Bloomberg Secretary of State Antony Blinken called Venezuela’s decision to withdraw from talks with the political opposition “deeply unfortunate,” saying the move showed how President Nicolas Maduro put his own interests ahead of his country’s. Speaking at a news conference in Quito, Ecuador, Blinken said the extradition of Colombian businessman Alex Saab, an ally of Maduro’s, had been “going on ...

Bloomberg Angela Merkel is worried that some European Union leaders and lawmakers are thrusting the EU into a fight with Poland that leaves no room for compromise and could end in disaster. In her final weeks in the job, the German chancellor has publicly warned in her own carefully couched and diplomatic way about the EU’s tactics in the confrontation. ...

Bloomberg China has promoted a Xinjiang official sanctioned by the US in its biggest personnel reshuffle in years, as President Xi Jinping prepares to kick off a year of politicking inside the ruling Communist Party. Wang Junzheng, 58, was given the top party position in Tibet, the official Xinhua News Agency reported, promoted from party chief of a powerful economic ...

Bloomberg A far-right media pundit who talks about arming citizens and is cementing his position as a main contender for France’s upcoming presidential election demonstrated a love for guns at a trade fair in Paris. Eric Zemmour on Wednesday visited the Milipol International Exhibition, which is promoted as a leading event for homeland security and safety. At one stand, Zemmour ...

Bloomberg Days before it hosts United Nations negotiations over how to ramp up the global fight against climate change, the UK released a sweeping plan to decarbonize its economy by targeting everything from the finance industry to home heating. The masterplan will give British politicians something to tout as they put pressure on other nations to raise their green ambitions ...

Bloomberg Poland threatened to stonewall talks on the European Union’s climate pact unless it receives access to the bloc’s recovery package, raising the stakes of a meeting of the bloc’s leaders on Thursday. Coal-dependent Poland seeks to gain some leverage over the EU by linking further talks on cutting greenhouse gas emissions to tapping billions of euros in pandemic recovery ...

Bloomberg A White House-backed clean power program that was rejected by Senator Joe Manchin could be resurrected as a grant program that would reward states that increase clean energy. Lawmakers have been working on a Clean Energy Challenge Grant Program for states as an alternative, Representative Jared Huffman, a California Democrat, said in a telephone interview following a meeting with ...

Bloomberg Argentina’s government is freezing prices on 1,432 household items in an effort to cool accelerating inflation ahead of November’s midterm election and the Christmas holidays. Prices will remain fixed until January 7 on the products, a larger list than the roughly 900 items government officials had originally pitched to companies and supermarkets last week. Talks between the government and ...

Bloomberg Governments need to fully commit to a European Union plan to increase the bloc’s share of global semiconductor production to 20% by 2030, Prime Minister Mario Draghi told lawmakers in Rome on Wednesday. “In order to make the ecological transition, in order to make the digital transition, there are no alternatives to state intervention,” Draghi said, noting that subsidies ...

Bloomberg The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation said millions of courses of Merck & Co’s promising pill for Covid-19 could begin to reach lower-income nations early next year as the charity kicks in as much as $120 million to widen global access to the therapy. The funds will help spur generic-drug manufacturers, some of which have indicated they could produce ...