Bloomberg North Korea’s ruling party started a major policy meeting to lay out priorities for the coming year and how to respond to the Biden administration’s invitation to return to nuclear disarmament talks stalled for about two years. Leader Kim Jong-un attended the opening session of a Workers’ Party Central Committee meeting, the official Korean Central News Agency said. ...

  Bloomberg The Philippines signed a deal to purchase two corvettes from Hyundai Heavy Industries Co Ltd, beefing up its defense capabilities in a region that has become more militarised due competing claims in the South China Sea. The warships, part of a 28 billion-peso ($556 million) project for the Philippine Navy, are capable of anti-ship, anti-submarine and anti-air warfare ...

  Bloomberg Russia’s Supreme Court ordered the closure of International Memorial, the country’s most prominent human rights group, escalating a sweeping crackdown that has also targeted opposition activists and independent media. The group founded by Soviet-era dissidents including Nobel Peace Prize laureate Andrei Sakharov must shut down after failing to identify itself as a “foreign agent” under Russian law, Judge ...