Politics

  Bloomberg New York Governor Kathy Hochul promised to reduce crime, improve affordability and stem the state’s population loss as she took the oath of office for her first full term. Hochul’s inauguration capped a remarkable ascendancy in New York politics, becoming the first woman to take the state’s top office in her own right, after inheriting it in 2021 ...

Bloomberg North Korean leader Kim Jong-un pledged to increase his nuclear arsenal in the new year to stifle US and South Korean hostile acts, in a policy-setting address where he left almost no opening for a return to long-stalled disarmament talks. In a speech that came at the end of a nearly weeklong meeting of his ruling Workers Party, Kim ...

  Bloomberg Kosovar Prime Minister Albin Kurti is calling for a bolstered presence of Nato peacekeeping forces in his country. “A massive bolstering of Nato troops and military equipment in our country would improve security and peace in Kosovo and the entire West-Balkan region,” Kurti said in an interview with German newspaper WELT. Following recent tensions between Kosovo and neighboring ...

  Bloomberg French President Emmanuel Macron pledged to push ahead next year with an unpopular overhaul of the country’s pension system that will effectively force people to work longer. The new rules on retirement will apply from the end of the summer, he said during a New Year’s address to the nation in which he urged citizens to remain unified ...

Bloomberg When Myanmar carried out the death penalty for the first time in three decades by executing four activists in July, China and Russia stayed silent while the US and its allies condemned the junta. Now the regime is on the verge of doing it again. Seven university students were sentenced to death last month by a secretive military court ...

  Bloomberg Venezuela’s opposition put an end to Juan Guaido’s interim government, voting against renewing his US-backed strategy that failed to oust President Nicolas Maduro over the course of almost four years. A proposal to eliminate the parallel government passed a second and final round of voting in the opposition-led National Assembly. Starting from January 5, the National Assembly is ...

  Bloomberg China’s ruling Communist Party has named Wang Yi to direct the nation’s foreign policy after he was promoted to the 24-member Politburo following last year’s twice-a-decade party congress. The foreign ministry’s website posted a report by Wang as the director of the general office of the Central Foreign Affairs Commission. His previous position as foreign minister was recently ...

Bloomberg Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping hailed deepening ties between their countries in talks, despite signs of Beijing’s impatience over the wider political and economic impact of Russia’s struggling invasion of Ukraine. Russia-China ties are the “best in history” and their strategic partnership is a “stabilising factor” amid rising geopolitical tensions, the Russian president said in the video ...

Bloomberg President Joe Biden signed a $1.7 trillion government funding bill that includes $47 billion in additional aid for Ukraine in a victory for Democrats who feared that Republicans who will have control of the House in January could force deeper spending cuts and block assistance to Kyiv. Biden, who is on St Croix in the US Virgin Islands, signed ...

  Bloomberg The UK Labour Party has a 26-point poll lead over Rishi Sunak’s ruling Conservatives, highlighting the task facing Britain’s new prime minister to restore his party’s fortunes. Support for Labour is at 45%, compared to 19% for the Tories, according to the survey of 1,169 adults conducted by People Polling for the broadcaster GB News. The polling company’s ...