SCMP News Digest
Monday, 26 January 2026
Ex-Conservative lawmaker Suella Braverman defects to right-wing Reform UK
British lawmaker Suella Braverman, a former home secretary, became the latest prominent Conservative to join Nigel Farage’s right-wing Reform UK on Monday, and she accused her former party of lying to voters over immigration.
Opinion polls put Reform UK ahead of both Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Labour Party and Kemi Badenoch’s Conservatives, the two parties that have dominated British politics for more than a century, though a national election is not expected until 2029.
For now, the…
Boy, 11, takes the wheel after dad faints while driving car in Hong Kong
An 11-year-old boy was forced to take the wheel after his father lost consciousness while driving in Hong Kong, with the car only coming to a halt after it collided with another vehicle and a railing.
Police said the boy’s father, 47, fainted while driving westbound along Shing Sai Road and turning into Sands Street in Kennedy Town at about 6.20pm on Monday.
The boy, who was seated next to him, grabbed the wheel in an attempt to stop the car.
But the vehicle collided with another car before…
2 women arrested as hawkers cash in on Blackpink merchandise craze at concerts
Hong Kong authorities have arrested two women for hawking and received four complaints about unauthorised vendors selling merchandise for K-pop group Blackpink near a concert venue over the past few days.
Hours ahead of the final night of the three-concert series of the popular Korean girl band on Monday, a Post reporter spotted about a dozen hawkers near Kai Tak Stadium, selling merchandise without official approval.
Since the concerts began on Saturday, photos shared on Threads have shown…
Universal Design Award Scheme inspires a more inclusive Hong Kong
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Universal design is fast becoming a new measure of good urban living in Hong Kong. As the city’s population grows older and more diverse, the way spaces are planned, built and managed now matters as much as what they contain.
That shift – from compliance to inclusivity – is what the Equal Opportunities Commission (EOC) hopes to accelerate through its Universal Design Award Scheme (UDAS), which recognises organisations…
China close to opening US$10 billion canal linking heartlands to Southeast Asia
China is expected to finish construction on the landmark Pinglu Canal before the end of this year, taking just four years to complete the 72.7 billion yuan (US$10.4 billion) project to boost trade links with the country’s top export destination: Southeast Asia.
The mega-project will provide China’s landlocked southwestern provinces with direct access to global shipping lanes, making it faster and cheaper to transport goods between the Chinese interior and neighbouring countries.
The 134km (83…
Trump sends border tsar Homan to Minnesota after second fatal ICE shooting
US President Donald Trump announced on Monday he is sending a top official to Minnesota as outrage grew over his administration’s militarised immigration raids and the shooting dead of a second protester in Minneapolis.
Trump said that Tom Homan, his point man for border security, would arrive in the state later and “will report directly to me”.
The high-profile assignment suggested that the 79-year-old Republican president is seeking to regain control over a rapidly deteriorating political and…
Israel recovers remains of final Gaza hostage Ran Gvili, key for phase two of Gaza truce
The remains of the final hostage in Gaza have been recovered, Israel’s military said on Monday, clearing the way for efforts to rebuild Gaza and disarm Hamas in the next phase of the ceasefire that paused the Israel-Gaza war.
The announcement that the remains of police officer Ran Gvili had been found and identified came a day after Israel’s government said the military was conducting a “large-scale operation” in a cemetery in northern Gaza to locate them.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu…
AI mental health app helps Hong Kong students accentuate the positive
The Education University of Hong Kong (EdU) has launched an artificial intelligence-powered mental health support app for students, with a secondary school principal praising its potential to help teachers track pupils’ emotional well-being.
Named EmoCare, the app began a trial run last month, serving about 700 primary, secondary and university students.
A key feature turns students’ diary entries into colourful visualisations of their emotions.
The app’s large language model analyses the…
Hong Kong expands fight against hepatitis B. But how many hidden cases are there?
A government-subsidised screening and treatment programme set to launch next month is expected to identify about 23,000 hidden cases of chronic hepatitis B in Hong Kong, as part of a bigger plan to eliminate the public health threat within five years.
Health authorities said on Monday that the “Hepatitis B Co-care Scheme” would cover people born in Hong Kong in or before 1988 along with first-degree family members – parents, siblings and children – or sexual partners who had already contracted…
AI video generation: How China’s Kling challenges Google’s Veo, OpenAI’s Sora
As AI video generation has evolved from a curiosity to a productivity tool embraced by serious creators, the Kling platform developed by China’s Kuaishou has landed firmly in the top tier alongside Google’s Veo and OpenAI’s Sora.
Kling has rapidly grown into a meaningful new business line for the company – long a runner-up to TikTok owner ByteDance in China’s short video arena – since its launch in June 2024, reaching about 12 million monthly active users and annual recurring revenue of roughly…
Can this new tech help China’s stealth bomber break the sound barrier?
