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Chinese stock markets opened higher as semiconductor and storage‑chip stocks outperformed, buoyed by company profit forecasts and plans to expand wafer‑level packaging capacity. Broader market moves were uneven, with commodity and precious‑metals names lagging and speculative small‑caps showing continued volatility.
Apple will relaunch Siri as a system‑level, conversational AI called "Campos," to be unveiled at WWDC in June and shipped with iOS 27 in September. The assistant will be multimodal and deeply integrated with system apps, but its underlying model will be a customised Google Gemini running on Google Cloud and TPUs, a pragmatic deal that raises privacy, competition and strategic‑dependency questions.
Chinese scientists have reported a new refrigeration phenomenon, the "dissolution‑pressure card effect," in Nature, which could inform low‑carbon cooling solutions for energy‑hungry data centres. The discovery is scientifically notable but requires engineering, validation and scale‑up before it can deliver concrete operational or climate benefits.
TCL and Sony have agreed to form a joint venture in which TCL will hold a 51% controlling stake in Sony’s TV and home‑audio business, reflecting a strategic pivot by Sony away from capital‑intensive hardware and a major upgrade for TCL into the premium TV segment. If completed, the deal would accelerate industry consolidation, deepen vertical integration with TCL’s panel arm, and symbolically mark the end of Japan’s decades‑long dominance of the television market.
Apple China will run a four‑day New‑Year promotion from Jan 24–27 offering up to RMB 1,000 off selected iPhones, Macs, iPads and Apple Watches, while excluding the newly released iPhone 17 series. The limited, targeted discount reflects Apple’s effort to stimulate demand in a mature Chinese market without undercutting its latest flagship models.
The Philippines will lift its ban on xAI’s Grok once the company implements promised fixes to stop the chatbot being used to generate sexually explicit images, including alleged child-exploitative content. Authorities will continue close monitoring, following platform-level restrictions introduced earlier by X to block generation of real-person nudity.
Apple China is offering up to ¥1,000 off selected devices on its website from 24–27 January 2026, covering iPhone 16 models but excluding iPhone 17. The limited‑time move is aimed at stimulating Lunar‑New‑Year purchases, managing inventory and competing with domestic rivals while preserving overall pricing strategy.
President Trump announced he will not impose planned tariffs on eight European NATO members after saying he and allied officials reached a ‘‘framework’’ agreement on Greenland. The framework, which remains vague, could involve US mineral rights and participation in a US missile-defence project while negotiators from the administration engage with NATO and allied counterparts.
A mix of central‑bank accumulation, rising industrial use in tech and energy, and persistent geopolitical risk is underpinning a prolonged rally in gold and silver. That combination makes short‑term bearish calls fragile, though price volatility and policy shifts still pose meaningful risks.
A rent dispute at Beijing’s Yanan Angel Children’s Hospital has exposed a systemic tension in Chinese philanthropic medicine: charitable funds are legally restricted to specific patient care and cannot be used to subsidise hospital running costs. The case highlights the unsustainability of heavy-asset charity hospitals and renews calls for clearer rules, better disclosure and hybrid models that combine philanthropy with market-based revenue or light-asset partnerships.
Chinese banks have cut rates on large-denomination certificates of deposit, with many short-term offerings now below 1%. The retreat of longer-term deposit products and tighter issuance reflects central-bank easing and banks’ efforts to protect net interest margins, prompting savers to seek alternative yields and raising questions about future credit growth and financial stability.
China’s 2025 city-level trade data reveal a reconfiguration of the country’s external commerce: Shenzhen and Shanghai remain the top two, but inland provincial capitals and several smaller cities have surged. The shift is driven by higher-value manufactured exports, logistics innovations such as China–Europe freight trains, and the growth of platform-style trade centres like Yiwu.
Germany says its active military has grown to about 184,200 troops, the largest figure in 12 years, supported by rising defence budgets and a legal shift allowing extra borrowing for defence. Yet a swift withdrawal of a small Greenland deployment underscores that manpower and money still need to be translated into reliable, deployable capability.
On 20 January 2026 Beijing issued a trio of policy signals — income-support planning from the NDRC, a pledge of more expansive fiscal spending from the Finance Ministry, and new urban-renewal measures from the Ministry of Natural Resources — that together amount to a coordinated boost for the real-estate sector. The package signals a strategic pivot from short-term stimulus toward building household purchasing power and accelerating redevelopment as levers for stabilising growth and consumption.
JAXA’s preliminary probe attributes the December H3 launch failure to damage sustained at the satellite–rocket interface during payload fairing separation, which apparently ruptured a liquid-hydrogen pressurization line and precipitated an early second-stage engine shutdown. The agency says the satellite likely detached prematurely and was lost at sea; further investigation and corrective work are planned, delaying H3’s route to operational reliability.
The U.S. Department of Defense will cut about 200 American positions from NATO advisory and planning bodies, reducing U.S. personnel in committees responsible for military planning and intelligence. The move signals a Trump administration push to recalibrate U.S. engagement in European defence, placing pressure on allies to assume greater responsibility and potentially accelerating European efforts at strategic autonomy.
Canada’s military has for the first time modelled a hypothetical U.S. incursion — explicitly as a theoretical exercise rather than an operational plan — while considering sending troops to a Denmark-led exercise in Greenland. The twin moves reflect growing anxiety about Arctic competition and the unpredictability of allied behaviour, and they underscore Ottawa’s shift toward broader contingency planning.
Denmark plans to deploy up to 1,000 combat troops to Greenland in 2026, expanding current rotations that already include Danish and allied forces. The deployment is a response to rising geopolitical competition in the Arctic and seeks to bolster deterrence, readiness and allied cooperation while raising questions about militarisation and local political impact.
Greenland’s premier said U.S. military seizure of the island is unlikely but warned that Nuuk must prepare for all scenarios, strengthen defence arrangements, and deepen cooperation with Denmark and European allies. He criticised a social-media image of an American flag on Greenland as disrespectful and cautioned against foreign-instigated political unrest.
President Trump said he would not rule out seizing Greenland by force, reviving a controversial claim to take sovereignty from Denmark. Copenhagen has responded with firm political statements, troop deployments and a readiness for trade retaliation, escalating tensions over the strategic Arctic island.
