Politics

Bloomberg Indonesia’s death toll from a 7.4 magnitude earthquake and tsunami that struck the island of Sulawesi has risen to 384. Many of the victims were found under collapsed buildings, Sutopo Purwo Nugroho, a spokesman at National Disaster Mitigation Agency, told reporters in Jakarta. More than 540 people were injured, he said Saturday afternoon. Many of the dead were found ...

Bloomberg The Federal Bureau of Investgation (FBI), which remained on the sidelines during the fierce debate over whether Brett Kavanaugh should be on the Supreme Court, will now play a central role in shaping the outcome of his nomination. After resisting days of Democratic calls for an FBI probe into accusations of misconduct against Kavanaugh, the Senate Judiciary Committee asked ...

Bloomberg Russia’s top diplomat condemned what he described as “an onslaught of belligerent revisionism” that threatens the international order in a rare personal criticism of US President Donald Trump, reflecting growing tensions between the former Cold War enemies. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov lashed out at Trump’s policies in the Middle East, his withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal and ...

Bloomberg Brazil’s leading presidential candidate, far-right former army captain Jair Bolsonaro, said that he wouldn’t accept an election result that doesn’t grant him victory. Speaking in a live televised interview on TV Band from his hospital room, where he is recovering after a knife attack, Bolsonaro was asked how he thought the military would react if Fernando Haddad, the leftist ...

Bloomberg A Brazilian Supreme Court judge has suspended a decision that allowed a newspaper to interview former head of state Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who yields tremendous influence over upcoming presidential elections despite being in prison. Luiz Fux’s ruling issued late Friday blocks a previous injunction from fellow Supreme Court Judge Ricardo Lewandowski that permitted Folha de S. Paulo ...

Bloomberg Arguments over Brexit, the rise of nationalism and how to deal with Russia are consuming Europe, but there’s one dispute that’s been edging towards a resolution — and it’s in a region where there’s much at stake for the world order. The Republic of Macedonia will hold a referendum on September 30 on changing the former Yugoslav state’s name ...

Bloomberg President Donald Trump said Wednesday he’d prefer to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict by creating two separate states, re-aligning himself with the traditional US position on an eventual peace deal. Trump also said his administration would produce its long-awaited attempt at a new Mideast peace plan within about four months. “I like two-state solution,” Trump said at a meeting with ...

Bloomberg Angela Merkel’s first foray into politics after the fall of the Berlin Wall was as spokeswoman for an East German party called Democratic Awakening. The last act of her political career may also be marked by a drive for a new beginning—this time from within her own parliamentary bloc. The defeat of Merkel’s candidate for caucus leader, Volker Kauder, ...

Bloomberg Theresa May ruled out a return to the ballot box to settle the UK’s political stalemate over Brexit and hunkered down on her plans for leaving the European Union. “It would not be in the national interest to have an election” before the scheduled Brexit date in March 2019, the prime minister told reporters en route to New York. ...

Bloomberg When President Donald Trump said a year ago that the US was considering a “military option” for Venezuela, hardly anyone in Washington thought it was a good idea. Today, as Venezuela slides towards dictatorship and collapse, triggering a millions-strong migration crisis, support for such a move is being discussed openly. The notion of using force to topple the government ...