PODCAST

News - South China Morning Post

All the latest breaking news from Hong Kong, China and around the world

All Episodes

China recruiter slammed for telling candidate no...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2026/01/31

A recruiter from a major state-owned insurance company sparked controversy by telling a job candidate that they did not deserve weekends off because they only held a bachelor’s degree. The incident came to public attention on January 18, when a jobseeker from Urumqi, in the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region of northwestern China, revealed details of the interview online. The applicant said that a recruiter on the job platform Boss Zhipin, a publicly listed Chinese company specialising in

Quadriplegic man in China runs a smart farm with just...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2026/01/31

Li Xia suffers from an incurable genetic disease that has left him paralysed from the neck down.Yet the 36-year-old has overcome the odds by setting up a mini farm that he cultivates from inside his home in China.

As Thailand election looms, voters seek national...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2026/01/31

It was a policy meant to ignite a golden age of infrastructure development and put Thailand at the heart of Southeast Asia’s trade and investment for decades to come. Three years – and three prime ministers – after it was first proposed, a multibillion-dollar “landbridge” across Thailand’s southern neck to slash transport times between Asia’s main shipping lanes has now hit a dead end, entangled in the kingdom’s intractable political crisis. As Thais prepare to vote on February 8 for yet

US man escapes execution for dumping girl, 5, to be...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2026/01/30

The man who dumped a five-year-old girl in the Everglades – leaving her to be killed by alligators – had his life spared by a jury on Friday afternoon in a Miami-Dade courtroom. Harrel Braddy, 76, sat quietly when the verdict was read, briefly putting down his head before looking up at the ceiling. His eyes appeared to water. Braddy hugged his lawyers as the jury walked out of the courtroom. The girl’s mother, who testified about the horrific details of Braddy’s attack, was not in the...

US likely averts major government shutdown by...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2026/01/30

The US is poised to avoid a major shutdown after senators agreed on Friday to separate a controversial bill funding the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) from a package that also includes funding for the State Department and the Pentagon. The House, which is out of session this week, will still need to approve the package before it can be signed into law, meaning that there will be at least a brief funding lapse after current funding expires on Friday. But the chamber is expected to move

How will China respond as US expands foreign ship...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2026/01/30

China is expected to look for ways to protect its maritime interests in the face of increasingly assertive efforts by the United States to seize foreign ships it accuses of breaching sanctions on countries such as Iran and Venezuela. In November, a cargo ship travelling to Iran from China was reportedly raided by a US special operations team in the Indian Ocean near Sri Lanka and its cargo of dual military-civilian use goods confiscated. It was the first known US interception of outbound

Ex-Google engineer Ding Linwei convicted of stealing...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2026/01/30

Former Google software engineer Ding Linwei was convicted by a federal jury in San Francisco ‌on Thursday of stealing AI trade secrets from the US tech ‍giant to benefit two Chinese companies he was secretly working for, the US Department of Justice said on Thursday. Ding, a 38-year-old Chinese national, was found guilty after an 11-day trial ⁠of seven counts of economic espionage and seven counts of theft of trade secrets for stealing thousands of pages of confidential information. Each...

When in doubt, EU leaders dig an even bigger hole

News - South China Morning Post ·

2026/01/30

Three news items caught my eye over the past few days. The European Union is finally ready to totally ban the import of Russian natural gas. (You mean they have still been buying Russian gas?) The new National Defence Strategy put out by the Pentagon says the United States will de-prioritise Europe – which must address its own regional security needs – and focus on deterring China. And former German chancellor Gerhard Schröder wrote a piece in a newspaper that ended up drawing a lot of flak

US hails Panama high court ruling against CK...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2026/01/30

Washington on Friday welcomed a Panamanian court ruling cancelling a contract held by a subsidiary of Hong Kong-based CK Hutchison Holdings to operate two ports along the Panama Canal, a decision seen as a boost to the United States’ efforts to counter Chinese influence in the western hemisphere. The reaction came as Panama’s government sought to reassure workers and investors on the ground that trade and jobs would not be affected. “The United States is encouraged by the recent Panamanian...

Schitt’s Creek, Home Alone star Catherine O’Hara dies...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2026/01/30

Catherine O’Hara, a gifted Canadian-born comic actress and SCTV alum who starred as Macaulay Culkin’s harried mother in two Home Alone films and won an Emmy as the dramatically ditsy wealthy matriarch Moira Rose in Schitt’s Creek died on Friday. She was 71. O’Hara died at her home in Los Angeles “following a brief illness”, according to a statement from her agency, Creative Artists Agency. Further details were not immediately available. O’Hara’s career was launched at the Second City in

US Justice Department opens probe into killing of...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2026/01/30

The US Justice Department has opened a federal civil rights investigation into the shooting of Alex Pretti, the Minneapolis resident killed by Border Patrol officers on January 24, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said on Friday. “We’re looking at everything that would shed light on what happened that day and in the days and weeks leading up to what happened,” Blanche said during a news conference. Blanche did not explain why the DOJ decided to open an investigation into Pretti’s killing,...

