Politics

Bloomberg South Korean President Moon Jae-in warned North Korea not to use his nation’s latest round of annual military drills with the US as an excuse for any further provocations. The drills “are not aimed at raising military tensions on the Korean peninsula at all,” Moon said in a Cabinet meeting on Monday. “North Korea should never distort our efforts ...

Bloomberg As summer draws to a close, the European Union will seek to tick off a number of boxes from the top of its to-do list, leveraging its new-found political capital following the ascent of pro-EU leaders on the continent. Brussels will have its hands full as negotiations ramp up with the UK on its impending exit from the 28-nation ...

BAGHDAD / ERBIL / Reuters Iraqi security forces launched an offensive to take back the city of Tal Afar on Sunday, their next objective in the US-backed campaign to defeat IS militants, Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said. “You either surrender, or die,” Abadi said in a televised speech announcing the offensive, addressing the militants. A longtime stronghold of hardline Sunni ...

Bloomberg Finnish police are investigating an attack on Friday as an act of terror after a young Moroccan man fatally stabbed two people and wounded six others in a town west of the capital Helsinki. The suspect, an 18-year-old who came to Finland as an asylum seeker last year, has so far refused to answer questions relating to the attack, ...

Bloomberg Carl Icahn’s role as a special regulatory adviser to President Donald Trump has ended after questions were raised by Democratic lawmakers about potential conflicts of interest with his business dealings in oil refining and insurance. In a letter to Trump addressing his departure that was posted Friday on Icahn’s website, the billionaire investor denied profiting from his advice-giving role ...

AMMAN / Reuters Syrian jets and artillery struck rebel-held eastern Damascus suburbs a day after a Russian sponsored ceasefire with a rebel group agreed a halt of fighting in the last opposition enclave in the capital, rebels and witnesses said. The Russian defence ministry said it had reached a ceasefire that took effect with Failaq al Rahman, the main Free ...

Bloomberg Iranian President Hassan Rouhani won lawmakers’ approval for 16 of his 17 ministerial nominees, in an overwhelming show of support for his policies. Parliament on Sunday voted to reappoint Oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh and Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, top Rouhani allies during his first term. The only candidate to lose a vote of confidence was Energy Ministry ...

Bloomberg New Zealand’s main opposition Labour Party, buoyed by a surge in the polls under new leader Jacinda Ardern, launched its campaign to win next month’s election with a pledge to close the gap between rich and poor. Speaking to party faithful in Auckland on Sunday, Ardern highlighted child poverty as a key issue heading into the September 23 vote. ...

Bloomberg The presidential candidate from Angola’s ruling party, Joao Lourenco, promised to push hard to diversify the oil-rich African nation’s economy, while his fragmented opposition questioned the fairness of next week’s vote and threatened to hold protests. In the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola’s last campaign gathering ahead of the Aug. 23 vote, Lourenco predicted the MPLA would ...

Bloomberg President Donald Trump has yet to decide the future US role in Afghanistan, even after spending hours in a retreat at Camp David where his defense and foreign policy team made the case to continue fighting a war Trump has long questioned. “This afternoon the president was briefed extensively by his national security team on a new strategy to ...