Politics

Bloomberg Russia’s billionaire oligarchs are beginning to face additional scrutiny on at least some financial transactions following US publication of a list of wealthy Russians identified as allies of President Vladimir Putin. One wealthy Russian on the list who spoke on condition of anonymity said he’s worried a deal with foreign partners expected to close in the next few months ...

Bloomberg US Vice President Mike Pence declined to rule out talks with North Korean officials while attending Winter Olympics events in South Korea, even as he urged the isolated regime to abandon it nuclear program. “I haven’t requested any meeting, but we’ll see what happens,” Pence told reporters at Elmendorf Air Force Base, Alaska, before departing for Tokyo. “My message ...

Bloomberg Chancellor Angela Merkel called on Germany’s prospective coalition parties to compromise, pointing to turbulence on global stock markets as adding urgency to talks to end the country’s political impasse. After more than four weeks of coalition negotiations between her Christian Democrat-led bloc and the Social Democratic Party, Merkel faces the most serious deadline yet in her bid for a ...

BRUSSELS / Reuters Kenyan authorities charged an opposition figure over his attendance at a mock inauguration ceremony, as protests erupted over the arrest of anti-government leaders. Police charged Miguna Miguna with being present at the administering of an oath of office to National Super Alliance leader Raila Odinga on January 30 “purporting to bind” Odinga to a treasonous offense, according ...

Bloomberg Colombia has created a shelter along its eastern border to care for Venezuelans escaping their nation’s autocratic government and ravaged economy, and Brazil may follow suit. Refugee camps, a sad staple of life in Africa and the Middle East, are rare in South America. But the migration is of a volume unseen in the region since armed conflicts gripped ...

Bloomberg Time appears to be running out for South African President Jacob Zuma. Six weeks after his deputy, Cyril Ramaphosa, replaced him as leader of the ruling African National Congress, the party’s top brass is due to meet in Cape Town to decide whether to force him from office. The crunch meeting of the National Executive Committee comes a day ...

Bloomberg The US is weighing sanctions on Venezuela’s oil sector, Rex Tillerson said in Argentina, as he continues a South America trip that’s quickly being dogged by President Donald Trump’s threat to cut aid to the countries the Secretary of State is visiting. Tillerson said that during his meetings with Argentina’s leaders he’d raised the possibility of oil sanctions as ...

Bloomberg Emmanuel Macron doesn’t wa-nt Corsica to turn into France’s Catalonia. The French president on Tuesday begins a two-day visit to the Mediterranean island where a recently elected local administration is making demands for greater autonomy that the national government so far has indicated it can’t accept. French governments have long struggled in their dealings with Corsica, an island of ...

Bloomberg Australian leader Malcolm Turnbull has found timely inspiration in his bid to woo back disaffected voters this year: Donald Trump. Turnbull is seeking to draw on the US president’s first key legislative victory that’s handing wide-ranging tax cuts to firms and workers. Trump’s success has given the prime minister confidence to make a renewed push for lower corporate levies, ...

BRUSSELS / Reuters The prime surviving suspect in the 2015 IS attacks on Paris said he would answer no questions as his trial in Belgium over a shooting that preceded his arrest got under way in Brussels on Monday. Salah Abdeslam, 28, his long black hair and beard a stark contrast to the cropped, clean-shaven young man familiar across Europe ...