Politics

Bloomberg US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo will travel to Pyongyang on Sunday to meet with Kim Jong Un and prepare for a second summit between the North Korean leader and President Donald Trump. The State Department’s announcement of Pompeo’s trip confirmed what he promised last week—a visit soon to “make the final preparations” for another summit. Pompeo, who would ...

Bloomberg Sweden’s speaker of parliament gave Alliance opposition leader Ulf Kristersson the first attempt at forming a government to break the deadlock after last month’s inconclusive election. Kristersson will be given two weeks to gather support to become prime minister, Andreas Norlen, the speaker, said at a press conference in Stockholm. The situation needs to be “softened” and giving one ...

Bloomberg French Interior Minister Gerard Collomb quit late Tuesday, the second major minister to leave President Emmanuel Macron’s government in three months. Collomb, 71, had already announced he’d step down to return to local politics in his hometown of Lyon, though he’d originally indicated he’d stay in his post until next year. Collomb follows Nicolas Hulot, a popular television presenter ...

Bloomberg The US accused China’s navy of “unsafe and unprofessional” conduct near a Chinese occupied reef in the disputed South China Sea, in the latest show of tensions between the countries amid their escalating trade war. A US Navy vessel, the USS Decatur, was sailing “in the vicinity” of Gaven Reef on Sunday, when a Chinese destroyer confronted it with ...

Bloomberg Gaza-based staff of the United Nations agency serving Palestinian refugees began a two-day strike on Tuesday to protest the decision to fire workers and cut some programs due to a shortage of funding. Yousef Hamdouna, secretary general of the staff union at the UN Relief and Works Agency, said the strike was called to protest “the reduction of the ...

Bloomberg Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt stepped up his attack on the European Union over Brexit, saying the UK is “very angry” with the bloc’s attitude to the negotiations. With less than six months to go before Brexit, talks are stalled after the EU dismissed Prime Minister Theresa May’s blueprint for a new free trade area with the bloc that would ...

Bloomberg Serbian leader Aleksandar Vucic was to meet Russia’s Vladimir Putin in Moscow on Tuesday to discuss how to push forward a deal with Kosovo after a plan to rework their borders faced international resistance. Vucic is seeking broad international support from the European Union and the US to mend relations with Kosovo—a precondition for both neighbours in their aspirations ...

Bloomberg Southeast Asian foreign ministers urged Myanmar to prosecute those responsible for a brutal military crackdown against its Muslim Rohingya minority, Singapore Foreign Minister Vivian Balakrishnan told his country’s Parliament on Tuesday. Due to the political sensitivities surrounding the issue, foreign ministers from the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations, known as Asean, met unaccompanied on the sidelines of the ...

Bloomberg Brazil’s far-right presidential candidate, Jair Bolsonaro, received a significant boost in the latest opinion poll published just days ahead of Sunday’s general elections. The former Army captain rose four points to 31 percent in the Ibope survey released Monday evening, compared with 27 percent in the last poll Sept. 26. His nearest rival, Fernando Haddad, from the leftwing Workers’ ...

Bloomberg The Republic of Macedonia’s leader threatened to call snap elections next month if he fails to win support to change his country’s name after voters backed him in a referendum clouded by low turnout. The conflicted outcome of plebiscite sets the stage for a bruising battle ahead for Prime Minister Zoran Zaev, who’s pushing to settle a 27-year-old row ...