Politics

Merkel seeks push for Ukraine cease-fire talks with Macron

Bloomberg German Chancellor Angela Merkel said she and French President Emmanuel Macron will seek to revive talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin on a cease-fire in eastern Ukraine. Speaking alongside Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko during a meeting near Berlin, Merkel said Macron had backed the so-called Minsk peace process on Monday during the first visit to the German capital after ...

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Europe watches Trump crisis with frustration and fatalism

Bloomberg European governments preparing for a looming round of major summits with Donald Trump are resigned to the fact that they will just have to learn to deal with a US president whom they see as increasingly erratic. As Donald Trump’s White House struggles to extricate itself from an almost daily cycle of controversy, government officials in three European capitals ...

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Trump said to put off Israel embassy move to Jerusalem

Bloomberg President Donald Trump has decided not to immediately move the U.S. embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, a senior White House official said, violating a campaign promise but avoiding a provocation that could drive Palestinians away from peace talks. The official said the administration considers its discussions with both the Israeli government and the Palestinian Authority to be promising, with ...

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UN court orders Pakistan to halt execution of Indian man

Bloomberg The International Court of Justice has ordered Pakistan to halt the execution of a former Indian naval officer pending a final decision in the proceedings. India took Pakistan to the court over the death sentence handed down to Kulbhushan Jadhav for alleged espionage and sabotage activities, in a case that has raised tensions between the nuclear-armed South Asian neighbors. ...

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Trump faces deepest crisis of presidency with Comey memo

Bloomberg Donald Trump is facing the deepest crisis of his presidency after contents of a memo written by James Comey when he was FBI director surfaced on Tuesday, alleging that the president asked him to drop an investigation of former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn. The White House was already on the defensive over the president’s firing of Comey a ...

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Putin offers record to US of disputed Trump-Lavrov talks

Bloomberg Russian President Vladimir Putin offered to give a transcript of White House talks between his foreign minister and Donald Trump to Congress to prove that the US president didn’t give away secrets. “We’re ready to provide a record of Lavrov’s discussions with Trump” to U.S. legislators to prove that no secrets were disclosed, “if the American administration would like ...

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Brexit talks can’t be secret, EU says in transparency push

Bloomberg The European Union is refusing to allow the upcoming Brexit talks to take place in secret, in a rebuff to U.K. appeals to keep positions confidential. With just over a month to go before negotiations are due to start, the bloc set out how it will make its negotiating documents public every step of the way. The EU has ...

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Trump claims ‘absolute right’ to disclose terrorism secrets

Bloomberg President Donald Trump claimed an “absolute right” to share information about terrorism with Russian officials, but some lawmakers in both parties expressed alarm over reports he had disclosed highly classified material in an Oval Office meeting last week and demanded a fuller accounting. “As President I wanted to share with Russia (at an openly scheduled W.H. meeting) which I ...

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Israeli minister: Time has come to assassinate Assad

Bloomberg President Bashar al-Assad should be eliminated to stop the atrocities taking place in Syria, according to an Israeli minister in Benjamin Netanyahu’s government. Housing and Construction Minister Yoav Gallant, a retired major general who led the Israel Defense Forces’s southern command, which includes the Gaza Strip, pointed to U.S. allegations that the Assad regime built a crematorium at a ...

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Macron draws up cabinet with help from new premier

Bloomberg President Emmanuel Macron was spending Tuesday selecting his cabinet with new Prime Minister Edouard Philippe. Just back from meeting German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Berlin, Macron is huddling with Philippe throughout the day with the list of ministers is due to be released at 3 p.m. on Wednesday in Paris. Macron this month became the first French president to ...

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