PODCAST

News - South China Morning Post

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

All Episodes

At Davos, Singapore’s Tharman calls for US-China...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2026/01/21

Competition between the United States and China could help drive global progress, but only if both powers exercise restraint in sensitive areas such as nuclear technology and artificial intelligence, Singapore President Tharman Shanmugaratnam has said. Speaking at the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos on Wednesday, Tharman stressed that broad innovation benefits could come from rivalry between the two superpowers. He added that innovations born of competition could lead to...

Chips, soybeans, tariffs: what’s on tap for US-China...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2026/01/21

Chinese and US negotiators are expected to discuss stepping up trade in AI chips and farm products, as well as what to do later this year when their hard-fought 2025 truce expires – all before President Donald Trump visits China for the first time in his current term, analysts said on Wednesday. US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent suggested on Tuesday that the pieces were in place for an April summit in Beijing between Trump and President Xi Jinping, as announced by the US leader in late...

Probe into Spain train crash turns to missing ‘bogie’...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2026/01/21

A large piece of metal found ‌near the site of a high-speed train crash in Spain may be the missing chunk of undercarriage that investigators ‍have been searching for to find the cause of the accident, a source and experts said on Wednesday. The crash, one of Europe’s biggest, happened on Sunday night near the southern town of Adamuz in a remote hilly area, killing at least 42 people. Inaki Barron, the head of Spain’s railway accident investigating body CIAF, said on Monday that the...

John Lee calls Hong Kong’s CPPCC delegates a...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2026/01/21

Hong Kong delegates to China’s top political advisory body are a “steadfast patriotic force” and make an important contribution to the city’s long-term prosperity and stability, Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu has said. The city leader praised the delegates of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) on Wednesday as he hosted Jiang Zuojun, vice-chairman of the body’s 14th National Committee, at Government House. The meeting took place less than two months before the

Hong Kong builder linked to 5 workplace deaths wins...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2026/01/21

A Hong Kong court has ordered the buildings authorities to reconsider the licence renewal application of a construction company linked to five workplace deaths across three accidents, ruling that officials failed to provide adequate reasons for their refusal. The High Court’s Madam Justice Yvonne Cheng Wai-sum ruled in favour of Aggressive Construction on Wednesday, although she emphasised the court was not responsible for determining whether the rejection was justified or if the company...

China-founded Shanda’s AI lab boosts Singapore...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2026/01/21

Frontier research lab MiroMind, a subsidiary of the China-founded multinational firm Shanda Group, has asked some of its staff in Shanghai to relocate to Singapore, according to people with knowledge of the matter, raising comparisons to artificial intelligence start-up Manus’ pull-out from China last year. Those actions came amid Sunday’s reorganisation announcement by Shanda and Singapore-based MiroMind, which said its research on artificial general intelligence (AGI) and fundamental...

Sidestepping Greenland row, Nato chief urges Arctic...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2026/01/21

Nato members must collectively protect the Arctic from growing Chinese and Russian influence, the chief of the security alliance said on Wednesday, while sidestepping the issue of Washington’s controversial bid to acquire Greenland. Speaking at an event during the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland on Wednesday, Nato Secretary General Mark Rutte said the transatlantic security alliance was crucial not only for the defence of Europe, but also for the US, which required a “safe Arctic,

Indian Kashmir police pressure journalists to sign...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2026/01/21

Police in Indian Kashmir have asked at least three journalists working in the region to sign a pledge vowing ‌not to “disturb peace” in the region, two of them told Reuters on Wednesday. A third ‍journalist, an assistant editor with the Indian Express newspaper, was summoned to a police station in Srinagar, the capital of the federal territory, but did not sign the pledge, the newspaper said in a report published on Wednesday. India has imposed ⁠several restrictions in the troubled...

Trump tells Davos US must have Greenland but won’t...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2026/01/21

This live blog has been made freely available as a public service to our readers. Please consider supporting SCMP’s journalism by subscribing. Get faster notifications on the latest updates by downloading our app. US President Donald Trump tackled a slew of hot geopolitical topics at the World Economic Forum on Wednesday in a sometimes rambling speech that overran by almost 30 minutes. Trump, who complained that he had not received enough recognition for his achievements in world peace, said...

US losing ground to China with ‘onslaught’ on...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2026/01/21

The United States could be at risk of falling behind China in the technology race unless it halts the “wholesale onslaught” on scientific research programmes taking place under US President Donald Trump, according to the Nobel Prize-winning economist Joel Mokyr. The American-Israeli scholar, who shared the 2025 prize for economics, said “all areas that are at the cutting edge of science” in the US were “suffering” under the current administration, which appeared to be “against any kind of...

