Stimulus drive | Biden and Democratic lawmakers are pursuing a two-track strategy to win approval for a massive pandemic relief bill. The president promised more talks with Republicans after yesterday's meeting at the White House, while party leaders in Congress started a "budget reconciliation" procedure that will allow the passage of much of Biden's $1.9 trillion stimulus plan in the Senate by a simple majority. - Trump's lawyers will argue at his impeachment trial next week that the process was rushed and partisan and that his rhetoric to supporters who later stormed the Capitol was constitutionally protected.
- Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell denounced the "loony lies and conspiracy theories" of controversial GOP Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, calling them a "cancer" for the party and the nation.
Warning shot | China's top diplomat told the U.S. not to cross the country's "red line," pushing back against early moves by Biden to press Beijing on human rights. Yang Jiechi, who sits on the Communist Party's Politburo, said in a video address the two sides "stand at a key moment" to rebuild ties, while placing the onus on the U.S. to repair the damage caused by Trump's "misguided policies." Vaccine winners | Continental Europe's top country for getting vaccines into people is chalking its success up to looking East as well as West. Serbia is an important bridge for China to Europe, is a traditional ally of Russia and is aspiring to join the EU. As Misha Savic and Andrea Dudik report, those ties have allowed it to diversify sources and inoculate a bigger proportion of its population than any other European state after the U.K — and more than twice the ratio in the EU. -
All Germans will get a vaccine by the end of September as long as drug makers stick to their delivery commitments, Chancellor Angela Merkel said, after crisis talks with pharmaceutical executives, state premiers and European Commission officials. Testing times | Hong Kong is threatening to knock down the doors of residents who don't respond to authorities conducting mandatory-testing blitzes, as the Asian financial hub attempts to curb another wave of Covid-19 infections. The government has suggested some might be deliberately evading tests in areas that range from densely packed neighborhoods to just a handful of buildings. - Read how the U.K. and China are facing off over Hong Kong.
A mobile testing unit in the Kwun Tong neighborhood. Photographer: Paul Yeung/Bloomberg Trade shock | Intensified global competition for containers is upending the global food business, stalling shipments of everything from Thai rice and Canadian peas to India's mountain of sugar. The reason, Isis Almeida, Ann Koh and Michael Hirtzer explain, is that as China revs up its export economy, it's becoming far more profitable to send the ribbed steal boxes back empty than to refill them. What to Watch - President Jair Bolsonaro received a boost for the second half of his mandate as allies became the heads of both houses of Brazil's congress.
- The coup against Aung San Suu Kyi's government has knee-capped Myanmar's democratic transition and raised questions about the army's endgame. We hosted a Q&A live chat on LINE messenger and you can read an abridged transcript here.
- The speaker of Italy's lower house is due to report back today to President Sergio Mattarella on whether talks with parties found outgoing Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte has enough support to form a new government.
- As many as 20,000 refugees have gone missing after camps in Ethiopia's war-torn Tigray region were destroyed, the United Nations said.
And finally ... Long derided as a bumbling seat-warmer, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has emerged as a ruthless strongman — deflecting U.S. pressure, purging rivals, empowering his son, wife and trusted aides, and letting dollars flow to keep his battered economy from collapse. The result is that the man thought to be the wan face of Chavismo — the movement named for his magnetic predecessor, Hugo Chavez — is the head of what is increasingly called Madurismo. Maduro speaks at the National Assembly in Caracas on Jan. 12. Photographer: Carlos Becerra/Bloomberg |
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