Politics

Bloomberg Romanian President Klaus Iohannis is meeting political parties as the Black Sea nation looks to appoint its third prime minister in a year following this week’s shock unraveling of the government. The Social Democrats, who won a landslide election victory in late 2016, proposed European Parliament lawmaker Viorica Dancila to replace Mihai Tudose as premier. The ruling party is ...

Bloomberg The threat of large-scale cyberattacks and a “deteriorating geopolitical landscape” since the election of US President Donald Trump have jumped to the top of the global elite’s list of concerns, the World Economic Forum said ahead of its annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland. The growing cyber-dependency of governments and companies, and the associated risks of hacking by criminals or ...

Bloomberg The Catalan crisis is proving to be a millstone around the neck of the Spanish prime minister. Mariano Rajoy saw his People’s Party routed in elections in the rebel region last month and it has plumbed historic lows in opinion polls as the premier’s hesitant efforts to keep the push for independence in check disappoint voters across the rest ...

Bloomberg Russia’s government is discussing a proposal to turn on the fiscal taps in what would be the biggest domestic spending spree since President Vladimir Putin last ran for re-election in 2012. Kremlin economic aide Andrey Belousov said expenditures on health, education and infrastructure could be raised by 1.5-2 percent of gross domestic product, the official Tass news agency reported ...

Bloomberg Palestinian leaders called on President Mahmoud Abbas to withdraw recognition of Israel and break off security cooperation, in a move that follows the Trump dministration naming Jerusalem as the Israeli capital. The Palestine Liberation Organization’s Central Council declared it should no longer be bound by the 1993 Oslo peace accords and that its leaders will never recognise Israel as ...

Bloomberg Already grappling with extremist militants in the northeast, secessionists in the east and unrest in the oil-rich Niger River delta, Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari is facing an upsurge in violence between crop farmers and herders that may threaten his party’s election chances next year. Images of bodies hacked with machetes and perforated by bullets shared on social media are ...

BAGHDAD­­­­ / Reuters Iraq’s central government said “an atmosphere of trust” marked talks with the semi-autonomous Kurdistan region to resolve a conflict that triggered armed clashes in October. Envoys of the two sides met in the Kurdish regional capital Erbil in northern Iraq and discussed issues including security, control over the Kurdistan Regional Government’s (KRG) land borders, airports, the oil ...

Bloomberg Germany’s Social Democrats began taking sides on forming a government with Angela Merkel as the party leadership stepped up efforts to convince doubters of the need for a rerun of their grand coalition. SPD leader Martin Schulz continued his tour of key Social Democratic Party regions on Tuesday to sell the preliminary deal reached last week with Merkel’s Christian ...

Bloomberg Republican congressional leaders are struggling to separate the immigration blow-up set off by President Donald Trump from a funding bill to avert a US government shutdown at the end of this week. Democrats say the burden is on Trump to help break the stalemate after he rejected a bipartisan proposal to shield young, undocumented immigrants from deportation and ignited ...

Bloomberg Palestinians will “slap back” for the humiliation they’ve suffered from the Trump administration and seek to replace the US with other international players in future peace negotiations with Israel, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said. Opening a conference of the Palestine Liberation Organization’s Central Committee in Ramallah, Abbas criticized US President Donald Trump for recognising Jerusalem as Israel’s capital ...