Politics

Bloomberg UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson was expected to make big changes to his cabinet as his Conservative government suffered a drop in support after announcing tax hikes in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic. The overhaul to Johnson’s top team comes ahead of a potentially tricky few months, as he continues to grapple with high levels of Covid-19 cases ...

Bloomberg North Korea fired off two ballistic missiles — its second major test in less than a week of weapons designed to bolster its capability to conduct nuclear strikes against Japan and South Korea. South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said two ballistic missiles were fired from central North Korea into waters off the eastern coast of the peninsula on ...

Bloomberg President Vladimir Putin has sidelined the last of his independent political opponents, jailing some and driving others into exile, as his ruling party seeks to extend its control in parliamentary elections despite simmering discontent. While Putin personally retains broad support, according to polls, his United Russia ruling party recorded some of the lowest ratings in nearly a decade earlier ...

Bloomberg President Joe Biden’s envoy for North Korea said the door remains open for talks, after Pyongyang claimed it tested new long-range cruise missiles that bolster its nuclear strike capabilities against Japan and South Korea. “We hope the DPRK will respond positively to our multiple offers to meet without preconditions,” Sung Kim, the State Department’s special representative for North Korea, ...

Bloomberg President Joe Biden will host the leaders of Australia, India and Japan at the White House next week, the White House said, for discussions that will include countering China’s expanding influence in the Asia-Pacific region. The meetings will be the first in-person summit for a group known as the “Quad,” as Biden seeks to make the region a top ...

Bloomberg Russian President Vladimir Putin hosted his Syrian counterpart Bashar Al Assad in the Kremlin, backing the Syrian leader’s efforts to eliminate the last enclaves of rebels backed by the US and Turkey. Under Western sanctions, Assad has maintained strong ties with Russia, which sent planes and troops to back his government in 2015. The intervention helped turn the tide ...

Bloomberg Russian President Vladimir Putin will go into self-isolation after being exposed to several people in his entourage infected with Covid-19, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Tuesday. The 68-year-old leader is “absolutely healthy” and has tested negative for Covid-19, Peskov told a regular conference call. Putin will avoid in-person meetings for “some time,” he said. Plans to fly to ...

Bloomberg Russia is mobilising as many as 200,000 troops in wargames with Belarus, including thousands along their borders with the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (Nato), as Moscow tightens military links with its isolated ally. Citing what he called “unending hybrid aggression from the West towards Belarus and Russia,” Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko told troops at the Zapad-2021 wargames that “we ...

Bloomberg China urged the US to take steps to repair damaged ties between the two countries, as the Biden administration weighs a new investigation into Chinese industrial subsidies. Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian called on the US to uphold the spirit of the telephone conversation last week between President Joe Biden and Xi Jinping. Zhao was responding to a question ...

Bloomberg Anne Hidalgo, the Socialist mayor of Paris, became the latest politician to announce she intends to challenge Emmanuel Macron in April’s presidential election. “I have decided to be a candidate for the presidency of the French republic,” she said on Sunday in Rouen, north of Paris. “I am ready.” Hidalgo, 62, must first win the formal support of her ...