Politics

  Bloomberg The Russian Defense Ministry said more than 10,000 troops would return to their permanent bases in the Southern Military District after over a month of training in the region, including in areas near the Ukrainian border. The exercises took place throughout the district, including in the Crimea and Rostov regions that border Ukraine, according to a statement posted ...

  Bloomberg Myanmar’s junta chief Min Aung Hlaing said there are plans to hold a fresh general election on August 2023, sticking to the military government’s timeline and defying pressure from the US to hold polls earlier. “Depending on state stability and peace, we are making our utmost effort to hold a multi-party general election on August 2023,” the junta ...

  Bloomberg An Indian court has urged the federal election commission and Prime Minister Narendra Modi to postpone state polls due early next year and ban large political gatherings to avoid a possible surge of omicron-fueled infections. The Allahabad High Court, in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh, asked the Election Commission of India to defer elections by as much ...

  Bloomberg South Korea’s government will grant a special pardon to former President Park Geun-hye, releasing her from prison after she spent nearly five years behind bars of a 22-year sentence for corruption. Park, a conservative and a prominent rival of the current leader, will be released on December 31, the Justice Ministry said. “From the perspective of the national ...

  Bloomberg Poland’s government rejected fresh allegations that it illegally hacked the mobile phone of a senior opposition lawmaker during the 2019 parliamentary election campaign, the latest spying scandal hitting the country’s nationalist leaders. The Associated Press reported that Senator Krzysztof Brejza’s mobile phone was hacked with sophisticated spyware when he was running the main opposition party’s campaign, citing internet ...

  Bloomberg Russia welcomed US willingness to start talks next month on its security proposals, a day after President Vladimir Putin threatened a military response if the Kremlin’s demands aren’t met. “We would like to hope that for the upcoming negotiations, which is already positive, our partners will come with clearly formulated positions,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters. The ...

  Bloomberg Libya’s election body proposed delaying the presidential vote by one month, calling on parliament to resolve disputes that have threatened the landmark ballot in the Opec nation. The High National Election Commission said the inadequacy of electoral legislation was a main obstacle to the vote taking place as scheduled. Its proposal to instead hold the first round of ...

  Bloomberg Former Philippine Senator Ferdinand Marcos Jr, son of the late dictator, led by a wide margin in a presidential preference survey conducted this month by pollster Pulse Asia Research. Marcos was chosen by 53% of the 2,400 respondents as their preferred successor to President Rodrigo Duterte, Pulse Asia said. Vice President Leni Robredo, the opposition leader, came a ...

  Bloomberg Chinese President Xi Jinping told Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam the city is developing in a good direction, days after an election installed a legislature of Beijing loyalists in the Asian financial hub. Xi added that he fully recognised the work of her government, as the pair met in Beijing. Lam’s annual trip to brief China’s state leaders ...

  Bloomberg German Chancellor Olaf Scholz pushed through tighter social-distancing restrictions to stave off the threat of a “massive” surge of the omicron Covid-19 variant just as families gather for the Christmas holidays. The latest measures, which add to existing curbs that mainly affect the unvaccinated, include limiting gatherings to 10 people starting from December 28. The restrictions, which Scholz ...