Politics

Bloomberg The signatures of almost 300 foreign political leaders on a document praising Chinese President Xi Jinping’s contribution to world peace has provided him valuable ammunition to counter arguments by those who fear the country’s rising international clout. The so-called Beijing Initiative was signed at the end of a four-day Communist Party gathering that brought together hundreds of political representatives, ...

Bloomberg Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull won some relief from the chaos imperiling his leadership, with his deputy winning a special election. The next month could be much tougher for him. Barnaby Joyce was one of two lawmakers from the ruling coalition forced to re-contest their lower house seats because they were in breach of the constitution for being dual ...

Bloomberg The anti-establishment party Podemos is poised to become a key part of the puzzle when Catalan politicians come to piece together a new government after this month’s regional election. Polls suggest it’s a toss-up whether the three Catalan separatists parties retain their majority after the vote on December 21. If they fall short, Podemos’s Catalan ally, known as Catalunya ...

Bloomberg The Democratic Republic of Congo’s government recruited fighters from a rebellion it defeated in 2013 to suppress protests by opponents of President Joseph Kabila in December last year, Human Rights Watch said. Senior Congolese security officials mobilized “at least 200 and likely many more” M23 combatants from camps in Rwanda and Uganda, where many fighters have been based since ...

Bloomberg UK Prime Minister Theresa May is battling to put out multiple political fires at home as she prepa- res for a crucial meeting in Brussels that she hopes will end the deadlock in Brexit talks. Euro-skeptics including members of May’s own Conservative party set out new “red lines” for the negotiations ahead of a lunch meeting she’ll have on ...

Bloomberg Ireland is well on its way to meeting its objectives in the Brexit negotiations, Prime Minister Leo Varadkar said, as the European Union and the UK approach a deadline for moving on to talks about their future trading relationship. A day after European Commission President Donald Tusk said the EU would consult with Ireland before deciding whether to allow ...

Bloomberg Chancellor Angela Merkel and the leader of the Social Democrats, Martin Schulz, agreed to keep talking as they stepped up joint efforts to break an impasse over forming Germany’s next government. Merkel told her Christian Democratic Union party’s board during a call that she and Schulz would continue to hold discussions on a way out of the political stalemate, ...

Bloomberg House Republicans announced a plan to pass a two-week extension of federal government funding without Democratic votes and avoid a shutdown on December 8. The legislation would push the next deadline to the Friday before Christmas, giving House and Senate lawmakers time to knit together their respective tax-cutting bills into a single piece of legislation to present to President ...

Bloomberg Barnaby Joyce will return to parliament as Australia’s deputy prime minister after winning a special election, five weeks after he was forced to step down for being a dual national in breach of the constitution. Joyce, 50, claimed victory in the rural seat of New England, winning 63 percent of the vote to 11 percent for his nearest rival ...

Bloomberg Hillary Clinton hit out at both US President Donald Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping in remarks via video to a conference in Beijing. Clinton, a former secretary of state, said the Trump administration had retreated from diplomacy. She called on both the US and China to avoid “bluster” or “personal taunts” in dealing with North Korea, and said ...