Politics

Bloomberg Spain’s ultraconservative Vox party is poised to enter a regional government for the first time, after record results in local elections on Sunday. Vox came third in the central Castilla y Leon region, more than tripling its share of the vote after winning 13 seats in the 81-strong assembly. The main opposition center-right People’s Party (PP) came first with ...

Bloomberg Prime Minister Justin Trudeau held a rare cabinet meeting and was expected to speak with provincial leaders over protests in Canada’s capital city that have entered their 18th day. The protests against Covid-19 vaccine mandates, which include hundreds of semi-trucks parked in the streets of Ottawa, swelled into the thousands over the weekend. But truckers were met with counter-protests ...

Bloomberg US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and foreign ministers from Japan and South Korea committed to work together to deter further Russian escalation along Ukraine’s border and condemned North Korea’s recent ballistic missile launches. Blinken, Japanese Foreign Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi and South Korean Minister of Foreign Affairs Chung Eui-yong stressed the “critical importance” of strong cooperation among their countries ...

  Bloomberg Ferdinand Marcos Jr, son of the late Philippine dictator, widened his lead in a presidential preference survey conducted by pollster Pulse Asia Research Inc in January. Marcos, a former senator, was chosen by 60% of the 2,400 respondents, Pulse Asia said, higher than the 53% he garnered in December. Vice President Leni Robredo, the opposition leader, came second ...

  Bloomberg Tunisia’s president extended his power that has alarmed critics and international allies, giving himself the right to fire judges and setting up a temporary new judicial watchdog after slamming its predecessor. Kais Saied’s replacement of the Supreme Judicial Council, announced in a decree in the government gazette, came after he signalled changes to the institution that safeguards judicial ...

Bloomberg US President Joe Biden tried to send Vladimir Putin an ultimatum about the consequences of any invasion of Ukraine in an hour-long conversation that left both sides at an impasse and Russia’s intentions unclear. Biden warned his counterpart in Moscow that Russia would face “severe costs.” For his part, the Russian leader accused the US of failing to provide ...

  Bloomberg Hong Kong will shorten the quarantine period for residents and staff of residential care homes for the elderly and those with disabilities because isolation beds will run out in days, the city’s welfare secretary said on his blog. The quarantine period for home-care residents and staff has been cut to seven days from two weeks if their test ...

  Bloomberg Frank-Walter Steinmeier was re-elected to a second five-year term in the mainly ceremonial post of German president. Steinmeier, 66, won the backing of about two-thirds of the Federal Assembly, a body convened solely for the purpose comprising all lawmakers from the lower house and representatives from the German states. He was supported by Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s three-party coalition ...

  Bloomberg President Joe Biden was to issue an executive order to transfer shift the $7 billion in Afghan central bank assets frozen in the US so it can be used to compensate victims of the Sepember 11 terrorist attacks and support aid efforts in Afghanistan, a person familiar with the matter said. The order will direct US financial institutions ...

  Bloomberg US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that “China has been acting more aggressively,” although he didn’t consider a conflict in the Indo-Pacific inevitable. Blinken spoke as a meeting of the Quad, a regional partnership that also includes Japan, India and Australia, got underway in Melbourne. “Nothing is inevitable,” Blinken said in response to a reporter’s question about ...