Politics

BLOOMBERG French far-right leader Marine Le Pen said no foreign power has ever tried to influence her as she sought to shake off accusations that her party’s ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban have influenced her policies. She also criticised previous governments in Paris for increasing the economic reliance on Russia, including through energy ...

BLOOMBERG  Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy suggested his country was losing control of Bakhmut after months of fierce fighting but downplayed Russian claims it now fully occupied the eastern city. “Today our people are performing an important task — they are in the Bakhmut, Zelenskiy said in Japan where he had met with leaders from the Group of Seven nations and ...

BLOOMBERG  US President Joe Biden said he expected ties with China to improve “very shortly” after a spat over an alleged spy balloon earlier this year derailed relations. Speaking to reporters on Sunday at the end of the Group of Seven (G-7) summit in Japan, Biden said the US’s move to shoot down a “silly balloon that was carrying two ...

BLOOMBERG The bid of Pita Limjaroenrat, leader of Thailand’s opposition group Move Forward, to form a coalition government hit a setback when a key political party said it won’t back a prime minister who wants to relax the law against criticising the monarchy. The Bhumjaithai Party, which came in third in the vote with about 70 seats in the 500-member ...

BLOOMBERG Rishi Sunak appeared to back down on his Conservative Party’s key 2019 election manifesto pledge to cut net migration, risking a fresh row with right-wing Tories disrupting his UK administration. The premier was asked three times by reporters travelling with him to the Group of Seven summit in Japan whether he stood by the promise to reduce the annual ...

BLOOMBERG Pakistan’s former premier Imran Khan has defied a deadline set by local officials to hand over supporters, as the political drama surrounding the opposition leader continues to escalate. Police remain outside his home in Punjab province, stoking concerns of a repeat of the violent clashes seen between his supporters and security forces. A provincial government minister claimed Khan was ...

BLOOMBERG US President Joe Biden and other Group of Seven (G-7) leaders began arriving in the Japanese city of Hiroshima for an annual summit, with concerns around China and Russia  — both uninvited — set to dominate discussions. The meeting, which runs through Sunday, comes as Russia launched fresh aerial assaults on Ukraine and Chinese President Xi Jinping attended a separate ...

BLOOMBERG Since his ouster as prime minister in 2022, Imran Khan has played a high-stakes game of challenging Pakistan’s powerful military. Now it’s reaching a breaking point. Khan’s dramatic arrest by dozens of paramilitary rangers for graft triggered protests that left at least eight people dead and hundreds injured, risking more spasms of violence in a nation struggling to pull ...

BLOOMBERG Pro-royalist members of Thailand’s upper house are facing mounting pressure to back Pita Limjaroenrat as the country’s next premier, after the Move Forward leader staked a claim to form a coalition government of pro-democracy parties that swept the election. Hurdles have emerged in Pita’s path to power after some of the 250 unelected members of the Senate, stacked with ...

BLOOMBERG Taiwan’s main opposition party is set to nominate New Taipei City Mayor Hou Yu-ih as its candidate for next year’s presidential election, a person familiar with the situation said, as it seeks to wrest back power in a vote crucial to US-China ties. The Kuomintang is set to formally announce Hou as its choice to represent the party in ...