Global Risk Briefing

Politics is roiling markets as the Trump era dawns, Chinese leadership turns over and major elections sweep through Europe. Bloomberg’s risk map signals where danger lurks.

Putin Has Some Lessons for Trump in the Art of ‘Great Powerness’

Warning: the Kremlin is trying to split the West by spreading “altered facts,” conducting blackmail and setting up front organizations, the U.S. State Department said -- in 1981.

So-called active measures were common during the Cold War, when the U.S. and the Soviet Union sought to unify and divide Europe with equal urgency. Now those tactics appear to be back, retooled for the digital age as President Vladimir Putin embraces the even older Russian foreign policy tradition of “derzhavnost,” or “great powerness.”

North Korean Nuclear Ambitions to Be Defining Issue for Trump

President Donald Trump will be forced to deal with ongoing threats from North Korea as that country gains the ability to threaten the continental U.S. with a nuclear strike, an official said on Sunday, hours after Pyongyang fired a ballistic missile into nearby seas.

Merkel Doesn’t Look Like She’s About to Help Theresa May on Brexit

When it came to wooing Angela Merkel, U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron pulled all the stops with a prestigious invitation to address Parliament, box sets of her favorite British crime series and even an invitation to spendhis 49th birthdaytogether.

As the linchpin of the European Union, the German chancellor was the key to granting the concessions on immigration Cameron needed to persuade voters to keep the U.K. in the bloc. But she refused and Britain backedBrexit.

Netanyahu Heads to U.S. Seeking to Reset Ties After Obama Years

The Obama years sprang some unwanted surprises on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu -- like secret nuclear talks with Iran.

This week, in his first White House visit with President Donald Trump, Netanyahu’s priority will be to make sure Israel is kept in the loop and that the two countries’ positions are generally aligned, according to Michael Oren, Israel’s ambassador to the U.S. for much of Barack Obama’s term.

Battered Zuma Turns to Populism

With his time as leader of South Africa’s ruling African National Congress running out, President Jacob Zumais gambling that a raft of populist measures can bolster his grassroots support and ensure his political survival.

Forget ‘Fake News.’ For Markets, It’s Never Been More Real

Buy the news and sell the soft data.

That’s the conclusion drawn from apaper by the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, which suggests that financial news holds predictive power when it comes to a slew of economic data. Stories about the U.S. economy can even outperform more traditional measures such as surveys of consumer sentiment when it comes to gauging‘‘animal spirits’’ and forecasting future activity, it found.