Politics

BLOOMBERG Nato Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said that Sweden has “fulfilled its obligations” to Turkey to bolster its counter-terrorism laws, which should clear its path for membership in the alliance. After meeting with newly re-elected Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Stoltenberg was asked if Sweden could still admitted before the alliance’s mid-July summit in Vilnius, Lithuania. “There’s still time to ...

BLOOMBERG Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese expects an upgrade in diplomatic relations between his country and Vietnam to a comprehensive strategic partnership soon, he said during his first visit to the Southeast Asian country. “All connections and cooperation come together in our plan to elevate our relationship to a comprehensive strategic partnership and prime minister and I discuss today that ...

BLOOMBERG A highly anticipated defense forum in Singapore kicked off with a friendly handshake between Pentagon chief Lloyd Austin and Chinese Defense Minister Li Shangfu. It ended with few other signs of optimism that the world’s biggest economies could avoid an eventual collision. Austin used his speech at the Shangri-la Dialogue to chide China over its refusal to meet unless ...

BLOOMBERG Japan and South Korea called on North Korea to abandon a planned rocket launch they see as breaching United Nations Security Council resolutions, following reports Pyongyang intends to put a satellite into orbit as early as this Wednesday. Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said he instructed his cabinet to gather and analyse information on North Korea’s plans. He said ...

BLOOMBERG Russia hit an airbase in western Ukraine, damaging five aircraft and the runway, and targeted the nation’s capital in the second massive rocket and drone attack in as many days. Rescue workers worked to extinguish a fire at the air base in the Khmelnytskyi region, where a fuel warehouse and military storage as well as the aircraft and runway ...

BLOOMBERG Nato-led peacekeepers beefed up their presence in northern Kosovo, where police clashed again with Serb protesters days after an uptick in violence raised fears that a conflict could reignite between the Balkan neighbours. Kosovo’s mostly ethnic-Albanian police forces used pepper spray in response to tear gas hurled by hundreds of ethnic-Serb demonstrators on Monday who tried to block access ...

BLOOMBERG Indian police forces killed at least 30 people from tribal groups identified as extremists, part of an ongoing security operation in a northeastern state bordering Myanmar that’s seen unrest over the access to affirmative action benefits. The government will not allow the disintegration of Manipur state by “armed terrorists,” Chief Minister N Biren Singh said. Security operations were still ...

BLOOMBERG The US will hold joint exercises with Coast Guards from Japan and the Philippines for the first time starting from this week amid elevated tensions with China in the region. The trilateral drills will be done off Bataan province that’s facing the South China Sea from June 1 to 7, according to a Philippine Coast Guard statement. The exercises ...

BLOOMBERG President Xi Jinping called on Russia to help bolster their countries’ ties at multilateral groups, as both nations seek to counter a US-led world order they’ve become increasingly isolated within. “China is willing to work with Russia to continue to firmly support each other on issues of core interests, and strengthen cooperation in multilateral arenas,” Xi told Prime Minister ...

BLOOMBERG Pakistan is considering banning Imran Khan’s political party, Defense Minister Khawaja Asif said in a televised address, deepening the already tense standoff between the former premier and the country’s government and powerful military. “Whatever happened on May 9 wasn’t spontaneous,” Asif said, talking about the violence that erupted when Khan was briefly arrested by the country’s graft agency and ...