Bloomberg A record number of Hong Kongers cast ballots in district elections by Sunday afternoon, with hours to go before polls were due to close, as they seized the first opportunity to vote after months of increasingly violent protests calling for greater democracy. Some 2.5 million people, or roughly 60% of the financial hub’s electorate, had voted by 6:30 pm, ...

Bloomberg British PM Boris Johnson pledged his Conservatives won’t raise income tax, value-added tax or national insurance rates as he unveiled the party’s programme for government on Sunday. He also promised that the National Health Service will not be “on the table” in trade talks. The Tories hold a double-digit lead in most opinion polls heading into the December 12 ...

Bloomberg Uruguayans voted for their next president on Sunday in a runoff in which polls suggest that opposition leader Luis Lacalle Pou will end 15 years of left-wing rule. Surveys show the 46-year-old career politician from the center-right National Party leading the Broad Front’s Daniel Martinez in an election in which voters will choose between an ambitious reform agenda or ...

Bloomberg India’s Supreme Court asked for documents to show how an alliance in a western state was formed to create a government, after prime minister Narendra Modi’s ruling party unexpectedly tied up with a rival to take control of Maharashtra. A panel of judges led by NV Ramana demanded that the federal government submit the papers by Monday morning, when ...

Bloomberg Romanians are set to re-elect president Klaus Iohannis, who’s promising to bring normality after years of political chaos. Voting ran from 7 am to 9 pm on Sunday in Bucharest, after which exit polls were expected to be released. Iohannis, 60, easily won a first round two weeks ago and is widely expected to defeat his runoff opponent, ex-prime ...

Bloomberg Brazil’s president Jair Bolsonaro said his government is prepared for any unrest, as he expressed his concern about the wave of protests across South America. He said though he didn’t expect trouble in Brazil. “We always have to be prepared so that we are not surprised by events,” he told reporters at a military ceremony in Rio de Janeiro. ...

To understand what’s so very odd about this British election campaign, it’s worth recalling where we were a month ago in the Brexit saga. Prime Minister Boris Johnson had returned from Brussels triumphant with a new withdrawal deal. All he needed was Parliament to give its okay — the same Parliament that had rejected his predecessor Theresa May’s deal three ...

Germany has long stood accused of being the main obstacle on the road to complete Europe’s monetary union. Yet, after a constructive proposal from Finance Minister Olaf Scholz over the creation of some form of joint deposit insurance, it is hard to treat Berlin as the grudger-in-chief of the euro region. In fact, Italy could soon become a bigger hurdle ...

The racketeering lawsuit brought by General Motors Co. against cross-town rival Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV is a legal bombshell for the US car industry. GM’s broadside lays out in forensic detail how Fiat allegedly conspired over many years to funnel payments to United Auto Workers’ officials, corrupt the collective bargaining process on wages and thus secure a competitive advantage. In ...

Christine Lagarde has taken the helm of the European Central Bank (ECB) at a time of rising skepticism over the power of monetary policy. Critics say that the central bank has no tools left to bring inflation back to its target of close to, but below, 2%. The ECB is now a helpless bystander, they claim, as the power to ...