DeepSeek launches new AI model

 DeepSeek launches new AI model as Trump cautions of ‘wake-up call’ to US industry

By Ma TongPublished: Jan 28, 2025

Chinese artificial intelligence (AI) startup DeepSeek on Tuesday launched a new open-source multimodal model, following the buzz generated by its cost-effective open-source reasoning model, DeepSeek-R1, which competes with rivals like OpenAI but at a significantly lower cost, sending ripples through the US stock market the day before.

According to information on the AI community platform Hugging Face on Tuesday, DeepSeek has released the open-source multimodal AI model Janus-Pro, an upgraded version of its earlier Janus model, which significantly enhances multimodal understanding and visual generation capabilities.

Its Janus-Pro-7B AI model outperformed OpenAI's DALL-E 3 and Stability AI's Stable Diffusion in a leaderboard ranking for image generation using text prompts, Reuters reported on Tuesday, according to a DeepSeek's technical report the Global Times read on Github, a proprietary developer platform. 

The latest development came after earlier in January the company released the latest open-source model DeepSeek-R1, which has achieved an important technological breakthrough - using pure deep learning methods to allow AI to spontaneously emerge with reasoning capabilities.

As a rapidly growing competitor to leading AI tools like OpenAI's ChatGPT, Google's Gemini, and others, the Chinese AI startup has garnered runaway attention in recent weeks.

US President Donald Trump said on Monday that Chinese startup DeepSeek's technology should act as spur for American companies and said it was good that companies in China have come up with a cheaper, faster method of artificial intelligence, Reuters reported Tuesday. 

"I've been reading about China and some of the companies in China, one in particular coming up with a faster method of AI and much less expensive method, and that's good because you don't have to spend as much money. I view that as a positive, as an asset," Trump said, according to Reuters. 

"The release of DeepSeek, AI from a Chinese company should be a wakeup call for our industries that we need to be laser-focused on competing to win," Trump said in Florida, according to the report. 

The remarks also came as the news around DeepSeek sent shockwaves through the AI industry, with Nvidia bearing the brunt of the sell-off. The chipmaker, a linchpin of the AI supply chain, lost over $500 billion in market value, plummeting 16.86 percent in a single day. Other major tech players, including Alphabet and Microsoft, also declined, though Meta managed to trade in positive territory, Xinhua reported. 

Nvidia issued a statement on Monday after its shares tumbled, noting DeepSeek's advances show the usefulness of its chips for the Chinese market and that more of its chips will be needed in the future to meet demand for DeepSeek's services.

"DeepSeek's work illustrates how new models can be created using that technique, leveraging widely-available models and compute that is fully export control compliant," Nvidia said in its statement.

OpenAI Chief Executive Officer Sam Altman welcomed the debut of DeepSeek's R1 model in a post on X late on Monday. "Deepseek's r1 is an impressive model, particularly around what they're able to deliver for the price. we will obviously deliver much better models and also it's legit invigorating to have a new competitor! we will pull up some releases," Altman said.

The success of DeepSeek showed that the Biden administration's four-year crackdown on China's AI and computing power has not only failed but has also spurred the country to forge a unique path for AI development, achieving significant progress in autonomous AI development, Ma Jihua, a veteran telecom industry observer, told the Global Times on Tuesday.

"While the global AI community has been focused on increasing computing power, China has been pioneering a path through algorithm optimization, opening up a new approach that is cost-effective and equally efficient. This development holds significant importance for the global AI landscape," Ma noted.

"However, with the emergence of DeepSeek and the rapid advancement of China's AI industry, there is now greater potential for complementary cooperation between China and the US. Both countries can leverage their unique strengths, making collaboration more promising than ever before," Ma said. 

Industry observers reached by the Global Times previously said while China and the US, as the two leading powers in the global AI field, compete in the AI industry, there is also significant room for cooperation, especially in AI governance.⍐

OpenAI asks Indian court to throw out book publishers challenge in copyright battle

OpenAI asks Indian court to throw out book publishers challenge in copyright battle

By Arpan Chaturvedi and Aditya Kalra January 28, 2025

• Summary
• 
  

• OpenAI filing says publishers body's case should be dismissed
• OpenAI denies using original literary work in training its large language model

NEW DELHI, Jan 28 (Reuters) - OpenAI has asked an Indian court to quash a plea by a group representing Indian and global book publishers that accuse it of copyright breaches, arguing its ChatGPT service only disseminates public information, legal papers show.

