Politics

Bloomberg Extremist attacks, gasoline shortages, worsening violence over grazing land, simmering unrest in the southeast — the crises keep mounting for Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari less than a year before general elections. The most recent setback came on March 1 when suspected Boko Haram militants killed three United Nations aid workers and eight soldiers in an attack in the northeastern ...

Bloomberg Jacob Zuma’s forced resignation as South Africa’s president did more than revive confidence in the ruling African National Congress. It’s deepened divisions between the two main opposition parties, threatening their control of the nation’s key cities. Together with the ANC’s shift to support expropriation of land without compensation, Zuma’s replacement by Cyril Ramaphosa has thawed its relations with the ...

Bloomberg Sierra Leone will hold elections on Wednesday in which an unprecedented number of political parties will compete as discontent over the government’s handling of an economy battered by the Ebola outbreak has soared. The vote marks a departure from a decades-old tradition that mainly divided the balance of power between the All People’s Congress and the opposition Sierra Leone ...

Bloomberg North Korean leader Kim Jong Un held talks with top aides to South Korea’s Moon Jae-in in Pyongyang on Monday, the president’s office said, in the first meeting between the leader of the isolated nation and officials from Seoul since he took power in 2011. National Security Office head Chung Eui-yong and National Intelligence Service chief Suh Hoon were ...

TEHRAN / Reuters France’s foreign minister visited Iran on Monday on a delicate mission to affirm Europe’s support for a nuclear deal that opened Iran’s economy while echoing US concern about Tehran’s missile programme and role in regional conflicts. Jean-Yves Le Drian aims to save the 2015 nuclear deal, which US President Donald Trump has threatened to quit unless European ...

Bloomberg Slovakia’s political turmoil worsened as the premier rebuffed a call from the country’s president to hold early elections as a way out a crisis that erupted when the murder of journalist sparked public protests. The conflict increases pressure on Prime Minister Robert Fico, one of Europe’s longest serving leaders who has taken Slovakia into the euro zone but has ...

WASHINGTON / Reuters Guatemala will move its embassy in Israel to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv in May, two days after the US embassy makes the same move, Guatemalan President Jimmy Morales said at a conference in Washington. “I would like to thank President Trump for leading the way. His courageous decision has encouraged us to do what is right,” Morales ...

Bloomberg Foreign travel is the first thing that comes to mind when Malian lettuce farmer Moussa Samake thinks about President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita. Nicknamed “the carrier pigeon” for his frequent trips abroad, Keita, 73, is expected to seek re-election in July after a five-year term marred by growing insecurity in the landlocked West African nation. His failure to halt a ...

Bloomberg South Korean President Moon Jae-in will send his top national-security adviser as well as his chief spy as special envoys to Pyongyang on Monday in a bid to persuade Kim Jong Un to open talks with Washington, in the latest bid to avoid a potential conflict over the country’s nuclear program. The 10-member group will be led by Chung ...

Bloomberg Saudi Arabia aims to build a defense industry at breakneck speed, and it’s ready to look beyond its traditional Western allies for help. The oil-rich kingdom has long been a favourite customer of arms sellers, especially American ones. President Donald Trump announced $110 billion in deals during his trip there last year. Now, 32 year-old Crown Prince Mohammed bin ...