Politics

Bloomberg Italian Deputy Premier Matteo Salvini visited Moscow on Wednesday to drive home one of his favorite points: that European Union sanctions on Russia hurt Italy and should be repealed. “The Russian sanctions are a social, cultural and economic absurdity,” Salvini told the annual meeting of the Russian branch of Italy’s main business lobby Confindustria, repeating the same lines he’s ...

Bloomberg An attack that killed at least 19 people at a Crimean trade school on Wednesday was the work of a student, not terrorism as earlier suspected, officials said. The Investigative Committee said it had re-qualified the charge to mass murder based on its preliminary findings. It identified the attacker as 18-year-old Vladislav Roslyakov, a fourth-year student, who killed himself ...

Bloomberg President Donald Trump plans to withdraw the US from a 192-nation treaty that gives Chinese companies discounted shipping rates for small packages sent to American consumers, another escalation of his economic confrontation of Beijing. US officials said the administration sought to revise the treaty in September and was rebuffed by other nations, prompting the decision to withdraw. The State ...

Bloomberg French President Emmanuel Macron said Europe must work to counter the “troubled times” ahead as it faces a new wave of extremism. “The world is fracturing, new disorders are appearing and Europe is tipping almost everywhere toward extremes and again is giving way to nationalism,” Macron said in a television announcement on Tuesday evening, only his second since he ...

Bloomberg Ivory Coast President Alassane Ouattara’s ruling alliance won a majority in local elections that were contested by its former coalition partner as political divisions in the world’s biggest cocoa grower widen ahead of a 2020 presidential vote. Ouattara’s Rally of Houphouetists for Democracy and Peace took 92 municipalities in the October 13 election, the electoral commission said in a ...

Bloomberg Instgramming tourists may soon get the chance to reenact one of Asia’s most iconic moments in recent memory: April’s embrace between the leaders of the two Koreas. Visitors to the Joint Security Area—where soldiers from the two sides have stood face to face for decades—will be able to freely cross the demarcation line “in the near future,” South Korea’s ...

Bloomberg Escalating tensions between the US and China over trade, the South China Sea and recent arms sales are pushing Taiwan back into the American foreign policy spotlight, attracting Beijing’s ire. After a precedent-shattering phone call with Trump when he was president-elect, Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen has found a more receptive audience in the US during the recent disputes. She’s ...

Bloomberg Secretary of Defense James Mattis played down tensions with Beijing, saying the US was “not out to contain China” and was cooperating whenever possible, but that there would be times they would “step on each other’s toes.” “Obviously, we’re not out to contain China. We’d have taken an altogether different stance had that been considered. It has not been ...

Bloomberg Emmanuel Macron is changing his people, not his plans. The French president on Tuesday announced his long-anticipated cabinet overhaul prompted by the October 2 resignation of the interior minister and postponed numerous times. The reshuffled government will still be headed by Prime Minister Edouard Philippe, since Macron wanted a “renewed team with the same political mandate,” his office said. ...

Bloomberg Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed named Ahmed Shide his finance minister in sweeping changes to the Horn of Africa nation’s government that included appointing women to half of cabinet posts. Abiy appointed Aisha Mohammed as defense minister and created the Ministry of Peace that will be headed by Mufuriat Kami, making them two of 10 women in his cabinet. ...