Politics

  Bloomberg North Korea may be looking at test firing its first intercontinental ballistic missile in more than four years as the strongest move it could soon make to ratchet up tensions with the US, a South Korean lawmaker said after a briefing by the country’s spy agency. “The most probable card for provocation that North Korea could play would ...

  Bloomberg US prosecutors charged four Belarus officials with airline piracy over the diversion of a Ryanair flight last year that resulted in the arrest of a dissident journalist. Ryanair 4978 was destined for Vilnius, Lithuania, on May 23 but was diverted to Minsk, the Belarusian capital, while in Belarus airspace. Belarusian authorities claimed the diversion was due to a ...

  Bloomberg President Joe Biden said he thinks Vladimir Putin doesn’t want a full-blown war but will “move in” on Ukraine after amassing 100,000 troops on its border, part of an extraordinarily blunt assessment of Russian intentions and the West’s likely response. “I’m not so sure he has — is certain — about what he’s going to do,” Biden said ...

  Bloomberg Ethiopia’s government and Tigray forces are making progress in efforts to end a 14-month conflict, United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres said. “I am delighted that after over a year of armed conflict which has affected millions of people across Ethiopia and the rest of the region, there is now a demonstrable effort to make peace,” Guterres said. ...

  Bloomberg Secretary of State Antony Blinken will meet with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in Geneva this week as the US ramps up its warnings that Moscow is prepared to attack Ukraine. Blinken will press Russia to immediately de-escalate tensions on the Russian border with Ukraine, where Moscow has massed more than 100,000 troops and equipment, according to a ...

  Bloomberg Former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko was released on his own recognizance by a court during a treason investigation that has ratcheted up political tension as the country confronts Russian troops amassing on its eastern border. The decision by the Kyiv court followed Poroshenko’s return from abroad on Monday to face charges over allegations he facilitated coal deals last ...

  Bloomberg An actress jailed for protesting Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s controversial citizenship law, the mother of a rape survivor, and a beauty pageant winner. These are the women leading India’s once-dominant Congress party as it seeks to reinvent itself in a hotly contested state election. The slew of female candidates in India’s most populous state of Uttar Pradesh is ...

  Bloomberg Boris Johnson suffered a major setback as he seeks to hold onto power after a member of Parliament in his ruling UK Conservative Party defected to the main opposition. The move by Christian Wakeford, who was elected in 2019 in one of the many so-called red wall seats that swung from Labour to Johnson’s Tories in the general ...

  Bloomberg President Emmanuel Macron said the only way for France to remain friends with the British government is if London respects its post-Brexit commitments. Macron told European lawmakers in Strasbourg on Wednesday that Europe and the UK “must get back on the path of trust.” His comments come a week after UK and EU Brexit negotiators agreed to intensify ...

  Bloomberg Estonia’s prime minister issued a warning that the European Union and the US must avoid falling into a Russian “trap” in negotiations with the Kremlin, whose aim is to weaken security in the EU. Russia’s negotiating tactics amount to “blackmail,” said Kaja Kallas, the Estonian premier, using some of the most hawkish language of an EU member state ...