Bloomberg German Chancellor Angela Merkel is entering the final stretch of preliminary talks to form a new government as factions in the complex multi-party negotiations remain far apart on issues including migration, climate and European policy. Entering a fifth week of negotiations between Merkel’s Christian Democrats, her Bavarian CSU sister party, the pro-market Free Democrats and the environmental Greens, the …

Bloomberg North Korea, a country in a “time warp” that feeds paranoia at home with propaganda about a hostile world, could secure its future by laying the groundwork for talks on its nuclear weapons program, according to South Korea’s foreign minister. While Kang Kyung-wha welcomed a two month hiatus in North Korean provocations after a rapid-fire series of missile tests …

Bloomberg Political turmoil in Australia risks undermining fragile economic confidence as the loss of another lawmaker in the dual-citizenship fiasco left Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull leading a minority government. John Alexander, 66, became the second government member in the lower house to resign, when he acknowledged he likely inherited British citizenship through his father. While the government will survive with …