Politics

Bloomberg The populists setting the agenda in Italy’s coalition government seized on the collapse of a bridge in northern Italy to question whether they should respect European Union budget constraints. Deputy Premier Matteo Salvini of the euroskeptic League led the way, telling reporters in Catania, Sicily, that the failure of a roughly 50-year-old suspension bridge in Genoa shows how important ...

Bloomberg Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte keeps saying that he’s tired and ready to quit. What’s holding him back? He’s not satisfied with his successor. “Guys, I want you to know that I am thinking of stepping down because I’m tired,” Duterte told a group of executives and politicians at the launch of a business program. Still, he told them he ...

Bloomberg Nigerian Senate President Bukola Saraki is considering running against President Muhammadu Buhari when Africa’s top oil producer holds elections in February. “I am consulting and actively considering it,” Saraki, 56, said in an interview at his residence in the capital, Abuja. “I believe I can make the change.” After recently defecting from the ruling All Progressives Congress, Saraki said ...

Bloomberg His supporters are descending on Brazil’s capital by the busloads, his lawyers wage legal battles, and his party stages hunger strikes, sit-ins, and news conferences in defense of his right to bid for the country’s top job. In public, allies of former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva are pulling out all the stops to get the imprisoned leftist ...

Bloomberg UK police launched a counter-terrorism inquiry after a car crashed into barriers outside Parliament on Tuesday. Three people were injured in the incident, which bears similarities to a deadly attack last year. The driver, a man in his late 20s, was arrested at the scene on suspicion of terrorist offenses, the Metropolitan Police said. Though he has not yet ...

Bloomberg More than 80 cars were set ablaze in cities across southwestern Sweden overnight as groups of masked youths threw stones and started fires in what may have been a coordinated action. In the Frolunda neighbourhood of Gothenburg, Sweden’s second-largest city, 31 cars burned and 35 were damaged as a group of 6-8 masked youths threw stones and started fires, ...

Bloomberg A bridge on the main highway running down the Italian Mediterranean coast in the port city of Genoa has collapsed, and reports said at least 20 people died with others trapped in the rubble. Shares of Atlantia SpA, which runs the stretch of highway, fell almost 11 percent in Milan, the company’s biggest intraday drop since 2008. Atlantia Chief ...

Bloomberg President Nicolas Maduro took to the airwaves to tell Venezuelan drivers that the days of being able to fill up their tanks with some of the cheapest gasoline in the world were over. From August 15-17, drivers must register to receive subsidies for gasoline purchases, and those who do not will have to pay international prices for fuel. Maduro, ...

Bloomberg Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation hasn’t yet become a top issue for most voters. But when it comes to fundraising, Democrats and Republicans battling for control of Congress in November are using the probe to cash in. Some Democrats are pitching to donors that they’ll prevent Mueller’s ouster or other interference by President Donald Trump. Republicans are telling ...

Bloomberg North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and South Korea’s Moon Jae-in agreed to hold their third meeting this year, as they seek to preserve a detente tested by disputes between Pyongyang and Washington. The two Koreas announced plans on Monday for Moon to visit the North Korean capital next month, the first such trip since 2007. A joint statement issued ...