Politics

Bloomberg China downgraded ties with Lithuania to the level of charge d’affaires, further raising tensions after Taiwan opened a diplomatic office in the Baltic nation. Lithuania is “walking back on political promises” made in a communique for establishing diplomatic links with China, the Chinese Foreign Ministry said in a statement. China withdrew its ambassador from Lithuania in August in protest ...

Bloomberg Tens of thousands gathered in Vienna to protest the Austrian government’s new vaccine mandate and a national lockdown to contain record coronavirus cases. The demonstration came as unrest is on the rise in Europe, where governments, desperate to end the pandemic and its damage to their economies and healthcare systems, are increasingly focusing on the unvaccinated. Austria will enter ...

Bloomberg Bulgarians are voting in a presidential runoff that is likely to re-elect incumbent Rumen Radev to a new five-year term and cement gains for political forces who ousted long-serving Prime Minister Boyko Borissov. After winning the first round of elections with nearly 50% of the votes, Radev faces Anastas Gerdzhikov, the head of Bulgaria’s largest university and backed by ...

Bloomberg Chileans headed to the polls to choose between diametrically opposed paths to address growing social demands that have been laid bare by the pandemic and two years of popular unrest. Voters will choose between seven contenders for the top job, including conservative Jose Antonio Kast and leftist Gabriel Boric, the two front-runners. They will also elect deputies for the ...

Bloomberg Venezuelans went to polls on Sunday in regional elections poised to strengthen President Nicolas Maduro as the country’s political opposition slips further into disarray. The country of 28 million will elect mayors, governors and local officials from roughly 70,000 candidates in the first elections that are being contested by opposition parties since 2017, and monitored by the European Union ...

Bloomberg Officials in Washington and Beijing have agreed to high-level conversations between their militaries, according to a person familiar with the matter. During a 3 1/2-hour virtual summit with President Joe Biden, Chinese President Xi Jinping agreed to support such discussions between the US military and top officials from the People’s Liberation Army, including the vice chairman of the country’s ...

Bloomberg Violent demonstrations broke out in Rotterdam over the Netherlands’ virus restrictions, with the police firing warning shots and deploying a water canon to push back the crowd. The police said in a statement that two people were injured “related to the fired shots” but said details of the injuries were unclear. Tweets showed at least one car on fire ...

Bloomberg A virtual summit between US President Joe Biden and Chinese leader Xi Jinping marked a “good beginning” for the world’s biggest economies to avoid a conflict, former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger said. “They now have to be followed by concrete discussions that lead in a direction both presidents have affirmed they want to pursue,” the influential US diplomat ...

Bloomberg The Taliban’s top diplomat warned of an Afghan refugee exodus if the US continues to block the release of some $9 billion of the country’s assets. “We are concerned that if the current situation prevails, the Afghan government and people will face problems and will become a cause for mass migration in the region and world,” Amir Khan Muttaqi, ...

Bloomberg Belarus provided shelter for migrants in a logistics hub near the Polish border, offering temporary respite to an increasingly violent standoff on the European Union’s eastern frontier. More than 1,000 people spent the night in a Belarusian warehouse near the Kuznica border crossing, which witnessed the worst clashes since the crisis began, state-owned news agency Belta reported. The move ...