Bloomberg Taiwanese Vice President William Lai held a video call with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi — his second meeting with a senior US politician in two days— on topics including human rights in China. Pelosi, who has called for a diplomatic boycott of next month’s Beijing Winter Olympics, reiterated her concern about Chinese human rights abuses, according to a ...

  Bloomberg The French far-right leader Marine Le Pen finally secured a bank loan for her financially struggling campaign to challenge President Emmanuel Macron. The candidate in the April presidential election obtained a 10.6 million euro loan from a European bank, Jordan Bardella, president of her National Rally party, told Agence France-Presse. A spokeswoman for Le Pen didn’t immediately respond ...

  Bloomberg Mario Draghi’s failed bid to become Italian president has tarnished the aura that helped him keep a fractious coalition in line. But the damage suffered by the country’s main political parties means that the prime minister may still have the leverage to push through his agenda in the final year of his mandate. After six days of chaotic ...