Politics

Bloomberg Catalonia’s separatist leadership said nothing will stop it setting up an independent republic, dismissing the condemnation of Spanish King Felipe VI as the breakaway region’s president prepared to deliver his own address on Wednesday evening. Regional government spokes- man Jordi Turull said the monarch’s criticism of Sunday’s illegal referendum, with no reference to the police violence that saw more ...

Bloomberg Iraqi authorities halted key financial transactions with the country’s Kurdish region, deepening its isolation after last week’s overwhelming vote in favor of independence. The central bank banned lenders with headquarters in the northern Kurdistan region from taking part in dollar auctions, according to a central bank official who asked not to be named. Banks based in Baghdad are also ...

Bloomberg Brazilians may be a year away from voting for their next president, but investors are already plenty worried. Measures of implied volatility for the currency show traders pricing in big swings around the October 2018 vote, even as calm pervades in the near term. The split has taken the ratio between one-year and six-month implied volatility to the highest ...

Bloomberg Top European Union officials teamed up to send UK Prime Minister Theresa May a blunt message: Do more to flesh out Britain’s Brexit positions or put off trade talks for even longer. European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker and the EU’s chief Brexit negotiator, Michel Barnier, used a hearing in the European Parliament in Strasbourg, France, on Tuesday to all ...

Bloomberg A Muslim student group in Maryland filed the first lawsuit over the latest version of the Trump administration’s travel ban against several Muslim-majority countries, plus North Korea and Venezuela. The lawsuit filed by Iranian Alliances Across Borders will again focus on President Donald Trump’s comments about Muslims before the election as the true reason for the ban rather than ...

Bloomberg Defense Secretary Jim Mattis vouched for Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s diplomatic efforts to defuse the North Korea crisis after President Donald Trump said Tillerson “is wasting his time.” “The Defense Department supports fully Secretary Tillerson’s efforts to find a diplomatic solution but remains focused on defense of the United States and our allies,” Mattis said in testimony on ...

Bloomberg At least 500 Spanish police officers were driven out of their hotels by angry locals last night as Catalan separatists pushed back against state forces after the crackdown on their illegal vote for independence. “This is a mafia behavior,” Deputy Prime Minister Soraya Saenz de Santamaria said in a televised statement on Tuesday. Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy is fighting ...

Bloomberg Extremists who repeatedly watch terrorist content online could be jailed for as long as 15 years, UK Home Secretary Amber Rudd said on Tuesday, announcing an update of counter-terrorism laws. The move will expand the existing offense of possessing information likely to be useful to a terrorist so it does not only apply to downloaded or stored information. UK ...

Bloomberg The Palestinian Authority cabinet met in the Gaza Strip for the first time in three years as its members began to take charge of ministries from Hamas, and said they would start talks next week on the contentious issue of security forces. The government is “ready to take complete responsibility and extend its full control over Gaza, without exceptions,” ...

Bloomberg At least 58 people were killed and 515 were injured at a concert by a lone gunman, firing from a hotel room overlooking the venue, who later died and whose motive was unclear. President Donald Trump said he’ll travel to Las Vegas on Wednesday to meet victims and emergency workers after a killing spree late Sunday that is likely ...