Stay up-to-date with the most recent news stories from around the world
Total: 2279
China celebrated the 13th anniversary of the Y-20 "Kunpeng" heavy transport’s first flight, highlighting its transition from prototype to an operational platform used for parades, disaster relief and long‑range missions. State media framed the aircraft as evidence of growing strategic airlift capacity that strengthens the PLAAF’s reach and supports both practical operations and national prestige.
Chinese coast guard vessels rescued 17 sailors after a cargo ship capsized near Huangyan Island; two died and four remain missing. Filipino survivors publicly thanked Chinese rescuers, and a formal handover to the Philippine coast guard took place on January 25, an episode that temporarily eases tensions in a disputed maritime area while carrying broader strategic implications.
Despite headlines about a US tilt to Europe, Washington has maintained and adapted its Indo‑Pacific posture through forward deployments, new security pacts and defense funding lines. The US is redistributing resources rather than abandoning the region, but doing so raises risks of overstretch, allied hedging and potential miscalculation with China.
Tehran unveiled an anti‑US mural in Revolution Square warning that an attack on Iran would see US carriers targeted, as the USS Abraham Lincoln carrier group moves into the region. The artwork is a deliberate signal to both domestic audiences and international actors, heightening risks of naval escalation and economic fallout in a volatile maritime theatre.
Microsoft has deployed Maia 200, its second‑generation AI chip built by TSMC, to some data centres and released developer control software, positioning the company to reduce dependence on Nvidia. Wider availability to Azure customers remains unspecified, but the move intensifies a trend of cloud providers building custom accelerators to control costs, supply risk and performance.
Two shootings by ICE agents in Minneapolis that killed U.S. citizens have produced heated national protests and a sharp federal-state confrontation. Conflicting official accounts and video footage have deepened public mistrust, prompted subpoenas and harsh rhetoric from both President Trump and senior Democrats, and risked a funding standoff over Homeland Security.
Taiwan’s first indigenous submarine, the Haikun, completed its first submerged trial on 26 January 2026 after extensive delays caused mainly by integration problems between its platform management system and onboard sensors and weapons. Remaining snorkel, shallow and deep-depth trials mean full delivery is unlikely before mid-2026, prolonging pressures on Taiwan’s defence modernisation and deterrence posture.
China and its Laos, Myanmar and Thailand partners launched the 161st joint Mekong patrol on January 26, initiating the 2026 campaign with coordinated departures from Yunnan and partner ports. The operation, preceded by a commanders' meeting in Jinghong, aims to suppress transboundary crime and sustain stability in critical river stretches.
After federal agents shot a man in Minneapolis, the Department of Homeland Security emphasised that he was armed and framed the shooting as defensive. Videos and police statements that emerged online cast doubt on that account, prompting the National Rifle Association and other gun-rights groups to demand a transparent investigation and to reject the notion that lawful carriage of a firearm alone permits officers to shoot.
India’s 2026 Republic Day parade featured, for the first time, a formal animal contingent including camels, Zanskar ponies, birds of prey and military dogs. The move highlights the Indian armed forces’ continued reliance on animals for operations in difficult terrain and serves as both a ceremonial gesture and a strategic signal about adaptive mobility.
Israel announced that the final body of an Israeli captive held in Gaza, identified as La'an Gvili, has been recovered and returned, completing the returns of persons and remains from Gaza. Hamas acknowledged efforts to locate the body while demanding full implementation of the ceasefire, including opening the Rafah crossing and Israeli withdrawal, complicating the humanitarian and political calculus.
Rheinmetall and OHB are negotiating to bid for a German military LEO satellite communications programme that could tap into roughly €35 billion of planned defence‑space spending. The project aims to create a domestically built, Starlink‑style network to improve resilience and reduce reliance on foreign commercial providers, but it faces strong competition and significant technical and industrial challenges.
Microsoft has launched Maia 200, a TSMC 3nm AI inference chip the company says outperforms Amazon’s Trainium v3 and Google’s TPU v7 on low-precision workloads while improving inference cost-efficiency by about 30% versus its current fleet. The release underscores hyperscalers’ push into custom silicon to reduce reliance on Nvidia GPUs, but success will depend on software tooling, ecosystem adoption and independent benchmarking.
Laplace cautions that space‑based solar power is still a technical research endeavour, not a commercial reality. Significant engineering, economic and governance hurdles must be overcome before orbital solar can rival terrestrial renewables.
Synopsys CEO Sassine Ghazi warns that the current memory-chip shortage, driven by heavy demand from AI data centres, is likely to last through 2026 and potentially into 2027. Concentrated production, long lead times for new fabs and booming demand for HBM mean elevated prices and allocation pressures may persist, benefiting memory suppliers but squeezing device makers and other industries.
A 5.5-magnitude quake rattled Gansu but caused no confirmed casualties as emergency teams responded. China tightened internet protections for minors, markets saw a gold-led rally while mainland turnover topped 3 trillion yuan, Tencent plans a 1 billion yuan red-packet campaign for its new app, and KFC raised delivery prices slightly amid cost pressure.
Rui'ang Gene, a Shanghai‑listed molecular diagnostics company, announced that its controlling siblings, former chair Xiong Hui and controller Xiong Jun, have been indicted on fraud charges. The company forecast a sizeable revenue drop and a net loss for 2025, while stressing that management and operations remain in place despite the criminal proceedings.
Zhaoyan New Drug posted a paradoxical 2025 outlook: lower revenue but sharply higher net profit driven mainly by fair‑value gains on biological assets — chiefly experimental monkeys — and returns from cash management. The company’s core laboratory services remain under pressure, and the profitability bump has prompted scrutiny about the sustainability of relying on asset revaluation and financial income rather than scientific capabilities.
Two recent fatal shootings by immigration-enforcement officers in Minneapolis have generated large protests and an unusual joint plea from more than 60 Minnesota corporations to de-escalate. With Senate Democrats vowing to block a funding bill that includes DHS appropriations, the episode raises the real prospect of another federal shutdown when stopgap funding expires on January 30.
The European Commission has opened a formal DSA investigation into Grok, the AI chatbot on Elon Musk’s X, to evaluate systemic risks such as misinformation and user harm. The probe reflects the EU’s strengthened regulatory posture toward platform governance and AI oversight, and could lead to fines, operational constraints or mandated safety measures.
