| | |  New Delhi | Beijing | Abu Dhabi |
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The World Today |  - China’s global yuan goals
- India’s budget underwhelms
- UAE-Trump family deal
- Fed nominee’s balancing act
- Epstein fallout outside US
- Social media for AI agents
- China’s ‘genius’ tech plan
- US cities rethink one-ways
- AI looks deeper into DNA
- Germany’s potato overload
 A slumber party in Paris. |
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Xi spells out yuan reserve currency goal |
 China’s leader called for the yuan to become a global reserve currency, part of Beijing’s efforts to play a larger role in international financial systems. Xi Jinping’s comments, published in the Chinese Communist Party’s ideology journal, marked the most concrete definition yet of his goal of building a “strong currency” that can counter the dollar’s dominance, at a time when central banks are rethinking their exposure to greenback-based assets. The yuan remains a small slice of international reserves, though, and analysts say capital account liberalization is critical to achieving Beijing’s goal. The US and other trading partners have also urged Beijing to let the yuan rise; the currency’s depreciation has made China’s exports cheaper and contributed to a record trade surplus. |
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India’s budget doesn’t win over investors |
 India’s budget, carried in an official envelope. Altaf Hussain/ReutersIndia’s new annual budget prioritizes fiscal discipline and manufacturing in critical sectors but nevertheless failed to impress investors hoping to see bolder reforms to meet the turbulent geopolitical moment. While Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government is aiming for a lower fiscal deficit and more infrastructure investments, Indian stock indexes fell 2% in a special Sunday trading session. The budget lacks urgency, a journalist argued in The Core, given the “rupture in the global order, in which an isolationist US… is no longer a reliable source of support for India.” New Delhi, he wrote, should dramatically step up spending on defense, research, and education to support its geopolitical stance of strategic autonomy and help its workforce in the face of AI-driven disruptions. |
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UAE royal took stake in Trump family firm |
 Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan of the UAE. Abdulla Al Bedwawi/Handout via ReutersAn Emirati royal took a major ownership stake in Donald Trump’s family’s cryptocurrency company days before his inauguration last year — and months before the US agreed to sell advanced AI chips to the Gulf nation, The Wall Street Journal reported. The secret and unprecedented $500 million deal also involved a payout to the family of Steve Witkoff, Trump’s Middle East envoy and a cofounder of the World Liberty Financial crypto venture. The revelation raised concerns about conflicts of interest in American foreign policy, especially given the scrutiny surrounding the US-UAE chip deal over worries the tech could be diverted to China. The transaction “should be a five-alarm fire about the federal government being for sale,” a law professor said. |
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Trump’s Fed pick faces balancing act |
 Brendan McDermid/ReutersUS President Donald Trump’s nominee to chair the Federal Reserve, if confirmed, will need to navigate choppy economic currents while facing threats to the central bank’s independence. Former Fed Governor Kevin Warsh would need to go from critic to reformer, after blasting the Fed for years over its balance sheet and what he deems groupthink. His background is in law and finance, not economics, and he has more “eclectic” explanations for inflation than the Fed’s staff, The Wall Street Journal wrote, though economists have differed over whether Warsh’s leadership would match his caustic rhetoric. First, though, he has to make it through the Senate’s vetting; one Republican lawmaker pledged to oppose Trump’s appointments until authorities stop investigating the Fed. |
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Epstein fallout hits outside US |
 A newly released batch of files related to late American sex offender Jeffrey Epstein is replete with mentions of the global political and financial elite — but the fallout so far has mainly affected figures outside the US. The national security adviser to the Slovakian prime minister resigned Saturday after the documents showed he talked with Epstein about young women. The UK’s leader urged Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor to testify to US lawmakers, given that the files shed more light on the former prince’s relationship with the financier. Norway’s crown princess apologized for her contact with Epstein. In the US, though, much of the political discourse has centered around officials’ handling of the files, rather than what’s contained in them. |
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AI agents are talking to one another |