The old rules said you had to choose: stealth or speed. The US picked stealth. Russia went fast. China is trying to throw away the rule book.
Chinese researchers unveiled a development in aircraft design last month that could propel the nation’s next-generation stealth bombers into supersonic flight, ending the trade-off between speed and stealth that has troubled the American and Russian air forces for decades.
Since the 1930s, scientists have been studying a type of aircraft called the flying…
Taiwan launches firepower hub with US as Beijing steps up military pressure
Taiwan has set up a top-tier firepower coordination hub in partnership with the US to sharpen asymmetric strike integration as military pressure from Beijing intensifies.
The new Joint Firepower Coordination Centre – the highest-level facility of its kind in Taiwan – is designed to coordinate long-range precision strike planning and intelligence-sharing across the island’s military services.
This comes as Taipei ramps up coordination between its US-made weapons systems and locally developed…
Beyond borders: Beijing equips Chinese firms for global stage amid trade jitters
With domestic margins shrinking and global trade risks rising, China’s commerce authorities are unveiling a state-backed business resource aimed at helping companies navigate and accelerate their global expansions.
A national-level service platform will serve as a centralised full-service hub addressing companies’ common needs, including policy consultation, business services, country-specific information, resource matching and risk management, according to Wang Ya, an official heading the…
As the anglosphere fractures, Starmer’s China visit could be historic
Winston Churchill wrote his four-volume masterpiece, A History of the English-Speaking Peoples, at the very moment a new era of world history was taking shape: victory over the Nazis, the birth of the United Nations, the Bretton Woods institutions. All signalled continuity of Anglo-Saxon leadership in world affairs, the baton passing fairly peacefully from Britain to America.
But 80 years on from the end of the second world war, the world is reconfiguring itself once more. And what it means for…
Indonesia begins re-exports of toxic US e-waste in crackdown on illegal imports
Authorities in Batam have begun sending hazardous electronic waste back to the United States, a tentative breakthrough in a case that has clogged one of Indonesia’s busiest ports with hundreds of suspect containers and tested the country’s ability to police such illegal imports.
Four containers of electronic waste classified as hazardous and toxic materials were shipped out last week from Batu Ampar Port under the supervision of Batam Customs, according to Indonesian media reports.
The move…
Tencent’s Pony Ma flags new AI social feature for Yuanbao app
Pony Ma Huateng, founder and CEO of Chinese tech giant Tencent Holdings, has teased a new artificial intelligence-powered social feature in the company’s latest push to keep pace in China’s intensifying AI race.
In an internal address to staff, Ma said Tencent was beta testing a new social tool inside its AI assistant app Yuanbao, and encouraged employees to try it out and help debug the feature, according to Tencent staff who attended the meeting.
The feature, known in Chinese as Yuanbao Pai,…
Why India’s focus on Middle East is on trade despite defence ties with UAE
India’s increasing engagement with Gulf nations is driven more by trade and energy security, even as it seeks to forge a defence partnership with the United Arab Emirates amid deepening rivalries in the region, according to analysts.
Last week, UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan made a brief stop in New Delhi, where both sides pledged to deepen trade ties and defence cooperation.
The trip has fuelled speculation that the UAE is seeking to diversify its strategic partnerships amid…
EU opens probe into Elon Musk’s Grok over sexual AI deepfakes
The EU on Monday hit Elon Musk’s X with an investigation over AI chatbot Grok’s generation of sexualised deepfake images of women and minors, in the latest step of an international backlash against the tool.
Grok faces an outcry after it emerged that users could sexualise images of women and children using simple text prompts such as “put her in a bikini” or “remove her clothes”.
“In Europe, we will not tolerate unthinkable behaviour, such as digital undressing of women and children,” said…
Digital finance forum: AI, data must link ‘digital islands’ to smooth trade finance
The use of technology in trade finance is advancing from digitising existing paperwork to re-engineering entire processes with artificial intelligence and shared data, according to bank executives at the Development & Innovation of AI for Digital Finance forum on Monday in Hong Kong.
“When we are talking about digitalisation, we are actually making the current process digital,” said Raluca Popa, head of global trade solutions, commercial banking, Hong Kong, HSBC. “The future will require a…
Beijing issues new Japan travel warning as row over Takaichi’s Taiwan comments rumbles on
The foreign ministry in Beijing has urged citizens to avoid travelling to Japan ahead of Lunar New Year as the row over Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s November comments about Taiwan rumbles on.
A statement issued on Monday said: “With the Lunar New Year approaching, the foreign ministry and the Chinese embassy in Tokyo urge citizens to avoid travelling to Japan and advise those already there to stay alert to crime and disaster warnings.
“In recent weeks, public security in Japan has…