North Korean Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui arrived in Russia for a trip that could facilitate a visit by President Vladimir Putin to Pyongyang and enhance arms transfers that have replenished the Kremlin’s arsenal to attack Ukraine.

US legislators released a stopgap spending bill to avert a partial government shutdown on 20 January, greatly reducing the chances of a closure but risking conservative Republican ire against House Speaker Mike Johnson.

US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin was released from hospital after a two-week stay to treat complications from prostate cancer surgery, an episode that prompted calls for his resignation over his failure to tell the White House about his condition for several days.

Ukraine, Switzerland prepare meeting to push peace formula

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said his government was working with Switzerland to hold a high-level peace conference in the Alpine nation as Kyiv seeks to recruit allies for a peace blueprint. 

The Ukrainian leader, speaking after arriving in Switzerland en route to the World Economic Forum in Davos, said all countries that respect Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity would be invited, including nations in the so-called Global South, as well as China. 

“They are playing a big role in the world,” Zelensky, speaking alongside Swiss President Viola Amherd, said of China on Monday. “That’s why we would really like for China to be involved in our formula, also to be involved in the summit, definitely.”  

Zelensky and Amherd spoke outside the Swiss capital, Bern. Chinese Prime Minister Li Qiang was received at the same venue by the Swiss president earlier in the day. Swiss and Ukrainian authorities had declined to comment on whether Li and Zelensky had met.

“We have agreed that from tomorrow, our teams will start working on the details,” Amherd said. Russia, as in previous formats, would not be invited, Zelensky said. 

A meeting of national security advisers focused on Ukraine’s peace formula ended in Davos a day before with no clear path forward. Kyiv had hoped the meeting in the Swiss mountain town would help build backing for its 10-point peace plan. 

Zelensky will head to talks with political and business leaders at the WEF. In Davos, he will try to rally support for his nation after Ukraine failed to meet its objectives in last year’s counteroffensive and faces uncertainty over wartime funding from the US and European Union.   

North Korea’s foreign minister in Russia as arms ties build

North Korean Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui arrived in Russia for a trip that could facilitate a visit by President Vladimir Putin to Pyongyang and enhance arms transfers that have replenished the Kremlin’s arsenal to attack Ukraine.

Choe will be in Russia until Wednesday, North Korean state media said. This is her first trip to the country since September when she joined Kim Jong-un for a visit in which he met Putin, who accepted an invitation from the North Korean leader for a reciprocal trip. 

The US and South Korea said soon after Kim’s visit, North Korea began shipping more than a million rounds of artillery and some of its newest ballistic missiles to Russia, which have made their way to the battlefield in Putin’s assault on Ukraine. The flood of munitions is coming as Kyiv’s stocks of certain types of weaponry are running thin.

Choe was set to have talks with her counterpart Sergey Lavrov on Tuesday, Russia’s foreign ministry told the Tass news wire. Lavrov travelled to Pyongyang in October on his first such trip there in about five years.

Kim pledged at the end of last year to “develop the relations of strategic cooperation with the anti-imperialist independent countries”. The visit of his foreign minister was worrisome because it could mean North Korea taking a more active role in global conflicts such as the war in Ukraine, said Rachel Minyoung Lee, a regional issues manager at the Vienna-based Open Nuclear Network who worked as an analyst for the CIA’s Open Source Enterprise for almost two decades.

She also said Choe’s trip comes during a cooling in ties with China. Beijing for years has been North Korea’s biggest benefactor.

US Congress unveils temporary spending bill to avert shutdown

US legislators released a stopgap spending bill to avert a partial government shutdown on 20 January, greatly reducing the chances of a closure, but risking conservative Republican ire against House Speaker Mike Johnson.

Johnson has demanded a full array of conservative migration policies be attached to any Ukraine bill without hinting he would be willing to compromise. A bipartisan group of senators working on a border bill has yet to propose any compromise despite weeks of work.

The temporary spending bill would extend funds for some agencies that face a 20 January deadline until 1 March and for others that face a 2 February deadline until 8 March. The Senate was to begin procedural votes on the bill, known as a continuing resolution (CR), on Tuesday and will require cooperation among the 100 senators to pass it before the deadline. 

“To avoid a shutdown, it will take bipartisan cooperation in the Senate and the House to quickly pass the CR and send it to the President’s desk before Friday’s funding deadline,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said.

While the bill preserves a bifurcated approach to the 12 annual spending bills favoured by Johnson as a way to avoid a catch-all package, or omnibus, it violates the speaker’s pledge in November to refuse to support any more temporary funding. 

US defence chief leaves hospital after stay that caused uproar

US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin was released from hospital after a two-week stay to treat complications from prostate cancer surgery, an episode that prompted calls for his resignation over his failure to tell the White House about his condition for several days.

“The secretary continues to recover well and, on the advice of doctors, will recuperate and perform his duties remotely for a period of time before returning full-time to the Pentagon,” the Defense Department said on Monday in an emailed statement.

US President Joe Biden said he still had confidence in Austin and didn’t want him to resign. But the episode provoked consternation in the White House, where advisers expressed befuddlement at Austin’s decisions and fretted that Biden risked looking like he had a poor grasp of his national security team for not realising that his defence chief was absent for several days.

Austin’s release from hospital may not mark the end of the furore. The House Armed Services Committee has announced it will investigate the issue.

“With wars in Ukraine and Israel, the idea that the White House and even your own deputy did not understand the nature of your condition is patently unacceptable,” committee Chairman Mike Rogers, an Alabama Republican, wrote last week. “Everything from ongoing counterterrorism operations to nuclear command and control relies on a clear understanding of the secretary’s decision-making capacity.” DM