Politics

Bloomberg The US State Department said a referendum to amend Burundi’s constitution that includes changing presidential terms “through a non-transparent process” will undermine the East African nation’s democratic institutions. Burundi is scheduled to hold a plebiscite on May 17 that could see President Pierre Nkurunziza extend his 13-year rule until 2034. His decision in 2015 to run for a third ...

Bloomberg Donald Trump’s current team of lawyers lacks the security clearances needed to discuss sensitive issues related to a possible presidential interview with Special Counsel Robert Mueller, according to two people familiar with the matter. Trump’s former lead lawyer John Dowd had been the only member of the president’s personal legal team with a security clearance, the people said. When ...

Bloomberg The main attraction at Javier Bertucci’s presidential campaign rally wasn’t the Christian hip hop, the interpretive dancers or even the bouncy castle. It was the soup. The 48-year-old Venezuelan televangelist came to the seaside community of Catia La Mar with vats of hearty beef stew that drew hundreds of hungry people carrying plastic containers and cups. He has spent ...

Bloomberg President Donald Trump said Monday his administration is considering holding a potential meeting with North Korea’s Kim Jong-un at the demilitarised zone marking the North’s border with South Korea, or in other countries, including Singapore. Trump, speaking at a joint White House press conference with Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari, also expressed optimism that the summit would take place and ...

Bloomberg Donald Trump assailed as “disgraceful leaks” the publication by the New York Times of four-dozen questions that Special Counsel Robert Mueller is said to want to ask the president concerning Russian involvement in the 2016 presidential election and his own actions in response to the probe. “So disgraceful that the questions concerning the Russian Witch Hunt were ‘leaked’ to ...

Bloomberg Paul Manafort, the former campaign chairman for President Donald Trump, asked a judge to investigate FBI leaks of secret grand-jury information that came before his indictments. Manafort is seeking a hearing about leaks that he says interfere with his right to a fair trial in Alexandria, Virginia, where Special Counsel Robert Mueller signed an indictment accusing him of bank ...

Bloomberg After Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu claimed Iran had misled the world over its atomic programme, he might have expected a swift reaction from UK Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson. Britain is, after all, one of the six signatories to Iran’s 2015 nuclear deal with world powers. But it was not until 19 hours after Netanyahu’s presentation that Johnson — among ...

Bloomberg The UK is proposing a new plan to kick-start stalled Brexit talks and make progress on the vexed issue of the Irish border as negotiations resume in Brussels this week. Brexit Secretary David Davis said he wanted to “move quickly” when talks restart on Wednesday in order to reach a solution to avoid a hard land border with Ireland ...

Bloomberg The Dominican Republic established diplomatic relations with China, in a new blow to Taiwan as Beijing seeks to isolate the self-governed island. Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi signed the joint communique with his Dominican counterpart to establish ties at ambassadorial level in Beijing on Tuesday, China’s Central Television said in a Weibo post. Taiwan cut its relations with the ...

Bloomberg North Korea leader Kim Jong-un has promised to close his main nuclear weapons test site in May and said he will invite South Korean and American media to witness the shutdown. Ahead of an historic meeting with US President Donald Trump expected within the next three to four weeks, Kim told South Korea’s president that two tunnels at the ...