SCMP News Digest
Tuesday, 27 January 2026
China’s CMOC makes US$1 billion Brazil gold push as bullion jumps on rising global risks
One of China’s largest mining companies has taken control of three gold mines in Brazil in a deal worth about US$1 billion, as gold prices hit historic highs amid rising economic and geopolitical uncertainty in the United States and a global flight to safe assets.
CMOC said on Tuesday it assumed operational control on January 23 after Brazilian regulators approved the transfer of the Aurizona mine in Maranhao, the Riacho dos Machados mine in Minas Gerais and the Complexo Bahia, which includes…
Carney rolls eyes at US Treasury chief, says he told Trump he meant what he said at Davos
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said on Tuesday that he told US President Donald Trump that he meant what he said in his speech at Davos, and told him Canada plans to diversify away from the United States with a dozen new trade deals.
Carney rolled his eyes and rejected US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent’s contention to Fox News that he aggressively walked back his comments at the World Economic Forum during a phone call with Trump on Monday.
“To be absolutely clear, and I said this to the…
California’s Newsom launches TikTok probe, accusing app of suppressing Trump criticism
California Governor Gavin Newsom accused TikTok on Monday of suppressing content critical of US President Donald Trump as he launched a review to decide if its content moderation practices violated state law, while the platform cited a systems failure.
Newsom’s statement came after TikTok’s Chinese owner, ByteDance, last week finalised a deal to set up a majority US-owned joint venture that will secure US data, to avert a ban on the short video app used by more than 200 million…
North Korea fires ballistic missiles as US signals defence shift
North Korea fired what appeared to be ballistic missiles off its east coast days after the US released a new defence strategy signalling a reduction in American military support to deter Pyongyang’s nuclear ambitions.
Multiple ballistic missiles were launched on Tuesday from north of Pyongyang towards waters off its east coast, South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said. Japan’s coastguard said an object suspected of being a ballistic missile likely already fell into the sea.
“Our military is…
Composite tool find puts China at centre of tech revolution up to 160,000 years ago: paper
China may have led a Stone Age technological race as early as 160,000 years ago, by crafting sophisticated stone tools for cutting, piercing and sawing, according to a new study.
An international team of scientists said the discovery of hafted tools – the earliest evidence for composite tools in eastern Asia – had reshaped the understanding of human evolution in the region.
They said the find showed that hominins in China were much more inventive and adaptable than previously thought,…
Donald Trump carries out only 1 in 4 tariff threats, ‘Taco’ study says
In less than three weeks, US President Donald Trump has issued four sweeping tariff threats that, in normal times, would rattle investors, unnerve CEOs and send economists rushing to revise their growth forecasts for the targeted countries.
Instead, financial markets and C-suite executives have mostly shrugged off Trump’s latest warnings involving Iran’s trading partners, Greenland’s supporters, Canada and South Korea, seeing them as merely words intended to gain leverage or change behaviour –…
Hong Kong drivers warned to look out for sham compensation claims
Hong Kong police and insurers have warned motorists to be alert to road scammers seeking unusually high and belated compensation claims stemming from minor or non‑existent traffic accidents, with officers reviewing 30 such cases.
Superintendent Charles Fung Pui‑kei of the commercial crime bureau warned on Tuesday that the police force had recently received reports of drivers facing sudden massive civil claims, well after officers closed a traffic case. Some incidents involved a tiny bump or even…
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 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 Todd Lyons 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…