Politics

  Bloomberg The Estonian government plans to remove and demolish 244 Soviet monuments, which many people find offensive because they represent the Baltic nation’s decades-long occupation. A government committee formed in June, reviewed and decided the fate of 322 monuments, the majority of these being World War II memorials that will be destroyed and graves that will be re-interred at ...

Bloomberg Desperate to rescue their sons and husbands from the front lines in Ukraine, Russian women are putting pressure on the Kremlin in the latest sign of the spreading discontent caused by the war. The scattered efforts by wives and mothers took off after Vladimir Putin ordered 300,000 reservists called up on Sept. 21, forcing the authorities to pay attention. ...

Bloomberg Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif named General Asim Munir as Pakistan’s next army chief, a choice that could harden former premier Imran Khan’s opposition to the government and stoke his high-stakes clash with the military. Khan, who as prime minister had removed Munir from the role of intelligence chief, would see the appointment as a possible obstacle to his attempt ...

  Bloomberg Estonia’s government is racing to identify facilities as bomb shelters amid growing fear of a possible attack from Russia. Authorities are sifting through public buildings, schools and shopping centers in search of spaces that could provide protection. Since June, dozens of colorful signs — blue triangles on an orange background — have popped up to mark public shelters. ...

Bloomberg The UK’s top judges threw out an attempt by the Scottish government to bypass Westminster and call a second independence referendum, thwarting nationalist leader Nicola Sturgeon’s plan for a vote next year. The Supreme Court was asked by Scotland’s top legal adviser to assess whether the Scottish Parliament had the power to legislate unilaterally for a consultative referendum. The ...

Bloomberg Twin explosions rocked Jerusalem on Wednesday, killing one and wounding at least 14, a sharp escalation after months of growing violence between Israelis and Palestinians. The first blast detonated near a bus stop at the entrance to Jerusalem on Wednesday morning and a second exploded 30 minutes later near the Ramot junction in the city. Police said they suspected ...

Bloomberg Talks between the leaders of China and the US were good for peace in Asia-Pacific, Taiwan Foreign Minister Joseph Wu said, underscoring how tensions in the region have eased in recent weeks. “The kinds of messages coming from the United States this time, we feel rather comfortable about the meetings,” Wu said Tuesday at a briefing in Taipei before ...

Bloomberg President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Wednesday threatened to start a long-suspended offensive against US-backed Kurdish forces in Syria to push them further from Turkey’s southern border. The Turkish leader spoke as his country’s warplanes and artillery kept pounding positions of Kurdish YPG militia it holds responsible for a deadly bomb attack in Istanbul last week and cross-border shelling of ...

Bloomberg President Jair Bolsonaro’s party is questioning the result of Brazil’s runoff election, seeking to annul votes that gave leftist leader Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva a tight victory on October 30. Bolsonaro’s Liberal Party claimed that older models of Brazil’s electronic ballots had problems that make it impossible to properly identify the machines, and requested that votes cast through ...

Bloomberg US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin urged China to avoid “destabilizing actions” toward Taiwan in his first face-to-face meeting with Defense Minister Wei Fenghe since House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taipei in August. In talks Tuesday in Siem Reap, Cambodia, the Pentagon chief also called for the two sides to maintain open lines of communication and warned of ...