 Screenshot via MoltbookA new social media platform bypasses humans entirely in favor of bots. Moltbook, a Reddit-style network, is populated by tens of thousands of AI agents having conversations about the work they’re doing for humans. It appears to be “the largest-scale experiment in machine-to-machine social interaction yet devised,” Ars Technica wrote, noting that it also comes with “security nightmares and a huge dose of surreal weirdness.” The agents are acting similarly to human Reddit users, an Information editor wrote: “In other words, they’re acting like weirdos.” Moltbook’s emergence suggests that a future in which bots act autonomously is closer than previously thought. Agents, though, haven’t become superintelligent; the platform is still human-built and human-directed. |
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China’s ‘genius’ track boosted its tech scene |
 Aly Song/ReutersGrueling “genius classes” that separate out gifted students at a young age may help explain China’s technological ascendance. The leaders of Chinese tech giants, as well as the engineers behind China’s upstart AI companies, graduated from this state-led pipeline, wrote the Financial Times’ Asia tech correspondent, himself a former genius student. It is a part of China’s decades-long effort to grow its top talents with a focus on science education, and marks a contrast with the US, where technological breakthroughs have emerged in the absence of a top-down program for top minds. Some of the world’s greatest innovations “were accidents,” a Bloomberg researcher noted. “Whereas the US indeed needs to tighten up its education system… China has to allow more accidents.” |
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US cities rethink one-way streets |
 Mike Blake/ReutersUS cities are moving away from one-way streets, which can encourage speeding and make residents less safe. In Indianapolis, a pair of parallel one-way streets were called the “racetrack” because excessive speeding was so common; they have now reverted to their original two-way design. Streets in Kentucky, Texas, and elsewhere have also been made two-way. One-way streets were rare until the 1970s, an urban planner told The Associated Press, when migration to the suburbs led cities to prioritize faster commutes over downtown walkability. But faster traffic and more complicated intersections made pedestrians and cyclists vulnerable. Two-way, more walkable streets also make downtowns more alluring to shoppers. |
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AI probes mysterious DNA segments |
Google DeepMind unveiled a new AI for predicting the function of the mysterious non-coding sections of our DNA, with the hope of one day helping to create new treatments for genetic diseases. Our actual genes, which tell cells how to make proteins, make up only 2% of our genome. The rest is non-coding DNA, which has a more unknown role in telling genes when to switch on and off. The new AI, AlphaGenome, can work out how changes to non-coding DNA can affect gene expression in humans and mice. DeepMind’s earlier model, AlphaFold, predicts the 3D shape — and thus function — of proteins from their amino acid sequence, and it revolutionized protein science. DeepMind has made a version of AlphaGenome freely available. |
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Germany has too many potatoes |
 Toby Melville/ReutersA European potato glut has led to hundreds of tons being handed out for free in Germany. Last year was a “perfect storm,” an analyst told the Financial Times: Farmers bet heavily on potatoes, the weather was perfect, and demand fell while overseas competition rose. Germany’s yield alone was 2 million tons above average. Activists arranged free handouts across Berlin, although it is a drop in the ocean: 200 tons have been given away so far, while hundreds of thousands more remain piled up in storage. Gluts are common in agriculture, where output is harder to control than in other industries: A global dairy glut is hurting British farmers, and the US Midwest is struggling with an oversupply of grain. |
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|  Feb. 2: - AstraZeneca shares begin trading on the New York Stock Exchange.
- Disney reports quarterly earnings.
- In Pennsylvania, groundhog Punxsutawney Phil looks for his shadow to predict whether spring will come early.
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|  The Empire of Sleep, Musée Marmottan Monet, Paris. This is, apparently, the first major exhibition of artworks about sleep; its 130 artworks are divided into eight sections, addressing sleep in its different forms, its links to death, and the nature of dreams. It is “a remarkable feat,” according to Le Monde, not least because it was conceived, designed, and mounted in barely 18 months, “which constitutes a near miracle these days.” |
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|  The Signal Interview: Syed Basar Shueb says the holding company’s diverse assets can be stitched into “dynamic value networks.” → |
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Welcome to my geopolitics blog site. This is a Hawaii Island news site focusing on geopolitical news, analysis, information, and commentary. I will cite a variety of sources, ranging from all sides of the political spectrum.