Politics

Bloomberg President Joe Biden expects to speak with Xi Jinping about the Chinese balloon shot down by the US earlier this month, signalling a desire to end a dispute that has highlighted the fragility of relations between the world’s biggest economies. Biden disclosed plans for the call as part of his most extensive remarks yet about the balloon saga, which ...

  Bloomberg A British security guard who spied for Russia at the country’s Embassy in Berlin in exchange for money was sentenced to more than 13 years in prison on Friday. David Smith, 58, who collected a range of highly sensitive information from and about the embassy with the intention of supplying it to Russia, pleaded guilty to multiple breaches ...

  Bloomberg The US is sending its top China defense official to Taiwan, according to the Financial Times — though it’s unclear how Beijing will respond given the softer tone it has adopted in its diplomacy with the US and allies recently. The deputy assistant secretary of defense for China, Michael Chase, will make the trip “in the coming days,” ...

Bloomberg Finland’s President Sauli Niinisto said it’s up to Turkey to decide whether Finland and Sweden join Nato together or not. “We have an understanding with Sweden: both of us should become members as soon as possible. Turkey has its own understanding of the situation and the way forward —that’s entirely in Turkish hands,” Niinisto told reporters at the Munich ...

Bloomberg The UK and European Union have made significant progress towards a deal on new post-Brexit trading arrangements for Northern Ireland — but more work is still needed to finalise an agreement, the region’s political parties said. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak held a series of meetings with leaders in Belfast to discuss the status of talks aimed at resolving the ...

  Bloomberg China questioned whether the US genuinely seeks to repair ties damaged by the dispute over a balloon just as the two nations’ top diplomats head to a security conference in Germany, where they may have an opportunity to meet on the sidelines. The balloon saga “tests the US’s sincerity and capability to properly handle crises and stabilise relations ...

  Bloomberg India will begin work on its first all-weather highway to carry troops and hardware to its disputed Himalayan boundary with China and add 9,000 additional soldiers to bolster defenses at its border as tensions linger. The cabinet cleared the project to build a 4.1 kilometre (2.55 miles)-long tunnel through the mountains in the border state of Himachal Pradesh. ...

  Bloomberg The Biden administration suspects that three unidentified objects downed served commercial purposes and weren’t used for spying, a judgment that may help ease anxiety over a Chinese balloon that traversed the US before being shot down. The intelligence community believes the objects — unlike the giant airship shot down on February 4 — “could just be balloons tied ...

Bloomberg Turkey has the right to decide how it wants to ratify Finland and Sweden’s Nato memberships, the alliance’s Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said, even as he urged Ankara to give the green light to both Nordic countries. “It is for Turkiye to decide whether they ratify both — and I recommend that — or whether they ratify only one ...

Bloomberg Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon resigned after more than eight years as head of the country’s government and independence movement in a surprise move that will reverberate across UK politics. Sturgeon, 52, has headed the semi-autonomous administration in Edinburgh since 2014. The decision to step down comes after an unusually turbulent time for Sturgeon. It leaves her Scottish National ...