Politics

Bloomberg Ethiopia has “no option” but to open up its politics for multiparty democracy in order to secure lasting progress, Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed said. Ahmed spoke while meeting in the capital of Addis Ababa with nearly 50 political parties, including four from overseas, “who demanded reform to include election laws,” Fitsum Arega, the prime minister’s chief of staff, said ...

Bloomberg Malaysia’s youth are likely to get more power after backing 93-year-old Mahathir Mohamad to topple a regime that ruled the Southeast Asian nation for six decades. Malaysia is “very serious” about reducing the voting age to 18 before the next elections due by 2023, Youth and Sports Minister Syed Saddiq Syed Abdul Rahman, 25, told Bloomberg in an interview ...

Bloomberg British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt said the UK will not “blink” in Brexit negotiations, as he warned the European Union it risks forcing the country to crash out of the bloc with no deal. On his first trip to Berlin since he replaced Boris Johnson earlier this month, Hunt appealed for more flexibility from his European counterparts as time ...

Bloomberg Justin Trudeau’s latest headache is unusual for a country bounded by three oceans and just one neighbour: the border. Canada has seen a steady flow of asylum seekers since Donald Trump’s election, with people who fear the US will deport them or reject their bids for asylum crossing the 4,000-mile undefended border and filing a claim. While the total ...

Bloomberg In Germany’s year of political turmoil, Finance Minister Olaf Scholz is emerging as a surprise winner. With his pro-European convictions and even-keeled presence, the Social Democrat gained stature during Chancellor Angela Merkel’s recent infighting with her party bloc’s nationalists over migration. Scholz, 60, has pulled ahead of Merkel and now is Germany’s most popular politician, having stood aside and ...

Bloomberg President Donald Trump’s one-on-one meeting with Russian leader Vladimir Putin continues to unsettle lawmakers and foreign policy experts, many of whom also gave the thumbs-down to a possible follow-up meeting at the White House. “We need to know everything, and the president’s national security team needs to know everything” about the leaders’ two-hour meeting in Helsinki on July 16, ...

Bloomberg Britain’s new head of Brexit talks said the country needs to prepare for the possibility of negotiations collapsing on a new trading arrangement with the European Union once the divorce is final. “Any responsible government must make sure we have planning in place in case of a no-deal outcome,” Dominic Raab, appointed Brexit secretary this month, told the “Andrew ...

Bloomberg Several prominent Democrats who once worked with Paul Manafort have been dragged into court filings ahead of his fraud trial, most prominently Tad Devine, the 63-year-old political consultant who ran Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign. The names appear on a list filed by US Special Counsel Robert Mueller of documents he could show to the jury that will be selected ...

Bloomberg Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that the US arrest of Russian Maria Butina on suspicion of trying to infiltrate Republican circles and acting as an unregistered foreign agent was unacceptable. In a telephone conversation with US Secretary of State Michael Pompeo, the top Russian diplomat said the charges against Butina were fabricated and called for her prompt release, ...

Bloomberg US Secretary of State Michael Pompeo sought to shore up support among UN Security Council members for a North Korean sanctions regime that’s showing signs of weakening, as hopes for a quick denuclearisation agreement with Pyongyang fade. Standing alongside US Ambassador Nikki Haley in New York, Pompeo said the US expects countries to honour their commitments to cut off ...