Politics

BAGHDAD / Reuters Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi announced on Sunday his candidacy for the May 12 parliamentary elections to choose a prime minister. Abadi, a Shi’ite Muslim who led the country in the four-year war against IS, said he will seek to form a cross-sectarian block called ‘’the victory alliance’’ to contest the parliamentary elections, with candidates from other ...

Bloomberg Czech President Milos Zeman is heading into a runoff against a pro-European challenger in a ballot that’s become a public reckoning of a veteran politician who’s thrown his support behind Russian lea-der Vladimir Putin and mobilised voters with anti-migrant rhetoric. Zeman, 73, had 39 percent with nearly all districts counted after the first round of voting. The former prime ...

Bloomberg An alert mistakenly warning Hawaiians of an imminent ballistic missile attack — at a time the state’s residents are already anxious about nuclear tensions between the US and North Korea — resulted from human error, Hawaii’s governor said. The emergency notice was triggered after an “employee pushed the wrong button” during a shift change at the Hawaii Emergency Management ...

Bloomberg President Donald Trump has handed European allies an ultimatum to revamp the nuclear deal with Iran, something they have no intention of doing, posing a potential new conflict with other world leaders. “This is a last chance,” Trump vowed in a statement announcing that he’d waived economic sanctions tied to the 2015 accord a final time: “No one should ...

Bloomberg President Donald Trump’s decision to forgo a visit to London to open a new US embassy kindled doubts about his justification for staying away — even from his own nation’s diplomats. Trump asserted on Twitter that he “canceled” his trip to the UK next month because he didn’t like the deal under which the embassy was moved. He blamed ...

Bloomberg The US Air Force is going ahead with two long-planned flight tests of intercontinental ballistic missiles next month despite efforts to damp tensions over North Korea’s nuclear ambitions and encourage fragile talks with South Korea. Test launches of American missiles — without the nuclear warheads they can deliver — would be unlikely to cause much of a stir under ...

Bloomberg Chancellor Angela Merkel reached a preliminary accord with the Social Democrats to end Germany’s political gridlock, moving closer to a fourth term and defying domestic critics who say her time is running out. The next hurdles are a key vote by her reluctant SPD partners later this month and then finalising the deal in another round of talks. After ...

Bloomberg Zimbabwe’s main opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change, is in a quandary over whether its long-serving leader and founder Morgan Tsvangirai, who’s undergoing treatment for colon cancer, should retire before this year’s elections. While Tsvangirai, 65, has appeared increasingly frail, he remains the party’s most-popular official and his absence from the ballot could undermine its campaign. The MDC ...

Bloomberg Congressional Republicans got the green light from President Donald Trump to negotiate an immigration deal with Democrats, potentially clearing a stalemate that’s stalled action on multiple issues, including funding to keep the government from shutting down next week. During an unusual public meeting with bipartisan members of Congress at the White House, Trump offered a broad outline for an ...

JERUSALEM / Reuters Israel will approve construction of hundreds of new settlement homes in the occupied West Bank, Israeli Defence Minister Avigdor Lieberman said. Settlements are one of the most heated issues in efforts to restart Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, frozen since 2014. Palestinians want the West Bank for a future state, along with East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip. Most ...