Politics

Bloomberg A Myanmar judge sentenced Reuters journalists Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo to seven years in prison on Monday after they were found guilty of breaching the country’s Official Secrets Act. The two reporters were arrested on December 12 after police accused them of violating the 1923 law by acquiring “important secret papers” from two policemen. They both pleaded ...

Bloomberg French President Emmanuel Macron said Russian leader Vladimir Putin’s vision for the future is to dismantle Europe, and that the giant eastern neighbour doesn’t share the same human rights values as the Old Continent. “I do respect Vladimir Putin and I am one of the leaders who says we need to construct a new security and defense architecture with ...

Bloomberg Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas told a group of Israeli lawmakers and activists that President Donald Trump’s negotiating team had asked whether he would agree to a confederation with neighboring Jordan. Peace Now’s executive director Shaqued Morag, who attended the meeting, said Abbas told the US that he would agree to a trilateral confederation that includes Israel. Decades ago, ...

Bloomberg Eritrea says it will cut the size of its army as part of changes to a system of mandatory national service that the United Nations blames for propelling tens of thousands of people to flee to Europe and neighbouring countries. The official end to a two-decade war with neighbouring Ethiopia means the country that sits on a key shipping ...

Bloomberg Brazil’s imprisoned ex-leader Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva is meeting with his aides on Monday to map out his party’s next moves after the country’s top electoral court banned him from running for president in October. Former Sao Paulo Mayor Fernando Haddad, Lula’s running mate and likely successor in the race, is in the southern city of Curitiba, where ...

Bloomberg Both Prime Minister Theresa May and opposition Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn found themselves under fire as British lawmakers prepared to return to work this week. For May the issue was Brexit. Her proposed agreement was attacked by European Union negotiator Michel Barnier, who said he “strictly” opposed it. It was derided by her former Brexit Secretary David Davis, ...

Bloomberg Prime Minister Theresa May’s Brexit strategy has come under fresh fire, this time from a senior lawmaker in her own party who opposes a hard departure from the European Union. Most of the criticism of May’s cabinet-backed “Chequers Plan” has come from Conservatives linked to the European Research Group, which seeks maximum distance from the EU and is pushing ...

Bloomberg Senate Democrats criticised the withholding of documents ahead of Tuesday’s start of confirmation hearings for President Donald Trump’s Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, even as a top Republican predicted he would be approved by a healthy margin. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York said in a tweet that the decision to hold back more than 100,000 pages ...

Bloomberg Former presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama led a final, public farewell to John McCain, praising the Arizona senator as the embodiment of America at its best—yet it was powerful comments by McCain’s daughter that may be most remembered. “So much of our politics, our public life, our public discourse, can seem small and mean and petty, trafficking ...

Bloomberg Across the continent, from Finland to Portugal, Emmanuel Macron is leading the charge against Europe’s nationalists. He might want to look closer to home. In western France, Marion Marechal has ambitions to train the next generation of anti-establishment, anti-European French leaders. From September, Marechal is starting her own graduate school, where she’ll seek to shape the politicians of the ...