US envoy Witkoff to meet Putin in Moscow for pivotal...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2026/01/21

US envoy Steve Witkoff said he and Jared Kushner will travel to Russia on Thursday for talks with President Vladimir Putin on the latest proposals for a peace plan to end the war in Ukraine. “The Russians have invited us to come and that’s a significant statement from them,” Witkoff said in an interview with Bloomberg Television at the World Economic Forum in Davos on Wednesday. “Jared and I will leave Thursday night and arrive in Moscow late at night.” US President Donald Trump remains

Passenger numbers for Hong Kong’s Cathay go sky high...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2026/01/21

Hong Kong’s Cathay Pacific Airways and its budget arm carried more than 36 million passengers in 2025, up 27 per cent from the previous year, on the back of growth in tourist numbers. Cathay Group said on Wednesday that the number of passengers handled by its premium carrier grew by 26.5 per cent to 28.87 million last year, while the figure for HK Express rose by 29.7 per cent to 7.91 million. The company said the growth in passenger numbers was related to a “significant expansion in

Hong Kong to build elite fencing, sports venues in...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2026/01/21

Hong Kong has allocated land within its Northern Metropolis to build venues for elite fencing, other sports and recreation, with observers saying the initiative must balance top-level athlete training with convenient access for residents. In a written reply to lawmaker Kenneth Fok Kai-kong on Wednesday, Secretary for Culture, Sports and Tourism Rosanna Law Shuk-pui confirmed that the government had earmarked strategic sites in the Northern Metropolis specifically for top-tier fencing training...

Chinese goods pour into Africa, widening trade gap to...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2026/01/21

China ramped up its exports to Africa last year, widening its trade surplus with the continent by 64.5 per cent to a record US$102 billion, according to Chinese customs figures. The jump in the trade gap – up from US$62 billion the previous year – was driven by a 25.8 per cent surge in Chinese exports to the continent to US$225 billion, far outpacing the 5.4 per cent growth in African shipments to China to US$123 billion, according to the latest data from China’s General Administration of...

After Spain train crash, search for missing dog grips...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2026/01/21

Blanket draped over her shoulders and a bandage on her cheek, Ana Garcia issued a desperate plea: she needed help finding her dog, Boro. Hours earlier, 26-year-old Garcia and her pregnant sister had been travelling with Boro by high-speed train from Malaga, their hometown in southern Spain, to capital Madrid. The tail of their train car jumped the rails for reasons that remain unclear, then was smashed into by a train coming in the opposite direction that tumbled down an adjacent slope. At

Indonesia police arrest 9 in Medan baby trafficking...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2026/01/21

Indonesian police have dismantled an alleged baby trafficking ring that used social media to sell newborns in Medan after neighbours reported suspicious activity at a rented house. Medan police chief Jean Calvijn Simanjuntak said nine people had been arrested and three others were being sought, according to a report by The Jakarta Post on Tuesday. The suspects were believed to have sold at least two babies for between 9 million and 25 million rupiah (US$530 to US$1,475) each and were

How Asia’s economies could benefit from Trump’s...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2026/01/21

Asia’s economies may unintentionally benefit from the United States’ confrontational foreign policy across several continents, even as analysts warn of near-term volatile commodity prices. President Donald Trump has said the US wants to seize control of Greenland, an autonomous territory of Denmark, amid tensions between Washington and the European Union over his intention. It comes after the US captured Venezuela’s leader, Nicolas Maduro, and said it would take control of the South American...

Palestinian baby dies from cold in Gaza tent as Trump...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2026/01/21

A Palestinian baby died from hypothermia on Tuesday in the Gaza Strip, underscoring the grim humanitarian conditions in the territory as world leaders were gathering at a Swiss resort where US President Donald Trump’s Gaza ceasefire plan is high on the agenda. Shaza Abu Jarad’s family found the 3-month-old on Tuesday morning in their tent in the Daraj neighbourhood of Gaza City. “She was freezing, and dead,” the baby’s father, Mohamed Abu Jarad, who spoke by phone after a funeral, said. “She...

World in midst of biggest infrastructure buildout as...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2026/01/21

The world is witnessing the biggest infrastructure buildout in history, with the foundation for an artificial intelligence system evolving quickly, according to Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang. “We are now a few hundred billion dollars into it,” he said at the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos on Wednesday, adding that trillions of dollars of infrastructure still had to be built. Huang described the AI industry as a “five-layered cake” – energy at the bottom, followed by chips, cloud

‘No reliable evidence’ Taipan bakery chain can settle...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2026/01/21

A Hong Kong judge has said his decision to order the winding-up of bakery chain Taipan’s parent company is due to there being “no reliable evidence” that the business can settle its outstanding rent of more than HK$2 million (US$256,500). In a written judgment released on Tuesday, Deputy Judge Gary Lam Chin-ching of the High Court said Vast Luck Company Limited had twice failed to pay its debts, resulting in a breach of what the business earlier stated in court. The winding-up order was

21,863 results