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The US now owns more than just Venezuela’s oil

News - South China Morning Post ·

2026/01/06

On a quiet Saturday morning, American special forces seized Nicolas Maduro in Caracas and flew him to the United States. Within hours, US President Donald Trump announced that Washington would “run” Venezuela – at least temporarily. What sounds like a 1990s action film plot marked the final burial of the notion that Trump is a president of peace, an illusion sustained largely by his own rhetoric. More importantly, it marked the day the world’s former arbiter of international law and norms

Li Qiang and Lee Jae Myung back free trade and...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2026/01/06

Premier Li Qiang called for multilateralism and free trade in his meeting with visiting South Korean President Lee Jae Myung on Tuesday and said China would promote cooperation in emerging fields such as high-end manufacturing, new energy and artificial intelligence (AI). Li said China aimed to expand “the breadth and depth of cooperation” to achieve more practical outcomes and was willing to expand market access and integration, according to Beijing’s account of the meeting. “We stand ready

Thailand tightens cannabis sales as dispensaries face...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2026/01/06

Thailand’s government is planning to further rein in thousands of cannabis dispensaries that have sprung up in the wake of decriminalisation by limiting sales of the plant mostly to licensed medical facilities. Thailand became the first country in Asia to decriminalise cannabis in 2022, but has since tightened its regulation in a series of policy changes. According to a draft of an amended Health Ministry regulation on “controlled herbs”, sales of cannabis will only be allowed at medical...

Why Iran may not be the next Venezuela despite twin...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2026/01/06

The recent US strike against Venezuela is likely to deepen the Iranian leadership’s concerns about further intervention from Washington but analysts do not expect the leadership will be targeted directly in the same way as Nicolas Maduro. They pointed to the higher geopolitical stakes in the Middle East compared with Latin America and the greater role played by China, Russia and other countries. Before the abduction of Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro, the leadership in Iran had already been...

2 owners of Hong Kong eatery arrested for hiring 5...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2026/01/06

Hong Kong immigration authorities have broken up an operation in which two local restaurant owners hired illegal foreign workers at their food factory to supply products to their eatery and culinary fairs in the city. Pau Hiu-fung from the Immigration Department’s foreign domestic helpers investigation section said on Tuesday that two owners of a local Southeast Asian restaurant and five illegal workers they hired were arrested last Saturday. “Our investigations show that the food produced by...

Swiss bar in deadly blaze missed five years of safety...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2026/01/06

Swiss local authorities admitted on Tuesday that fire safety inspections had not been carried out for the past five years at a bar where 40 people died and dozens were injured in a New Year’s blaze. “We are profoundly sorry. We did not have an indication that the checks had not been done,” Crans-Montana Mayor Nicolas Feraud told reporters. “Although more than 1,400 fire inspections were carried out in the municipality in 2025 alone, the municipal council deeply regrets discovering that this...

BBC journalists reportedly told to avoid saying US...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2026/01/06

BBC journalists have reportedly been instructed not to describe America’s abduction of Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro as a “kidnapping”, according to a British newspaper columnist. The editorial instruction was unveiled on Monday by Owen Jones, a commentator with more than a million followers on social media. Jones said a memo from BBC management had been passed to him. According to an image Jones uploaded with his post, the guidelines told BBC journalists to use “captured” when referring

South Korean President Lee Jae-myung lands in Beijing...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2026/01/04

President Lee Jae-myung of South Korea, a key US ally in East Asia, arrived in Beijing at noon on Sunday for his first China trip since taking office.The four-day state visit comes at a moment when the global order is teetering, with old structures crumbling and a new world yet to emerge. Over 200 South Korean entrepreneurs, including the chairmen of Samsung and SK Group, are accompanying Lee on his trip, which includes two days each in Beijing and Shanghai. Lee will attend a Korea-China...

‘Embrace the moment’: on China, Daniel Kritenbrink...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2026/01/04

Daniel J. Kritenbrink is a partner at The Asia Group. Previously, Kritenbrink served in the United States government as assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs and ambassador to Vietnam. His diplomatic career spans three decades and includes assignments in Japan, China, Kuwait and Washington. In this interview, Kritenbrink discusses the many nuances of the US-China relationship, from cooperation to competition to rivalry, and argues both countries should weigh the...

China is likely to thread the needle after US attack...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2026/01/04

China will be patient and play the long game as it views the new geopolitical chessboard, recalibrating carefully in the wake of US President Donald Trump’s move on Saturday to decapitate Venezuela’s leadership, analysts said. In a daring predawn raid, US forces descended on ousted Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro and airlifted him shackled and blindfolded to New York to face charges of “narcoterrorism conspiracy” and illegal weapons trafficking. “China is likely to thread this needle...

