Politics

Bloomberg Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said the US will stand up to an “increasingly assertive and autocratic” China in the Indo-Pacific region and beyond, calling its activity “disturbing.” One way to counter China’s military modernisation, growing nuclear capabilities and technological advances is to strengthen US alliances in the region, Austin told a security conference in California. “The activity that we ...

Bloomberg The US is reevaluating the travel ban on eight southern African countries as more information about the omicron variant and its spread becomes available, White House medical adviser Anthony Fauci said. “That ban was done at a time when we were really in the dark — we had no idea what was going on,” Fauci said. U.S. medical advisers ...

Bloomberg President Joe Biden said he anticipated a “long discussion” with Vladimir Putin over the threat of an invasion of Ukraine, and dismissed the Russian leader’s warning that deployment of Western weapons or troops represented a “red line.” “We’ve been aware of Russia’s actions for a long time and my expectation is we’re going to have a long discussion with ...

Bloomberg US President Joe Biden’s planned democracy summit next week will be a “joke” and the American political system doesn’t represent a real democracy, senior Chinese officials said. “Under the American democratic system, US politicians are the agents of interest groups, and don’t represent interests of majority voters nor national interest,” Tian Peiyan, deputy director of the Policy Research Office ...

Bloomberg Olaf Scholz called on his party to make the fight against the coronavirus the new German government’s foremost task as his party approved the coalition agreement that moves him a step closer to replacing Angela Merkel as chancellor. “It is clear that our first and most important task is to protect the health of the citizens and to fight ...

Bloomberg Venezuela’s recent elections were marked by unfairness and political repression, but in a positive change from recent years, they did allow greater participation for the opposition, Jimmy Carter’s Carter Center wrote in a report. While the opposition got more votes, the ruling party won most of the available positions amid low turnout and voter apathy following years of economic ...

Bloomberg President Vladimir Putin warned the West not to cross the Kremlin’s security “red line” as the US and the UK said any Russian incursion into Ukraine would trigger serious diplomatic and economic responses. Expansion of western military infrastructure into Ukraine would leave Moscow exposed to the risk of attack in as little as five minutes “if supersonic weapons are ...

Bloomberg France is preparing to offer Boris Johnson proposals for an agreement with the European Union (EU) on migration, less than a week after Emmanuel Macron slammed the UK premier for not taking the issue seriously enough. Prime Minister Jean Castex was expected to write to Johnson to suggest they work on a pact with the EU after at least ...

Bloomberg Germany’s incoming chancellor threw his support behind mandatory Covid-19 vaccinations as European leaders take a tougher line in a bid to check a brutal surge in infections. During a video conference, Olaf Scholz told outgoing Chancellor Angela Merkel and state premiers that he would support a broad requirement to get shots, according to a person familiar with the discussions. ...

Bloomberg Hunger in Latin America and the Caribbean reached levels not seen in two decades in 2020 as the pandemic swept away jobs and pushed many in the region into poverty. The number of Latin Americans who don’t have access to enough food rose by 13.8 million to 59.7 million between 2019 and 2020, according to a UN report. The ...