Bloomberg Australia’s Defence Minister Richard Marles has called for the US to grow its military presence in the Indo-Pacific, warning that a failure to maintain the balance of power in the region could be “catastrophic.” Speaking in Washington DC, Marles, who is also Australia’s deputy prime minister, said the region was currently facing a military build-up “at a rate unseen ...

  Bloomberg Basil Rajapaksa, the former finance minister of Sri Lanka and brother of the outgoing President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, attempted to leave the country early Tuesday but was turned back by airport officials, according to a person with knowledge of the matter. People at the main international airport serving Colombo began protesting when they saw Basil Rajapaksa trying to depart, ...

Bloomberg The race to succeed Boris Johnson as UK prime minister is taking shape as two Conservative big hitters, Home Secretary Priti Patel and Transport Secretary Grant Shapps, opted out ahead of the first round of voting. Patel’s move is likely to favor Foreign Secretary Liz Truss’s bid to be the preferred candidate of the low-tax, Thatcherite wing of the ...