Politics

Bloomberg The top US military leaders pointed rare criticism at key decisions by Presidents Donald Trump and Joe Biden which they said undermined Afghanistan’s military and made it harder for American troops to remain as the nation’s government collapsed. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin told the Senate Armed Services Committee that Trump’s 2020 peace deal with the Taliban had a ...

Bloomberg Myanmar’s Covid-19 outbreak has pushed more people into poverty, and the most vulnerable sections of the society may face “extreme deprivation” in the coming months, according to the UN World Food Program. “We’re concerned that the cumulative impact is putting pressure on the most vulnerable segments of society,” the food agency’s Country Director Stephen Anderson said in a Bloomberg ...

Bloomberg North Korea test-fired a ballistic missile just as its envoy was preparing to address the United Nations (UN), in a pointed gesture of defiance against international resolutions meant to prevent such launches. The projectile was fired from the northern province of Jagang around 6:40 am local time and landed in waters to the east, South Korea’s military said, without ...

Bloomberg Russian authorities said they’d opened another criminal case against jailed opposition leader Alexey Navalny and his allies, this time alleging they created an illegal “extremist organisation.” If convicted, Navalny and his colleagues could face as much as a decade in prison. The probe is the latest in a rising tide of legal pressure prosecutors and investigators have put on ...

Bloomberg Top Pentagon officials will be pressed to explain whether they supported President Joe Biden’s withdrawal from Afghanistan and why the US didn’t foresee the Afghan military’s collapse to Taliban forces, forcing a hasty American withdrawal. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, General Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs, and General Frank MacKenzie, head of US Central Command, are expected to ...

Bloomberg A UK frigate sailed through the Taiwan Strait, the first such passage by a British naval vessel since late 2019, as a group of nations led by Washington pushes back at Beijing’s military assertiveness. The HMS Richmond transited the narrow body of water separating China from Taiwan on Monday on its way to Vietnam, according to the vessel’s Twitter ...

Bloomberg The Biden administration is considering a US-led competitor for China’s Belt and Road international trade and public works program, and a top White House official will scout Latin America next week for possible projects. Daleep Singh, the US deputy national security adviser for international economics, is traveling to Colombia, Ecuador and Panama to talk with high-level officials, business leaders ...

Bloomberg Olaf Scholz of the center-left Social Democrats appealed to potential partners to join him in a new German government as soon as possible as his conservative opponent’s rival claim on the chancellery ran into the sand. At party headquarters in Berlin on Monday, Scholz appealed to the Greens and the pro-business Free Democrats to back a three-way coalition following ...

Bloomberg Polish Interior Minister Mariusz Kaminski wants to extend a state of emergency along the country’s eastern border for another 60 days, to help deal with a surge in arrivals of undocumented migrants from Belarus. Kaminski said on Monday that some migrants apprehended near the border could pose a threat to national security after evidence of links to terrorist and ...

Bloomberg For the winner of a party leadership vote this week to pick Japan’s third pandemic-era prime minister, a heavy lift awaits on economy. Getting the country past the virus will be job No. 1, requiring a road map for reopening after the latest virus emergency ends, reportedly this week, and more stimulus to woo voters before national elections this ...