Politics

Bloomberg Hassan Rouhani won a second term as president of Iran, in a landslide victory seen as an endorsement of his efforts to steer the nation out of isolation through its landmark nuclear deal with world powers. Rouhani secured 57 percent of ballots cast in a first round of voting, Interior Minister Rahmani Fazli said at a news conference in ...

Bloomberg Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte said China threatened to go to war after he asserted the Southeast Asian nation’s sovereignty over disputed territory. In an unspecified meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping, Duterte said he will drill for oil in the South China Sea, citing an international arbitration tribunal ruling upholding the Philippines’ claim. That prompted a retort from Xi, ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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. ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...