Politics

VIENNA / Reuters The Syrian opposition will not attend a peace conference Russia is hosting next week, a spokesman said on Saturday, dismissing the meeting as an attempt by the Syrian government’s close ally to “sideline” the current United Nations peace process. He was speaking at the end of two days of UN-brokered talks between the Syrian government and opposition, ...

Bloomberg Kenya’s opposition National Super Alliance said it has evidence that former Prime Minister Raila Odinga won the nation’s Aug. 8 presidential election. The alliance has a document containing “authentic, unpolluted, unadulterated” data that shows Odinga and his running mate, Kalonzo Musyoka, were the legitimate winners of the vote, Nasa Senator James Orengo told reporters Friday in the capital, Nairobi. ...

Bloomberg Russia should stop blocking United Nations efforts to investigate alleged violations of a 2013 accord to remove chemical weapons from Syria, US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said. As the party ultimately responsible for chemical weapons use by the Syrian regime, Russia should at least abstain during UN Security Council votes, Tillerson said in Paris at the end of ...

Bloomberg Twin car-bombings killed at least 26 people outside a mosque in the Libyan city of Benghazi, calling into question the ability to stabilise a divided nation struggling to make peace. The attack is the deadliest to hit Libya’s second-largest city in almost two years and undercuts militia leader Khalifa Haftar’s claim to have vanquished militant groups in the nation’s ...

Bloomberg Britain will stay closely aligned to the European Union’s regulatory regime after it leaves the bloc but wants the freedom to go its own way if it chooses in future, Brexit Secretary David Davis has said. During negotiations with the EU, the UK will aim to secure the power to diverge from the bloc’s rules on financial services and ...

Bloomberg The ground-based system of interceptors that the US would use to defend the mainland and Hawaii against a threatened North Korean attack is improving after past setbacks, the Pentagon’s testing office said in a new report. The $36 billion system “demonstrated the capability to defend the US homeland from a small number” of intermediate range or intercontinental ballistic missiles ...

Bloomberg Venezuela appears set to hold presidential elections before the end of April, a plan abruptly announced after the European Union blacklisted seven key allies of President Nicolas Maduro. Diosdado Cabello, second-in-command of the ruling socialist party and among those sanctioned, announced the vote in the South America nation’s all-powerful constituent assembly. The short time before the vote will wrong-foot ...

Bloomberg Kenyan Attorney General Githu Muigai filed a High Court petition seeking to block the opposition from swearing in Raila Odinga as the so-called people’s president. Muigai asked the court to rule as illegal motions that were passed by 15 county assemblies backing the creation of constituent assemblies, which plan to declare Odinga as the nati-on’s leader on January 30, ...

Bloomberg It’s been a decade since western bankers commanded the deference in Davos they enjoyed before the financial crisis. That blight appears to be spreading to politicians. The so-called masters of the universe headed to this year’s annual gathering of the global elite are looking less than magisterial. With the US in “America First” mode under Donald Trump, Britain consumed ...

Bloomberg For UK Prime Minister Theresa May, the Irish border issue may resurface sooner than she imagined. In a deal agreed last month to unlock divorce talks with the European Union, May guaranteed no hard border will re-emerge on the island of Ireland after Brexit. If all else fails, Northern Ireland will play by the same EU rules that apply ...