Politics

Bloomberg South Africa’s ruling African National Congress (ANC) postponed its conference on finalising lists for elections next year to give provinces time to conclude the process, the party said. The conference would be rescheduled to January 4-5 from this weekend to accommodate the North West province, which hadn’t submitted its nominations, ANC acting spokesman Dakota Legeote said by phone. The ...

Bloomberg Georgia’s first woman president took office on Sunday after a rancorous vote that triggered allegations of election fraud from the losing candidate. French-born Salome Zurabishvili, an ex-Georgian foreign minister, was sworn in as the Caucasus republic’s fifth president at a ceremony at a former royal residence in the eastern city of Telavi, about 95 kilometres (59 miles) from the ...

Bloomberg Italy’s squabbling populist coalition partners were expected to meet on Sunday to seek agreement on key parts of the country’s contentious 2019 budget in a bid to gain European Union approval and avoid sanctions. Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte will meet with Deputy Premiers Luigi Di Maio, Matteo Salvini and Finance Minister Giovanni Tria to discuss the budget plan and ...

Bloomberg Theresa May’s team pushed back against reports they are warming to a second referendum on Brexit as the UK prime minister prepares to face Parliament today. David Lidington, May’s effective deputy, and Chief-of-Staff Gavin Barwell said they don’t favour another plebiscite after newspapers reported they’d held talks on the issue. May herself launched a broadside at former Prime Minister ...

Bloomberg Street protests against Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban were held for a fourth day in a week, with opposition parties inspired by France’s Yellow Vest movement uniting in their hostility to laws allowing for more overtime and greater government control of the judiciary. Thousands rallied in Budapest on Sunday for a demonstration called “Merry Christmas, Mr. Prime Minister,” a ...

Bloomberg In the corridors of the UK Parliament, an idea that four months ago seemed laughable is now being seriously discussed. Is another referendum a way out of the Brexit deadlock? Speaking privately, some ministers raise it unprompted. At a press conference, leaders of the smaller opposition parties urged the government to consider it as a contingency worth preparing for. ...

Bloomberg Kosovo lawmakers adopted a set of laws to upgrade its lightly armed troops into a formidable force, which neighbouring Serbia sees as security threat and an obstacle to normalising ties between the two Balkan nations. Serbian Foreign Minister Ivica Dacic demanded an urgent meeting of the United Nations Security Council after the Kosovo’s parliament ignored objections from ethnic Serb ...

Bloomberg A fifth weekend of protests by France’s Yellow Vests movement started in relative calm in Paris, with police arresting several dozen people in the capital compared with hundreds a week earlier. As protesters gathered in front of the opera house and on the Champs-Elysees avenue in central Paris, police used tear gas to prevent a small breakaway group from ...

Bloomberg Sri Lanka’s top court ruled against President Maithripala Sirisena’s plan to dissolve the island nation’s parliament and call a new national vote, extending a political crisis that has roiled the island nation since late October. The Supreme Court ruled as unconstitutional a presidential notice to dissolve parliament before a period of four-and-a-half years from its first sitting unless the ...

Bloomberg Maria Butina pleaded guilty to acting as an undeclared Russian agent in the US and agreed to cooperate with prosecutors, advancing an inquiry into Russia’s efforts to build back-channels to politically connected Americans. The 30-year-old gun enthusiast operated as a Kremlin agent as she befriended National Rifle Association leaders (NRA) and influential US conservatives, she admitted in federal court ...