Politics

Bloomberg The European Commission recommended delaying the disbursement of crucial funding to Hungary, saying Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s government has failed to allay its concerns over graft and the erosion of the rule of law. The EU’s executive arm said member states should conditionally approve Hungary’s Covid-era recovery plan, but Budapest would first have to comply with a set of ...

Bloomberg Thailand’s constitutional court upheld a move by the majority of lawmakers to change key electoral rules that benefit bigger parties, clearing the last legal challenge ahead of the next general election expected early next year. The draft election bill requires parties to clinch more votes to get one of the 100 party-list seats in the 500-member House of Representatives ...

Bloomberg Ukraine’s Nato partners are set to discuss more air-defense systems for the fight against Russia this week, but there won’t be any meaningful progress on a 14-year-old pledge to let Kyiv join their alliance. Nato foreign ministers started holding two days of talks from Tuesday in Bucharest, the site of a 2008 summit at which Ukraine and Georgia were ...

Bloomberg Sweden and Finland have made progress towards winning Ankara’s approval for them to join Nato but they have to go further, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said. “There are still some issues, they made some progress and some steps were taken but at this moment it’s not sufficient enough,” Cavusoglu told Bloomberg before meeting his Swedish and Finnish counterparts ...

  Bloomberg Pakistan’s junior foreign minister is in Kabul for talks with the Taliban regime a day after a local offshoot of the extremist group ended a ceasefire with the government in Islamabad and announced a resumption of attacks across the nation. Hina Rabbani Khar will hold talks with the Afghan government on multiple issues, including security, according to a ...

  Bloomberg Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni is ready to meet with French President Emmanuel Macron to help the two countries get past a diplomatic spat over rescue ships carrying migrants across the Mediterranean, Corriere della Sera reported. “I never had issues with France and I don’t have them today,” Meloni said in an interview with the daily published. “But ...

Bloomberg Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government is boosting military spending and expanding Canadian trade ties in the Indo-Pacific region as part of a “generational” policy shift aimed at countering China’s influence. Foreign Minister Melanie Joly released her nation’s Indo-Pacific Strategy, including nearly $1.7 billion (C$2.3 billion) in spending. That money is being used for more navy patrols in the region, ...

  Bloomberg Dozens of people in Hong Kong rallied in the city and emulated some of the protests erupting in China in opposition to the nation’s Covid Zero policy. The people gathered in the city’s central business district at about 7:40 pm local time, with some holding blank pieces of paper — mimicking what many protesters have done in the ...

Bloomberg Taiwan is set for a more contentious presidential race focused on rising tensions with China, after low turnout in local elections handed China-skeptic President Tsai Ing-wen’s party historic losses. The ruling Democratic Progressive Party won just five of 21 city- and county-level races, its worst showing since its founding in 1986. The opposition Kuomintang, which historically has an advantage ...

  SEOUL / WAM Five people were killed on Sunday in a helicopter crash in the eastern coastal county of Yangyang in South Korea. Yonhap news agency quoted fire officials as saying that the chopper, an S-58T, crashed on a hill around 10:50am local time, while surveying the area against forest fires. The helicopter was smashed into pieces and burst ...