Bloomberg Emmanuel Macron is aiming to show France can still punch its weight. After North Korea tested a nuclear weapon this month, the French President took time out of a state visit to Greece to lobby China’s Xi Jinping on ratcheting up sanctions. He’d already spoken to the leaders of Germany, the UK and Italy on the issue and in …

Bloomberg The Turkish army kicked off a military drill near the border with Iraq’s Kurdish region, underscoring Turkey’s threat to do whatever it deems necessary against an Iraqi Kurdish independence referendum scheduled for next week. Dozens of Turkish tanks dotted an open field just a few kilometres from the Iraqi border on Monday, according to footage on CNN-Turk television. Erdogan, …

Bloomberg Saudi Arabia plans to seek bidders for the construction of a 1,000-mile (1,600-kilometer) railroad linking the Red Sea with the Persian Gulf as early as the end of this year, signaling the go ahead for a long-delayed project seen as vital to reducing the economy’s dependence on oil. The so-called Land Bridge line will shave around three days off …