Politics

Bloomberg Terrorism is entrenched in Southeast Asia and will only worsen as IS’s fortunes fade and foreign fighters skilled in bomb making and hijacking return from the Middle East, Singapore’s defense minister said. “When we talk about endemic threats we usually refer to threats like dengue or tuberculosis, which means that it’s here to stay, that despite years of effort ...

Bloomberg UK Prime Minister Theresa May’s inflexible position in negotiations to leave the European Union has made the task more difficult for Brexit Secretary David Davis, a former aide said in a BBC interview. James Chapman, who was Davis’s chief of staff until last month, said May’s ‘absolutist’ stance on ending the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice over ...

Bloomberg Former US President Barack Obama pointed to the importance of the Paris climate accord while criticizing Donald Trump for pulling the world’s biggest economy out of the pact. Trump said last month he would withdraw from the pact and seek to negotiate a better deal, in a move that attracted widespread criticism from counterparts in Europe and elsewhere. The ...

Bloomberg A Tokyo election this weekend gives Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe a chance to stop the bleeding from a series of recent scandals that hurt his popularity. Polls indicate that his Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) risks losing its position as the largest party in the capital’s assembly on Sunday to a group led by Governor Yuriko Koike, who resigned ...

Bloomberg Qatar will remain cut off from its neighbours unless its leaders meet the full demands of the Saudi Arabia-led coalition, a senior Saudi official said, even as the top US diplomat continued efforts towards a negotiated settlement. “We made our point, we took our steps and it’s up to the Qataris to amend their behaviour,” Saudi Foreign Minister Adel ...

Bloomberg UK Prime Minister Theresa May will face the first key test of her new minority government’s power as opposition Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn challenges Tory lawmakers over austerity. In the wake of the inferno at a London high-rise apartment building this month that’s believed to have killed 79 people and a wave of terrorist attacks in Britain, Corbyn ...

Bloomberg Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull sought to focus attention on his plans to boost the economy, after conservative firebrand lawmaker Tony Abbott criticized the nation’s direction under Turnbull’s leadership. “Australians are bored, fed up with journalists and politicians talking among themselves,” Turnbull, who led the Liberal-National coalition to a razor-thin one-seat election victory a year ago, told reporters on ...

Bloomberg Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro blamed a former ally for orchestrating an incident in Caracas on Tuesday evening that involved a police helicopter flying over government institutions and allegedly firing shots and dropping grenades from the air. Maduro, speaking on state television, said he activated an air defense plan and deployed all military special forces to capture the helicopter crew ...

Bloomberg Since taking office in January, President Donald Trump has pulled the US out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership and started renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement. The challenge for South Korean President Moon Jae-in, who heads to Washington this week, is to keep Trump away from another deal the billionaire dislikes: their 2012 free-trade pact. The summit between ...

WASHINGTON / Reuters The White House warned Syrian President Bashar Al Assad that he and his military would ‘pay a heavy price’ if it conducted a chemical weapons attack and said the United States had reason to believe such preparations were underway. The White House said in a statement the preparations by Syria were similar to those undertaken before an ...