WTO faults US in dispute brought by China over clean...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2026/01/30

The World Trade Organization has faulted the United States in a dispute brought by China over US green energy subsidies introduced under former US president Joe Biden, according to a ruling issued on Friday. The global trade body’s dispute panel said that large tax credits granted under Biden’s landmark climate law, the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), were “inconsistent” with several WTO agreements and should be withdrawn. That law, which was signed by Biden in 2022, was the largest climate...

China lifted sanctions on British lawmakers after...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2026/01/30

Beijing has lifted sanctions on British peers and lawmakers, Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has said, following his meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping. “This has been a cause of concern in parliament and for parliamentarians for some time and that is why I raised it on this visit,” Starmer told ITV News in Shanghai. “And the response from the Chinese is that the restrictions no longer apply and President Xi has told me that that means that all parliamentarians are welcome to visit,”

Luigi Mangione won’t face death penalty after US...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2026/01/30

Federal prosecutors cannot seek the death penalty against Luigi Mangione in the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, a judge ruled on Friday, foiling the Trump administration’s bid to see him executed for what it called a “premeditated, cold-blooded assassination that shocked America”. US District Judge Margaret Garnett dismissed a federal murder charge that had enabled prosecutors to seek capital punishment, finding that it was technically flawed. She wrote that she did so to...

Final set of Epstein files released, with mentions of...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2026/01/30

The US Justice Department on Friday published millions of ‌new files related to the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, including emails that show Howard Lutnick, President Donald Trump’s commerce secretary, apparently visited Epstein’s private island for lunch years after he claimed to have cut off ties. Todd ‍Blanche, the US deputy attorney general, said Friday’s massive batch of documents marked the end of the Trump administration’s planned releases under a law passed in November that...

Spain arrests Chinese hair salon owner for funding...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2026/01/30

Spanish police have detained a 38-year-old Chinese national who owned a ‌hair salon near Barcelona on suspicion of financing ‍the militant group Hamas through about €600,000 (US$715,000) in cryptocurrency transfers, regional police said on Friday.Investigators traced at least 31 crypto transactions ⁠from virtual wallets controlled by the suspect to addresses that are suspected of being linked to an entity used by the Islamist group, whose attack on Israel on October 7, ‍2023, triggered a...

Islamic State claims bold attack on Niger’s strategic...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2026/01/30

The Islamic State extremist group on Friday claimed responsibility for an attack in Niger on an air force base in the capital that wounded four soldiers and damaged an aircraft. The claim of responsibility was contained in a statement on Amaq News Agency, the group’s propaganda wing, that said it was “a surprise and coordinated attack” that inflicted heavy losses. State television reported that Niger’s forces responded quickly to the assault early on Thursday, killing 20 of the attackers and...

Trump DOJ arrests ex-CNN anchor Don Lemon after judge...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2026/01/30

Former CNN anchor Don Lemon has been arrested after he entered a Minnesota church and recorded anti-immigration enforcement protesters who disrupted a service in an incident that increased tensions between residents and the Trump administration, his lawyer said on Friday. Lemon was taken into custody by federal agents in Los Angeles, where he had been covering the Grammy Awards, Abbe Lowell said. It is unclear what charge or charges Lemon is facing in the January 18 protest. The arrest came...

Hong Kong shelves cross-border levy plan, marks...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2026/01/30

Hong Kong’s treasury minister has said authorities will shelve a proposed levy on private cars crossing the border into mainland China, citing feedback from lawmakers and members of the public. Secretary for Financial Services and the Treasury Christopher Hui Ching-yu told the Legislative Council on Friday that the government had decided not to go ahead with implementing the boundary facility fee for the time being after “careful consideration”, marking the second policy U-turn of the

Has China’s PL-17 missile, likely Pacific...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2026/01/30

The first close-up image of the Chinese PL-17 long-range missile – one of the most mysterious weapons in the PLA Air Force’s arsenal – appears to have surfaced online. Analysts say the PL-17 may be the world’s longest-range air-to-air missile, posing a threat to US air superiority in the western Pacific. A photo believed to show the PL-17 has recently been making the rounds on Chinese social media. The date and location of the photo are unclear, although the angle of view is extremely close

21,863 results