Politics

Bloomberg The US has classified Yemen’s Houthis as a foreign terrorist organisation following a series of attacks on oil tankers in the Red Sea and as Washington seeks to increase pressure on Iran in the final days of Donald Trump’s presidency. The move will give the US “additional tools” with which to counter security threats in the Persian Gulf, according ...

Bloomberg First lady Melania Trump said on Monday she was “disappointed and disheartened” by the violent attack on the US Capitol last week and called for healing. “Make no mistake about it, I absolutely condemn the violence that has occurred on our Nation’s Capitol. Violence is never acceptable,” she said in a statement released by the White House. Trump called ...

Bloomberg North Korea appeared to stage a military parade as part of a grand party congress that laid out the scale of the challenge US President-elect Joe Biden faces to rein in Kim Jong Un’s nuclear program. There were signs that North Korea held a parade late Sunday evening, the South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff said Monday, in what ...

Bloomberg China said that a World Health Organisation (WHO) team of experts will arrive this week to investigate the origins of the coronavirus, after the country was criticised by the health body and other nations for a lack of transparency around tracking the pathogen’s source. The team of scientists will come to China from January 14, the National Health Commission said ...

Bloomberg India’s Supreme Court has said it proposes to put three controversial farm laws on hold, a move that could possibly end the stalemate between Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s administration and tens of thousands of farmers protesting for nearly three months now. A three-judge bench headed by Chief Justice of India Sharad A. Bobde said on Monday that a final ...

Bloomberg Banned from social media and abandoned by some staff after inciting a riot at the US Capitol, President Donald Trump and a dwindling circle of advisers plan a defiant final week in office, according to people familiar with the matter. Trump is confident Vice President Mike Pence and members of his cabinet won’t attempt to remove him under the ...

Bloomberg The US Secretary of State and foreign ministers of the UK, Canada and Australia expressed their “serious concern” about the arrest of 55 politicians and activists in Hong Kong, the governments said in a joint statement. Hong Kong’s National Security Law, under which the arrests were made, is a breach of the Sino-British Joint Declaration and undermines the “one ...

Bloomberg Sweden’s top defense official said staying out of North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (Nato) remains the best security option for the country, even with an increasingly assertive Russia. A Swedish application for Nato membership would “affect the entire security policy architecture in our part of Europe,” Defense Minister Peter Hultqvist said in an interview in Stockholm. “Above all, it puts ...

Bloomberg Philippines House Speaker Lord Allan Velasco renewed a proposal to amend the country’s Constitution by lifting restrictive economic provisions to attract more foreign investments. A resolution from the Senate and the House of Representatives seeks to insert the phrase “unless otherwise provided by law” to several sections of the Constitution involving national patrimony and economy; education, science and technology; ...

Bloomberg Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev plan to meet in Moscow on Monday for first time since their countries fought a 44-day war. The talks, which will also include Russian President Vladimir Putin, will focus on aiding residents of the war zone and unblocking economic and transportation links between the countries, the Kremlin said on ...