SCMP News Digest
Tuesday, 27 January 2026
Hong Kong Lunar New Year parade to feature Labubu, wishing tree on floats
Hong Kong’s Lunar New Year parade next month is expected to attract 100,000 people, with global toy sensation Labubu and the city’s storied wishing tree being featured on floats in the procession.
The Hong Kong Tourism Board, which organises the event, said that eight “distinctive” floats would be displayed at the Kai Tak Sports Park one day after the event – the first time for such an arrangement.
The event will be held in Tsim Sha Tsui on the evening of February 17, the first day of Lunar New…
Hong Kong eyes bigger marathon with egg waffles and milk tea to cheer runners
Hong Kong authorities have signalled openness to expanding the city’s annual marathon, suggesting future routes could bring runners closer to the public, allowing residents to cheer them on with “egg waffles and milk tea” along the way.
Secretary for Culture, Sports and Tourism Rosanna Law Shuk-pui told lawmakers that the government maintained a “positive and open” attitude towards expanding the capacity of the Standard Chartered Hong Kong Marathon or even turning it into a two-day event, an…
Judge orders ICE chief to Minnesota court over Trump’s immigration crackdown
The chief federal judge in Minnesota says the Trump administration has failed to comply with orders to hold hearings for detained immigrants and ordered the head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to appear before him on Friday to explain why he shouldn’t be held in contempt.
In an order dated Monday, Chief Judge Patrick J. Schiltz said Todd Lyons, the acting director of ICE, must appear personally in court. Schlitz took the administration to task over its handling of bond hearings for…
DeepSeek taps Alibaba open-source AI technology to boost OCR performance
Chinese artificial intelligence start-up DeepSeek on Tuesday unveiled an upgraded version of its optical character recognition (OCR) model, incorporating an Alibaba Cloud-developed open-source system to boost performance.
The new model, DeepSeek-OCR 2, replaced a key component of its original architecture with Alibaba Cloud’s lightweight Qwen2-0.5b model, according to a research paper released by the company.
The update, which comes just over three months after DeepSeek launched the first…
Chinese satellite forces 4,400 of its Starlink rivals into lower altitude: study
A team of researchers in China has claimed that a recent near-miss between a Chinese satellite and one of SpaceX’s Starlink devices was behind the US company’s decision to move more than 4,000 of its satellites into lower orbit.
The two satellites passed within about 200 metres (656 feet) of each other on December 10, shortly after a launch from northwestern China, according to a social media post last month by Michael Nicolls, SpaceX’s vice-president of engineering.
Three weeks later, in…
Ahead of Trump Iowa speech, US soybean farmers fear China trade blowback
After a bruising 2025 that pushed him to the brink of bankruptcy, Arkansas soybean farmer Randall Shelby starts the new year worried that US farmers could once again be caught in the crossfire as tensions between Washington and Beijing threaten to escalate anew.
This comes as US President Donald Trump addresses farmers on Tuesday in Iowa, the United States’ second-largest soybean producer, to try to convince them that he has their best interests at heart in advance of the November midterm…
Spain to buck Trump trend and legalise thousands of migrants
Spain’s government announced on Tuesday it will grant legal status to potentially hundreds of thousands of immigrants living and working in the country without authorisation, the latest example of how the country has bucked a trend towards increasingly harsh immigration policies championed by US President Donald Trump and seen across much of Europe.
Migration Minister Elma Saiz said the beneficiaries would be able to work “in any sector, in any part of the country”, and extolled “the positive…
On the wrong side: Hong Kong politicians trade barbs over lawmaker’s driving
An alleged traffic offence involving a Hong Kong lawmaker has sparked a fiery exchange between a veteran of the city’s biggest party and political heavyweight Regina Ip Lau Suk-yee, who defended her protege and was accused of double standards.
New People’s Party chairwoman Ip, convenor of the government’s key decision-making body Executive Council, reportedly snapped at former lawmaker Choy So-yuk, questioning whether her Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong (DAB),…
China and Russia to bolster defence ties to counter risks
Chinese Defence Minister Dong Jun urged closer strategic coordination between Beijing and Moscow and bolstering joint capacity to respond to risks and challenges in a video call with his Russian counterpart on Tuesday.
Dong told Andrei Belousov that Beijing was willing to “enrich the substance of cooperation, improve communication and exchange mechanisms, jointly enhance the ability to respond to various risks and challenges and work hand in hand to inject positive energy into global security…
Australia swelters as temperatures near 50 degrees in record-breaking heatwave
Parts of Australia sweltered in record temperatures of close to 50 degrees Celsius (122 degrees Fahrenheit) on Tuesday as the country sweated through a prolonged heatwave.
The rural towns of Hopetoun and Walpeup in Victoria state registered preliminary highs of 48.9 degrees, which if confirmed overnight would top records set on the day in 2009 when 173 people were killed in the state’s devastating Black Saturday bushfires.
