Bloomberg The week before Joe Biden’s inauguration, downtown Washington looks like a city preparing for war. A huge swath of the city core is blocked off, patrolled by uniformed National Guard forces as part of a build-up not seen since the Civil War. And the US capital is getting even more fortified as federal, state and local officials brace for ...

Bloomberg Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni coasted to victory in elections that were marred by a clampdown on opposition campaigning, extending his 35-year rule. Museveni won 58.6% of votes cast on January 14, according to results released on Saturday by the Electoral Commission of Uganda on state television. Pop star-turned-politician Bobi Wine, 38, whose real name is Robert Kyagulanyi and presented ...

Bloomberg Hong Kong’s government expressed its “utmost anger” towards a US decision to sanction six officials from the city and China, calling the move “insane, shameless and despicable.” The US is attempting to “intervene” in the internal affairs of China and Hong Kong, and “obstruct” their efforts to safeguard national security, the city’s government said in a statement on Saturday. ...

Bloomberg Australia joined allies including the US and the UK in raising concern about the use of products from China’s Xinjiang region in global supply chains. Local companies that source goods from the area need to properly check supply chain and suppliers, Foreign Minister Marise Payne was quoted as telling the Australian Financial Review in an interview. Governments are seeking ...

Bloomberg Germany’s dominant party voted for continuity by electing Armin Laschet as leader, opting for the candidate who most resembles outgoing chancellor, Angela Merkel, in policy and style. Laschet, head of the country’s most populous state, beat long-time Merkel critic Friedrich Merz in a runoff after Norbert Roettgen, chairman of foreign affairs committee in Bundestag, was eliminated in first round ...

Bloomberg Some of the world’s biggest banks are urging a US judge not to immediately terminate Libor after a group of borrowers filed suit claiming the benchmark was the work of a “price-fixing cartel.” Defendants in the case, including JPMorgan Chase & Co., Credit Suisse Group AG and Deutsche Bank AG, said in a November filing that an injunction abruptly ...

Bloomberg Morgan Stanley strategists have dropped their expectations of near-term weakening in the dollar amid a regime shift in US rates propelled partly by prospects for meaningful fiscal expansion. “It’s no longer attractive to be positioned for a weaker dollar from here given the uncertainties around the fiscal policy outlook, the monetary policy outlook, and the growth and inflation outlook,” ...

Bloomberg The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) is open to examining any proposal to set up a bad bank, Governor Shaktikanta Das said, days after the authority forecast a surge in soured assets. “If any proposal comes we are open to examining it and issuing the regulatory guidelines but it’s for the government and the private sector players to really ...

Bloomberg As HSBC Holdings pins its future on China, Europe’s largest bank is grooming a set of well-connected bankers to navigate its fraught relationship with Beijing in the long run. David Liao and Mark Yunfeng Wang, heads of Asia Pacific global banking and its China operations, respectively, are among a handful of contenders in the running to steer HSBC’s expansion ...

Bloomberg Brazil’s central bank said inflation pressures could persist in the beginning of the year, eventually leading to an interest rate hike, after a report showed consumer prices surged in December by the most since 2003. While reaffirming that a record-low rate of 2% is adequate for now, Monetary Policy Director Bruno Serra said Brazil shouldn’t have such a level ...