Politics

Bloomberg Brazil’s imprisoned Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has been banned from running for president in October after months of commotion that had tainted what is already the most unpredictable election in decades. In a 6-1 ruling, the country’s top electoral court decided that Lula’s candidacy cannot stand, given his 12-year sentence for corruption and money-laundering by an appeals court ...

Bloomberg President Xi Jinping was expected to use a gathering of dozens of African leaders in Beijing to push back against criticism that China’s vast development initiatives risked saddling emerging economies with debt. Xi’s speech recently to the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation gives him a high-profile chance to defend his signature Belt and Road Initiative to develop roads, railways, ports, ...

Bloomberg President Donald Trump will skip two major summits in Asia in November, a move that could stoke concerns in the region about the US’s reliability as a counterweight to China. The White House said that Vice President Mike Pence would travel to Singapore for an 18-nation summit hosted by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, before heading to Papua ...

Bloomberg India’s Supreme Court is set to hear a challenge to the arrest and detention of activists and lawyers in a nation-wide operation that human rights groups say is aimed at intimidating critics of the government. Those arrested work with India’s marginalised tribal and lower caste communities and activists said they’d been rounded up for criticising the government. In a ...

Bloomberg Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is pledging to move quickly towards changing Japan’s constitution, according to an internal campaign pamphlet seen by Bloomberg News, ensuring the divisive proposal is a key part of his bid for a historic third straight term as ruling party leader. Abe intends to have the Liberal Democratic Party submit the amendment in the next parliament ...

Bloomberg The UK and the European Union still say in public they want a Brexit deal wrapped up in the next seven weeks. Behind the scenes, though, senior officials on both sides admit this is unlikely. They now aim to finalise divorce terms by the middle of November at the latest, according to people familiar with the British and European ...

Bloomberg French President Emmanuel Macron joined a challenge issued by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, saying that Europe’s populist forces were right to see him as their “main opponent.” Macron was speaking after Orban and Italy’s Matteo Salvini met in Milan to discuss creating a united front of Europe’s anti-immigrant political forces ahead of elections to the European Parliament next ...

Bloomberg The US doesn’t plan to suspend more joint military drills with South Korean forces, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said, amid reports that North Korea was rejecting American demands for Kim Jong-un to give up his nuclear warheads. “We have no plans at this time to suspend any more exercises,” Mattis told reporters at the Pentagon, adding that the Defense ...

Bloomberg One longstanding US ally still thinks North Korea poses an urgent nuclear threat. Another is steadily increasing economic ties with the regime. And Kim Jong-un is doing his best to exploit the divide. Less than three months after shaking Kim’s hand in Singapore, US President Donald Trump is confronting an increasingly fractured diplomatic landscape as his two key allies—Japan ...

Bloomberg The UK can still make a success of Brexit if it tumbles out of the European Union without a deal, Prime Minister Theresa May said, striking an upbeat tone as the clock ticks down on Britain’s departure from the bloc. Speaking to reporters on the plane as she headed to South Africa on a five-day visit to three African ...