Why China is still struggling to ‘invest in people’

News - South China Morning Post ·

2026/01/04

As 2026 dawns, China has signalled a renewed crusade: persuading its citizens to spend more, for their own benefit and for the country’s. Yet history offers a cautionary tale. China’s leaders have long harboured an ambivalent relationship with consumption as a growth engine, instead favouring production and investment. This time, though, the signals suggest a deeper resolve. The gravity of this pivot is underscored by Qiushi, the Communist Party’s flagship publication, which last month

Berlin mayor denounces attack on city’s power grid as...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2026/01/04

Mayor Kai Wegner has classified the major attack on Berlin’s power supply as terrorism: “This is not just arson or sabotage. This is already terrorism,” the conservative politician told the regional RBB television on Sunday evening. Wegner said that a left-wing extremist group attacked the infrastructure, endangering lives, including those of elderly people who might need ventilators and families with young children. “We must catch these perpetrators now,” he added. The Berlin police, the...

Donald Trump tells Venezuelan VP Delcy Rodriguez to...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2026/01/04

US President Donald Trump issued a stark warning on Sunday to Venezuela’s interim leader, Delcy Rodriguez, saying she would pay a potentially larger price than her former boss, ousted Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro, if she does not cooperate with the United States. In the early hours of Saturday morning, US forces staged a complex raid that saw Maduro and his wife seized from their home, jailed and airlifted to New York to face trial on “narcoterrorism” and illegal weapons charges. “If

Raw emotion as mourners pay tribute to victims of...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2026/01/04

A heavy pall of grief hung over Crans-Montana on Sunday as more than a thousand mourners walked in silence through the Swiss ski resort to remember those killed and injured in a horrific New Year’s Eve fire. A total of 40 people died in the tragic blaze at Le Constellation. The bar’s owners are under criminal investigation. A mass dedicated to the victims was held at a small chapel some 300 metres down the road from the gutted bar, outside which well-wishers have left an abundance of flowers,...

Loot in German bank vault break-in could exceed...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2026/01/04

The loot from the spectacular break-in at a German bank may have exceeded €100 million (US$117.24 million), security sources said on Sunday, as new questions were raised over the origin of some of the money stored inside. The sources said that individual customers reported that they each had more than €500,000 in their safe deposit boxes at the Sparkasse branch in the western city of Gelsenkirchen, confirming earlier reports by the German mass-circulation daily Bild. Bild reported that the...

Russia’s Medvedev floats kidnapping scenario...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2026/01/04

Russia’s former president Dmitry Medvedev said he could envisage abduction operations against other world leaders similar to the US arrest of Nicolas Maduro in Venezuela, naming German Chancellor Friedrich Merz among them. “The kidnapping of the neo-Nazi Merz could be an excellent twist in this carnival of events,” Medvedev, who is now deputy chairman of Russia’s Security Council, was quoted as saying by state news agency TASS on Sunday. Such a scenario was not unrealistic, he added. “There

US scrambles geopolitics with stark attack on Venezuela

News - South China Morning Post ·

2026/01/04

Ousted Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and his wife were transported to New York by helicopter, ship and plane within hours of their capture for arraignment in a US federal court as the world woke up Sunday to a new era of brazen US military might. In a press conference from his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida shortly after the raid on Maduro’s compound in Caracas, US President Donald Trump held forth on the strength and precision of the US military, warned that other politicians could

Hongkongers flock to say goodbye as landmark Sham...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2026/01/04

Loyal customers and bargain hunters crowded a landmark department store in Hong Kong on Sunday as it closed its doors after three decades of operations. The closure of Sincere Department Store’s Sham Shui Po branch, a neighbourhood fixture for 30 years, leaves the chain with only two remaining outlets. Founded in 1900, Sincere was the first Chinese-owned department store in Hong Kong and remains one of the city’s oldest retail groups. Its branches in Mong Kok and Central continued to

Venezuela crisis: how Trump’s ‘Donroe’ doctrine could...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2026/01/04

China’s influence in Latin America may be significantly tested by the US revival of the Monroe Doctrine, as Washington’s attack on Venezuela is set to have a chilling effect on the region’s engagement with Beijing, analysts warn. In a surprise precision operation on Saturday, the US military struck Venezuela, captured its leader Nicolas Maduro and his wife, and placed them in detention in New York. Without giving a timetable for elections, US President Donald Trump said the US would run...

UK’s Starmer says ousting him would lead to chaos,...

News - South China Morning Post ·

2026/01/04

Prime Minister Keir Starmer warned his governing Labour Party that removing him in 2026 would plunge Britain into “utter chaos” and open the door to a far-right government. The turmoil wrought by the constant chopping and changing of staff under the previous Conservative administration is “amongst the reasons that the Tories were booted out so effectively at the last election”, Starmer told the BBC in an interview broadcast on Sunday. Any repeat of that instability “would gift Nigel Farage”,...

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