what really matters,” the UK premier wrote in a letter to readers of the Daily Express newspaper. In a missive also aimed at ...