Politics

Bloomberg Italy’s Democratic Party signalled a return to campaign mode as it charged its rivals, the League and the Five Star Movement, with having prepared a plan to pull the country out of the euro if they had succeeded in forming a government together. The two parties gambled with the country’s well-being “with a project to take Italy out of ...

Bloomberg President Donald Trump may have ordered the re-imposition of sanctions on Iran, but one of Asia’s biggest oil importers — and a strategic partner of the US — plans on ignoring them. India, a long-time buyer of oil from both Iran and Venezuela, only complies with UN-mandated sanctions and not those imposed by one country on another, said foreign ...

Bloomberg The European Union must reconstruct itself to protect its economies from euro-area contagion and attract the UK back after Brexit, investor George Soros said. “The economic case for remaining a member of the EU is strong, but it will take time for it to sink in,” Soros said in a speech in Paris on Tuesday. “During that time the ...

Bloomberg Italian President Sergio Mattarella asked economist Carlo Cottarelli to form a government with new elections due as early as the fall, as populist leaders railed against the president and the European Union for blocking their bid for power. Cottarelli, 63, a former executive director of the International Monetary Fund, pledged Italy would stay in the euro and called for ...

Bloomberg Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon reiterated her goal for the UK to remain in the customs union and single market in a meeting with Michel Barnier, the European Union’s chief Brexit negotiator, in Brussels. Sturgeon’s aim was to ensure that the EU understands Scotland’s concerns, according to a statement from her office. She said in an interview with Politico ...

Bloomberg Spain’s Socialists are facing an uphill task in reconciling differences between opposition parties as they seek to garner support for dislodging Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy. The no-confidence motion filed on May 25 by the Socialists, the largest opposition group, needs the backing of several other parties to succeed. The trust vote request, triggered by the sentencing last week of ...

Bloomberg Donald Trump’s lawyer again questioned the legitimacy of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s ongoing probe into Russian meddling in the 2016 US election, even as a possible interview between Mueller and the president looms. “We’re more convinced as we see it that this is a rigged investigation,” Rudy Giuliani said Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Nation.” Asked if he ...

Bloomberg On the waterfront of New Zealand’s largest city, a Chinese developer is building a five-star luxury hotel aimed at wealthy tourists. One hitch: there’s not enough local workers to finish it. To help complete Auckland’s NZ$200 million ($138 million) Park Hyatt hotel on time, Beijing-based Fu Wah International Group has been forced to fly out 138 carpet layers, painters ...

Bloomberg US President Donald Trump said his administration is holding direct talks with North Korea to salvage a summit with Kim Jong Un initially planned for Singapore next month. Trump told reporters that meetings were taking place “as we speak” in an unidentified location to push ahead with the summit, which he abruptly cancelled last week due to “open hostility” ...

Bloomberg President Donald Trump pledged to soon bring home more Americans held overseas during a meeting at the White House with a US citizen imprisoned in Vene-zuela since 2016 who was released after pressure from Washington. “You went through a lot,” Trump told Joshua Holt at the Oval Office, where the former Mormon missionary was joined by his parents, his ...