Politics

Bloomberg The US has confirmed that Kim Jong Un is willing to talk to President Donald Trump about getting rid of his nuclear weapons, as South Korea claimed when it passed along the North Korean leader’s offer for a historic meeting, according to an administration official. Whether or not Kim had genuinely offered to discuss dismantling his nuclear programme was ...

Bloomberg Malcolm Turnbull’s government lost a 30th straight opinion poll on Monday — an uncomfortable milestone for Australia’s prime minister, who used the same measure as a justification for deposing his predecessor. The Liberal-National coalition has now trailed the main opposition Labor party in the closely watched Newspoll since shortly after scraping back into office in the July 2016 election. ...

Bloomberg The US demanded an immediate international response to reports of a chemical attack outside Syria’s capital that rescue workers and activists said killed dozens. The allegations emerged amid renewed government fire on Douma, the last rebel stronghold in the Eastern Ghouta suburb, after a truce in the area unraveled on April 06. A chemical weapons attack last April provoked ...

Bloomberg Brazil’s former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva turned himself in to the police, finally ending a tense stand-off with authorities after ignoring a court-ordered deadline to begin a prison sentence. Lula left the metalworkers union headquarters, where he had hunkered down since last week, and is in police custody, TV footage showed. He ended up leaving by foot, ...

Bloomberg German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron will attempt a pincer movement on Donald Trump, with China emerging as the likely target of their joint effort to avert a trade war with the US. The leaders of Europe’s two biggest economies will visit the president in Washington within days of each other this month as the clock ...

Bloomberg Italy’s euroskeptic League leader Matteo Salvini sees a “real” chance that Italy’s next government will be between the center-right coalition and the populist Five Star Movement, according to an interview in Corriere della Sera. The coalition’s policy differences with Five Star “are less pronounced than people think,” Salvini said in the article. “There’s a real possibility to build a ...

Bloomberg Sixteen years ago, Viktor Orban refurbished a palace overlooking the Danube River in Budapest as a new office to mark his re-election as Hungary’s prime minister. Then a surprise defeat prevented him from moving in and he spent the rest of the decade in opposition. The older, grayer, and heavier Orban is now the ringleader of Europe’s nationalist insurgence ...

Bloomberg Prime Minister Najib Razak is doubling down on his traditional vote banks in an election manifesto, pledging that under his government Malaysians would live “peacefully and prosperously.” His Barisan Nasional coalition is pledging to introduce a law for Shariah-compliant property sales, help ethnic Malay farmers resolve their debts, build more affordable housing for the police and military, and ensure ...

MUENSTER / Reuters A man drove a van into a group of people sitting outside a popular restaurant in the old city centre of Muenster in western Germany on Saturday, killing several of them before taking his own life, police said. “There are several dead,” a police spokeswoman said, adding that several of those injured were in critical condition. A ...

Bloomberg Brazil’s former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said he will turn himself in to police, finally ending a tense stand-off with the authorities after he ignored a court-ordered deadline to begin a prison sentence. “I will comply with their order,” Lula said to a crowd of supporters gathered in front of his former union headquarters in a working-class ...