As speculation about war with Ukraine fills the news, it’s hardly surprising that the Russian ruble is once again heading to its weakest level against the US dollar — one last seen in 2020 — having depreciated over 5% this month. Ever tougher sanctions from the West have been threatened repeatedly, which would make already-restricted trade and capital movements even ...

  Authoritarian regimes tend to boast about themselves and denigrate their rivals. President Xi Jinping’s China is no exception. “As the Covid-19 epidemic takes away hundreds of lives every day in the US,” wrote Hu Xijin, the former editor in chief of the Global Times, on January 14, “that country’s propaganda machinery is engaging in vicious smears against China’s dynamic ...

  The fight against global warming is rapidly moving into the courtrooms. In the past few years, in landmark cases in the Netherlands, Germany and France, courts have agreed that state and corporate entities have a duty to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and demanded they adopt more aggressive policies. A Dutch court, for example, ordered the government to reduce emissions ...

  Bloomberg Two years into the pandemic and the airline industry remains on standby for the return of business travelers. Expectations that expense account-wielding road warriors would follow on the heels of leisure travelers have yet to materialize, and the outlook remains hazy with the spread of the latest coronavirus variant. That’s kept carriers’ profits in check and raised questions ...

  Bloomberg North Korea appeared to have fired one of its biggest ballistic missiles in almost five years, adding to its largest series of tests since Kim Jong-un took power as he forces his nuclear arsenal back onto the Biden administration’s agenda. North Korea launched a suspected intermediate range missile for the first time since 2017, according to initial assessments ...

  Bloomberg Russia wants an explanation of European security obligations from western nations before making its next proposals on the Ukraine crisis, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said. Moscow is asking Nato members and countries in the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe to clarify how they intend to fulfill OSCE obligations not to strengthen security at the expense of ...

  Bloomberg UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s embattled position was reinforced by Foreign Secretary Liz Truss amid a scandal over alleged pandemic-rule-breaking parties, as she batted away speculation that she could run for the leadership. “The future of the PM is assured,” Truss said on the BBC’s Sunday Morning show. “He’s doing an excellent job on the things that matter ...

  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 ...