Politics

Bloomberg Spanish PM Mariano Rajoy faces a resurgent confrontation with Catalonia over the regional government’s choice of leaders, threatening passage of his 2018 budget. Rajoy’s government left open the option of vetoing a slate of senior officials proposed by regional chief Joaquim Torra on Saturday, saying it’s a provocation that he nominated people who are in prison or wanted by ...

Bloomberg Ghana’s former President John Dramani Mahama said he won’t “disappoint” his supporters who are calling on him to stand as a presidential candidate in the 2020 elections. “To you the teeming supporters and sympathisers calling and requesting me to declare my intentions for the future, I wish to assure you today, that as a servant leader, I have listened ...

Bloomberg As Donald Trump shakes up the global order, German Chancellor Angela Merkel is being pushed closer toward a more predictable partner in Moscow. When President Vladimir Putin hosted Merkel in the Black Sea resort of Sochi on Friday, both leaders did their best to keep tensions in the background compared with a year ago, when they clashed over Ukraine ...

Bloomberg The Democratic National Committee is seeking a court order that would essentially force President Donald Trump’s administration to aid the group’s lawsuit accusing Russia of interfering in the 2016 election. Enlisting Secretary of State Mike Pompeo through a provision of the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act “is the only means available to the plaintiff” to formally serve Russia with the ...

Bloomberg Prime Minister Theresa May is preparing the ground to keep the UK inside the European Union’s core trade rules for years after Brexit, a move that risks a rebellion from euroskeptics who could force her out. May’s inner Cabinet has agreed a plan to keep the UK aligned with the EU’s tariff rules for longer as a last resort ...

Bloomberg The three-day-old government of ruling Bharatiya Janata Party failed to prove its majority in the southern Indian state of Karnataka, dealing a blow to PM Narendra Modi’s plan to expand his party’s influence outside its strongholds ahead of a federal poll in 2019. The development sets the stage for the formation of a new coalition government of regional Janata ...

Bloomberg All of Italy gets to have its say on the populist coalition’s policy program this weekend, when the League, one of two parties involved, opens up ad-hoc polling stations in towns and cities across the country. Matteo Salvini, the party’s 45-year-old leader, is offering Italians a chance to vote on the deal on Saturday and on Sunday, though his ...

Bloomberg A Congolese health official said two more cases of Ebola have been identified in Mbandaka in northwestern Democratic Republic of Congo. There are now three confirmed cases of the disease in the city, Jean-Jacques Muyembe, director-general of the National Institute for Biomedical Research, said by phone Friday from the capital, Kinshasa. Health Ministry spokeswoman Jessica Ilunga said she couldn’t ...

Bloomberg North Korea threatened to walk away from its meeting with President Donald Trump next month if the US made a “one-sided demand” for the regime to surrender its nuclear weapons. Kim Kye Gwan, a vice foreign minister and a top North Korea disarmament negotiator, said the regime was disappointed by recent comments from the US on their goals for ...

Bloomberg The European Union must cope with the “capricious assertiveness” of President Donald Trump’s administration just as it has to deal with the rise of China and Russian aggression, EU President Donald Tusk said. “Looking at the latest decisions of President Trump, some could even think: ‘With friends like that, who needs enemies?”’ Tusk told reporters before a summit of ...