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NATO held its largest exercise of 2026—Steadfast Dart‑2026—on Germany’s Baltic coast, staging amphibious landings with about 10,000 troops from 13 countries to practise rapid reinforcement of the alliance’s eastern flank. The drill emphasised mobility and joint logistics, and marked a prominent European‑led on‑site role while the U.S. did not directly participate.

China’s small Yellow Sea islands are kept under continuous human watch by militia and other personnel who endure difficult living conditions and logistical strains. The experience of Jiang Quan—extended rotations, a prolonged power outage, and family sacrifices—illustrates both the symbolic and practical dimensions of Beijing’s coastal presence.

A human-interest state-media report on a PLA cavalry company stationed in Yushu, Qinghai, described soldiers tending horses and appearing on the national Spring Festival Gala during the Lunar New Year. Beyond its pastoral tone, the piece serves as strategic messaging about China’s high-altitude readiness, ethnic integration in border regions, and the PLA’s continued reliance on niche capabilities.

The US Air Force will apply a red, white, gold and deep‑navy livery — a color scheme associated with Donald Trump — to two new VC-25B Boeing 747s and a Qatar-donated 747 earmarked for presidential use. The move reverses an earlier rejection on cost and technical grounds and underscores the political and symbolic stakes of presidential aircraft procurement.

Bitcoin rose above $68,000 with a modest intraday gain of 0.85%, a small rebound following recent volatility that saw it trade below $67,000. The move reflects the market’s sensitivity to ETF flows, derivatives positioning and macro risk sentiment rather than a decisive structural shift.

A team at the Nanjing Agricultural Mechanization Research Institute has developed a fully automatic transplanter for substrate-block vegetable seedlings that links five automated stages to reduce seedling damage and raise planting speed. The machine can be run by two people to cover about 8–10 mu per day, is claimed to be eight times faster than manual transplanting and to save more than 400 yuan per mu in costs.

China’s 2026 Spring Festival Gala in Hefei publicly showcased 16 EHang EH216‑S eVTOLs and a 22,580‑vehicle GD4.0 drone swarm, the latter setting a Guinness record for single‑computer control. The display underscores accelerating efforts to commercialise low‑altitude aviation while highlighting the regulatory, safety and infrastructure hurdles that remain before routine passenger eVTOL services become viable.

Galgotias University displayed a robot dog at India’s AI Impact Summit that it claimed to have developed, but later admitted the device was purchased from Chinese firm Unitree. The admission raises questions about transparency at government‑hosted tech showcases and highlights the gap between aspirational claims of indigenous capability and the practical realities of hardware development.

The sinking of the U.S. submarine Thresher on 10 April 1963 killed 129 sailors during deep‑dive trials and exposed fatal vulnerabilities in submarine design and emergency systems. The disaster prompted the SUBSAFE safety overhaul and remains a cautionary precedent for modern navies operating nuclear‑powered vessels in deep and poorly charted waters.

President Trump’s on‑the‑record remark that U.S. arms sales to Taiwan “need to be discussed” with Beijing has unsettled Taipei and cast doubt over a potential $20 billion‑plus package. The comment reflects U.S. domestic and economic constraints that are reshaping how Washington balances deterrence and diplomacy in the China‑Taiwan‑U.S. triangle.

China staged sea-and-air patrols after a Philippines naval exercise and an attempted U.S.-backed joint patrol, signalling a willingness to defend maritime claims while using targeted diplomatic measures against local Philippine officials. The episode illustrates the limits of U.S. reassurance, the risks of great-power friction in the South China Sea, and Manila’s constrained choices between alliance signalling and geographic realities.

Infineon’s CEO says humanoid robots represent a major growth opportunity that could boost revenues and stabilise margins for the Munich‑based chipmaker. Success will hinge on the company’s ability to win integrated design partnerships amid stiff global competition and uncertain adoption timelines.

Seoul's unification minister announced investigations into drone flights to North Korea by three South Korean civilians and accused the previous Yoon administration of conducting 11 operations totalling 18 drone sorties aimed at Pyongyang. The new government plans to restore the no‑fly provisions of the September 19, 2018 military agreement to rebuild confidence and reduce airborne tensions between the Koreas.

Armed attackers slaughtered more than 100 people in two villages in central Nigeria in early February, prompting President Bola Tinubu to deploy troops and the UN Security Council to condemn the violence. The assault underscores persistent weaknesses in Nigeria’s counter‑insurgency efforts and has coincided with a modest increase in U.S. military involvement aimed at training and supporting Nigerian forces.

On Lunar New Year’s Eve PLA soldiers from the 76th Group Army’s Yushu cavalry company tended horses and sent televised New Year greetings from a high‑altitude garrison. The feature blends human‑interest detail with a wider signal about the PLA’s continued emphasis on plateau readiness, ethnic representation in frontier units, and domestic messaging about military dedication.

More than 200 workers from a Chinese construction firm and Turkish staff stayed on site at the Tuz Lake underground gas storage expansion in Aksaray to maintain operations and lay pipelines over Lunar New Year. The project, a Turkish national priority, will bolster gas storage capacity and缓解 energy supply risks while also illustrating China’s growing role in overseas energy infrastructure and infrastructure diplomacy.

Canada is leading exploratory talks to link the European Union and CPTPP members through harmonised rules of origin and cumulation arrangements, creating a large trade grouping intended to shield supply chains from unilateral U.S. tariff threats. The plan is technically complex and politically sensitive, but it signals a strategic move by middle powers to build alternative economic architecture amid U.S. unpredictability.

Berkshire Hathaway’s last 13F filed while Warren Buffett was CEO shows large reductions in Amazon (over 77% cut), continued trimming of Apple and significant sales of Bank of America, while opening a new roughly $352m stake in The New York Times. The moves—combined with increases in Chevron and Chubb—suggest a selective rotation into energy and insurance and a cautious stance on big tech amid questions about AI‑related spending.

China’s CCTV Spring Festival Gala featured multiple domestic robot makers in high‑visibility performances, turning the national broadcast into a de facto investor roadshow. The exposure has already driven search and order spikes, and several companies are accelerating listing plans, but converting spectacle into sustainable revenue will require scalable manufacturing and clear commercial use cases.

China’s Spring Festival Gala has tracked the nation’s economic evolution for more than forty years. What began as barter deals for watches has evolved into multi‑hundred‑million yuan interactive partnerships and showcases of AI and robotics, making the Gala a concise barometer of consumer trends, corporate strategy and industrial policy.