Politics

  Bloomberg Russia and Belarus will extend their biggest joint military drills in years, the Belarusian Defense Ministry said, as frictions spike with the West over Russia’s military buildup near the Ukraine border. Russia had said it would return its troops to their bases afterward. While those drills are in Belarus, which is north of Ukraine, the defense ministry statement ...

  Bloomberg Police dislodged anti-vaccine protesters from the street in front of Canada’s parliament building, clearing the center of a weeks-long blockade that paralysed the capital city’s downtown and plunged the nation into crisis. By evening, a total of 170 people had been arrested as police intensified their actions, deploying pepper spray, batons and mounted units to remove demonstrators. But ...

  Bloomberg Slovenia’s premier faces pressure before April elections to block a deal that would hand a large chunk of the country’s biggest tourism group to a buyer with ties to the family of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban. Political parties have called for an extraordinary parliamentary meeting for February 28 to demand the state exercise its right to buy ...

  Bloomberg Prime Minister Boris Johnson reiterated his intention to end the UK’s remaining Covid-19 restrictions, saying he would lay out a plan this week for “living with Covid.” Some opposition politicians and public health experts questioned the decision at a time the UK continues to see tens of thousands of Covid-19 cases a day. Johnson’s comments also came hours ...

  Bloomberg Hong Kong is considering stricter social-distancing measures to try to curtail an escalating Covid-19 outbreak that’s strained its hospitals and exposed an inadequate health infrastructure. The current wave of infections, by far the most severe the city has faced during the pandemic, is testing Hong Kong’s zero-tolerance approach to the virus. Scenes of elderly patients lying on gurneys ...

Bloomberg The US said Russia has massed as many as 190,000 personnel — including troops, National Guard units and Russian-backed separatists – in and around Ukraine in what it called the most significant military mobilisation since World War II. Russia told the US that it has no plans to attack, and officials in Moscow have repeatedly dismissed US warnings about ...

Bloomberg Russia’s buildup near the Ukrainian border is likely to secure the Kremlin a stronger negotiating position as the possibility remains that tensions are resolved peacefully, Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda said. “I still believe in the peaceful solution of this conflict,” Nauseda said in an interview with Bloomberg Television in Brussels. “Yes, there are a lot of rumors — we ...

  Bloomberg One potent force is emerging from the torpid dispute over Northern Ireland between the UK and European Union, and the potential consequences could redraw the map more dramatically than Brexit. Sinn Fein, whose ultimate goal is a united Ireland and the end of British rule, is leading the polls ahead of critical elections to Belfast’s power-sharing assembly on ...

  Bloomberg Spain’s main opposition party descended into chaos as senior officials were accused of mounting an espionage operation against a rising star who poses a threat to the party leader. The fight broke out after local newspapers reported that the People’s Party had hired private detectives to dig up information on the brother of Madrid’s regional president, Isabel Diaz ...

  Bloomberg The first wild polio virus case in 30 years has been confirmed in Malawi, sparking concern that the disease that causes paralysis could spread from the only two countries where it is endemic, Pakistan and Afghanistan. The Malawian case in the capital, Lilongwe, has been tied to a strain of the virus found in an outbreak in Pakistan’s ...