No casualties were reported from Tuesday’s heatwave, but Victoria…
As Malaysian ringgit strengthens, Singapore shoppers in Johor reap less savings
Since losing his job two years ago, Singaporean Gurpal Singh has been making weekly trips by car across the border to the Malaysian city of Johor Bharu to buy cheaper groceries and fuel.
But as Malaysia’s currency continues to strengthen, bargain-hunting visitors from Singapore like him are getting less value for their purchases.
On Tuesday afternoon, the Singapore dollar was trading at 3.11 against the Malaysian ringgit, down from 3.15 in early January and 3.26 in October last year.
Economists…
China’s consumer spending push faces major challenge – debt-averse households
Chinese households have accelerated deleveraging – cutting debt relative to gross domestic product – at the fastest pace in years, a shift that could weigh on the consumer spending that Beijing needs to sustain growth in the world’s second-largest economy.
The household debt-to-GDP ratio fell by 2 percentage points, from 61.4 per cent in 2024 to 59.4 per cent at the end of 2025, according to data released on Monday by the National Institution for Finance and Development (NIFD), a Beijing-based…
Hong Kong police arrest 71 over stooge accounts linked to HK$214 million scams
Hong Kong police have arrested 71 people for operating stooge accounts used by scammers, with the largest case involving a senior director at a multinational company who was defrauded of HK$134 million after transferring the funds to criminals impersonating his chief executive.
Inspector Tsang Kin-wa of the Hong Kong Island regional technology and financial crime unit said the force had conducted a crackdown on scams and money laundering between January 12 and 26, uncovering 69 cases, with total…
After 2.5-year Israel blockade on Gaza, Unicef delivers school kits
The UN children’s agency said on Tuesday it had for the first time in two and a half years been able to deliver school kits with learning materials into Gaza after they were previously blocked by Israeli authorities.
Thousands of kits, including pencils, exercise books and wooden cubes to play with, have now entered the enclave, Unicef said.
“We have now, in the last days, got in thousands of recreational kits, hundreds of school-in-a-carton kits. We’re looking at getting 2,500 more school…
Over 70% of European firms in China review supply chain strategies: survey
Seven out of every 10 European companies operating in China were reviewing their supply chain strategies amid geopolitical tensions and Beijing’s opaque policymaking, which appears to set back the country’s globalisation efforts, according to a new survey.
A survey of 324 corporate respondents conducted by the Shanghai chapter of the European Union Chamber of Commerce found that these firms aimed to strike a balance between cost efficiency and risk diversification, while building resilience in…
As China grows, it is reshaping how global public goods are delivered
At Davos this year, a familiar but sobering warning echoed through the slopes: the global order is fracturing into closed loops. In Western capitals, “de-risking” remains the dominant keyword, framing the global economy as a series of strategic high walls. Yet, beyond these barriers, a more tangible crisis is unfolding across the Global South. The infrastructure deficit continues to widen, estimated at a staggering US$1.7 trillion annually for Asia alone.
This is a crisis of global governance….
China could approve first fully AI-designed drug next year, Merck executive says
Mainland China could become one of the first markets in the world to approve a drug fully designed by artificial intelligence, as advances in AI and human genetics combine to create a “seismic shift” in drug development, according to executives of pharmaceutical giants.
“We will see in 2026 that we move from AI-assisted discovery to fully AI-designed compounds, perhaps entering the pipeline,” said Marc Horn, president of Merck China, at the Asian Financial Forum on Tuesday in Hong Kong. “We…
US envoy to China says progress on agreements, Boeing deal among signs of better ties
America’s top diplomat in Beijing struck an optimistic note on bilateral ties on Tuesday, telling a closed-door gathering in Hong Kong that risks in the relationship had been controlled effectively and talks were under way for a potential Boeing deal, sources told the South China Morning Post.
Sources who were present as David Perdue, the US ambassador to China, spoke at the Goldman Sachs Global Macro Conference Asia-Pacific 2026, said his message was “comforting and reassuring” to global…
Hong Kong’s exports jump 15.4% in 2025 to ‘historical high’
Hong Kong’s exports in 2025 rose by 15.4 per cent year on year to a “historical high”, with authorities expecting sustained global economic growth, improved ties with new markets and strong demand for artificial intelligence-enabled products to continue supporting the city’s trade.
According to the Census and Statistics Department, the total value of Hong Kong’s export of goods rose by 15.4 per cent in 2025 compared with the previous year, while the value of imports increased by 15.5 per cent…
ICE agents get security role at 2026 Winter Olympics sparking outrage after deadly shootings
A branch of the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) will help with security for the Winter Olympics in Italy, it confirmed on Tuesday, sparking anger and warnings they were not welcome.
Reports had been circulating for days that the agency embroiled in an often brutal immigration crackdown in the United States could be involved in US security measures for the February 6-22 Games in northern Italy.
In a statement overnight, ICE said: “At the Olympics, ICE’s Homeland Security…