Politics

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 ...

Bloomberg Thailand’s parliament voted yet again to reject a charter overhaul proposed by pro-democracy activists seeking to eliminate the legacy of the 2014 army coup. This was the second time in about a year that the parliament, dominated by royalist lawmakers, pushed back against the rewriting of the military-drafted constitution that anti-government protesters have been pushing for the past 16 ...

Bloomberg Bosnia-Herzegovina must revive its bid to join the European Union to avert the possibility of the ethnically divided country being torn apart, the country’s top international envoy said. Among six EU hopefuls in the Western Balkans region, the country of 3.3 million is among the furthest from accession. The process has stalled since 2016 as its politicians bicker on ...

Bloomberg With expectations low heading into the first face-to-face summit between Joe Biden and Xi Jinping, they appeared to accomplish as much as politically possible: An agreement to keep on talking, without letting tensions over Taiwan and other disputes derail the US-China relationship. The virtual meeting lasted longer than expected, running for more than three hours as the leaders covered ...

Bloomberg China urged Germany’s next government to continue outgoing Chancellor Angela Merkel’s legacy to ensure the two countries work closely together, as prospective coalition partners in Berlin favor a tougher line towards the Asian giant. Zhang Ming, China’s ambassador to the European Union (EU), noted during a European Policy Center event on Tuesday that next year will mark the 50th ...

Bloomberg At least one person died when two explosions hit the Ugandan capital, the fourth blast in Kampala in the past month. The blasts occurred outside an office of insurer Jubilee Holdings Ltd and near the city’s central police station, the Daily Monitor reported, citing eyewitnesses. Images posted on the newspaper’s Twitter handle showed cars on fire outside the Jubilee ...

Bloomberg Poland used water cannon and tear gas to stop Belarus-backed migrants from crossing the European Union’s eastern frontier a day after the bloc approved new tools to punish those escalating the crisis. Under the threat of new sanctions and facing accusations of mounting a “hybrid attack” on the EU by ushering travellers to the border, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko ...

Bloomberg Boris Johnson said it would be “perfectly legitimate” for the UK to suspend part of the Brexit deal with the European Union (EU), though his government still wants to negotiate a solution to their escalating trade spat. The UK is demanding a major overhaul of the divorce agreement it signed with the bloc, arguing that its implementation is causing ...