Politics

Bloomberg Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga saw his cabinet’s approval rating fall more than 12 percentage points from the previous month as his government struggled to handle another wave of coronavirus infections, according to a Kyodo poll. Support for Suga’s cabinet fell to 50.3% from 63% the previous month, according to the survey conducted between December 5 and 6 and ...

Bloomberg As India’s virus numbers swell and the economy stumbles, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has another crisis to deal with: Tens of thousands of angry farmers vowing to camp outside the capital for months. The farmers — mostly from Punjab, often called India’s bread-basket — want him to repeal three laws passed in September that allow them to sell crops ...

Bloomberg Joe Biden now officially has more than the 270 Electoral College votes he needs to claim the presidency after California certified its election results. Secretary of State Alex Padilla approved the results of Biden’s victory, according to his office, which Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom will use to prepare the Certificate of Ascertainment appointing the state’s 55 electors for Biden. ...

Bloomberg Former Ivorian President Laurent Gbagbo plans to return to the West African nation this month, even as he faces a pending conviction. The Ivorian government issued two passports, an ordinary one and a diplomatic document, to Gbagbo, who’s been living in Belgium for nearly two years, his lawyer Habiba Toure said. The issuances come a month after an October ...

Bloomberg President Donald Trump’s campaign spent $8.8 million on the legal challenges to the November 3 election in various states, including $2.7 million in legal fees, according to the latest filings with the Federal Election Commission. The largest outlay was a $3 million payment to the Wisconsin Elections Commission for a partial recount in two populous counties. The recounts did ...

Bloomberg Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison said he was seeking an apology from China after a diplomat in Beijing tweeted an image purporting to show an Australian soldier holding a knife to the throat of an Afghan child. The tweet, posted by Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian, was “repugnant,” Morrison told reporters in Canberra on Monday. The Australian premier ...

Bloomberg President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris were expected to receive on Monday the same daily intelligence briefing that President Donald Trump gets, belatedly beginning the transition between leaders of some of the nation’s most sensitive secrets. The President’s Daily Briefing has been offered to every president-elect since Richard Nixon in 1968, often the morning after Election Day. ...

Bloomberg The leader of Ethiopia’s dissident Tigray state vowed to fight on after Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed said federal forces regained full control of the region. Ethiopia’s army captured the Tigray capital of Mekelle, after almost a month of fighting that’s left hundreds of people dead and forced tens of thousands more to flee their homes. The authorities are now ...

Bloomberg Brazil’s two biggest cities will be governed by centrist mayors who defeated President Jair Bolsonaro’s candidates in nationwide municipal elections, consolidating the return of more moderate political actors following a conservative wave that swept the country two years ago. Brazilians went to the polls to choose mayors for Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and 55 of the country’s 5,500 ...

Bloomberg The Polish government is getting increasingly upset with European Union efforts to add conditions to budget funding, but the issue isn’t enough for them to consider quitting the bloc, a deputy minister said. While Hungary and Poland have long flouted democratic values that other European countries hold dear, officials in Brussels have struggled to discipline them as each can ...