Politics

  Bloomberg Serbs in Kosovo began removing road barricades erected in protest against the largely ethnic-Albanian government, after the US and European Union increased pressure on both sides to avert a new Balkan conflict. After weeks of obstruction, protesters ceased blocking traffic at Merdare, the key border crossing between Serbia and Kosovo, police said. At the same time, two trucks ...

  Bloomberg Strike-weary Britons may face further travel disruption on Friday, when road traffic officers and control-room staff begin a two-day action, the latest in a wave of walkouts sweeping across Britain. Members of the Public and Commercial Services union working for National Highways in the southwest and the West Midlands will strike, a move the union said would reduce ...

Bloomberg President Joe Biden said his administration would comply with the Supreme Court’s order keeping in place sweeping, coronavirus border controls. “The court is not going to decide until June, apparently, and in meantime we have to enforce it,” Biden told reporters after the Supreme Court ordered that the border restrictions, known as Title 42, stay in effect while litigation ...

  Bloomberg Dozens were killed as heavy rains flooded central and southern Philippines during the Christmas holidays with nearly 400,000 people displaced even without a typhoon. Twenty-five were confirmed dead, mostly in the northern part of Mindanao island, the disaster management council said. Nine others were injured while 26 remain missing, it said. Hundreds of areas were flooded during the ...

  Bloomberg Rudy Giuliani was in daily contact with President Donald Trump between November 5, 2020 and January 15, 2021, as much as 10 times a day, according to testimony by former New York Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik. “The mayor spoke to the president daily, I don’t know, sometimes three times, sometimes 10 times in a day, basically outlining findings, ...

Bloomberg Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s spokesman, Jamie Davies, told reporters the government acknowledges the strikes hitting the UK are causing “massive disruption.” “If you look at rail specifically, it has hindered people’s ability to go to work, to get to school, to go about their daily lives,” Davies said. “We want the strikes to end; we don’t want to see ...

Bloomberg Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said he had discussed the postwar rebuilding effort with BlackRock Chief Executive Officer Larry Fink as his government prepares to participate in the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos next month. “Specialists of this company are already helping Ukraine to structure the fund for the reconstruction of our state,” Zelenskiy, who had a video call ...

Bloomberg Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said he expected the next general election to come before a possible hike in taxes that has met resistance from the public and is intended to fund his unprecedented expansion of defense spending. “We will be asking the people to take on an extra burden starting at an appropriate time between 2024 and 2027,” ...

Bloomberg South Korea sent drones across the border into North Korea for the first time, an unprecedented tit-for-tat military move after Kim Jong-un’s regime dispatched five unmanned aerial vehicles into its air space. The exchange of drones, which briefly stopped flights from taking off at major airports near Seoul, came as Kim opened a major political meeting to set security, ...

Bloomberg Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Ukraine must surrender or face continued war, even as Moscow’s troops have been forced to retreat in a series of damaging defeats. In an interview with the state-run news service Tass, Lavrov said Ukraine must cede sovereignty over territories annexed by Russia since President Vladimir Putin’s February 24 invasion. He reiterated unfounded claims ...