Global Hotspots: Hostages Released in Gaza; US-China Tech Competition Intensifies

New Lines Institute for Strategy and Policy

This week, in the Middle East, Israel and Hamas continued to conduct prisoner exchanges while Israel and Lebanon agreed to extend their cease-fire. In the Indo-Pacific, U.S. President Donald Trump announced possible tariffs on Taiwan’s semiconductor industry, and the emergence of a new Chinese AI model sent shocks through the U.S. tech and financial sectors. In the Russia-Ukraine conflict, the EU discussed resuming Russian natural gas imports in exchange for a cease-fire in Ukraine, while Latvia reported another incident of damage to underwater internet cables in the Baltic Sea. Read the full Weekly Forecast Monitor here: https://newlinesinstitute.org/forecast/week-20250131/ Marxist Arrow by Twin Musicom is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/