The case, which began with legal action last year by local news agency ANI, will be heard in New Delhi on Tuesday. It has the potential to shape the legal framework for artificial intelligence in India - OpenAI's second-largest market by number of users.

In recent weeks, book publishers and almost a dozen digital media outlets, including those owned by billionaires Gautam Adani and Mukesh Ambani, have joined the case to challenge the AI giant.

The Federation of Indian Publishers, which represents many Indian firms and likes of Bloomsbury (BLPU.L), opens new tab and Penguin Random House, has argued ChatGPT produces book summaries and extracts from unlicensed online copies, hurting their business.

OpenAI countered that the information was drawn from platforms like Wikipedia or abstracts, summaries, tables of content made publicly available on the websites of the publishers in question, according to a Jan. 26 non-public court filing seen by Reuters.

"Web-crawlers are designed to only access publically available data," OpenAI said in its 21-page response to the book publishers's argument.

The book publishers have "entirely failed to demonstrate even a single instance" that OpenAI services are trained on "original literary work," it said.

Pranav Gupta, secretary of the federation, told Reuters that most book-related content being shown by ChatGPT was scraped from websites that have licensing arrangements with book publishers.

OpenAI maintains it only uses publicly available data in a manner protected by fair use principles. Asked for comment on Tuesday, it referred Reuters to its earlier statements and the court filing challenging the book publishers.

OpenAI has also said, in its initial response to the ANI case, that Indian judges have no jurisdiction to hear a case against it as its servers are located abroad.

The case is one of many that is being heard globally in which authors, news organisations and musicians have accused technology firms of using their copyrighted work to train AI services without permission or license.⍐

China's DeepSeek AI assistant surges in popularity

 Tech selloff subsides, DeepSeek triggers AI rethink

By Ankur Banerjee and Rae Wee January 28, 2025

• Summary
• 
  

• China's DeepSeek AI assistant surges in popularity
• Investors ponder AI race between China, U.S.
• Nvidia shares sink 17%, wiping $593 bln off market value
• Japanese technology shares slide for second day

The deepseek logo, a keyboard, and robot hands are seen in this illustration taken January 27, 2025. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration

LONDON/SINGAPORE, Jan 28 (Reuters) - Global technology shares recovered some poise on Tuesday, but remained vulnerable after a rout sparked by the emergence of a low-cost Chinese artificial intelligence model made investors question the sky-high valuation and dominance of AI bellwethers.

Shares of chipmaker Nvidia (NVDA.O), opens new tab, the poster child of the AI boom in recent years, fell 17% on Monday, wiping $593 billion from its market value - a record one-day loss for any company - and dragging U.S. stocks lower.

By Tuesday, Nvidia shares were up nearly 6% in Frankfurt, while those in Oracle (ORCL.N), opens new tab rose 3.4% and AI data analytics company Palantir (PLTR.O), opens new tab rose 2.97%.

It all stemmed from a free AI assistant launched by Chinese startup DeepSeek last week that the firm said uses less data at a fraction of the cost of services available currently. That garnered attention worldwide, although scepticism lingers.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman called it an "impressive model".

"We will obviously deliver much better models and also it's legit invigorating to have a new competitor!," Altman, the head of the AI firm behind ChatGPT, said, opens new tab in a social media post.

The launch and increasing popularity of DeepSeek spurred investors to dump tech stocks globally, with ripples felt from Tokyo to Amsterdam to Silicon Valley.

Markets in tech-heavy South Korea and Taiwan are closed for the next few days for Lunar New Year. Mainland China is closed until Feb. 4, leaving the spotlight firmly on Japanese firms.

On Tuesday, chip-testing equipment maker Advantest (6857.T), opens new tab, a supplier to Nvidia lost 10% after diving nearly 9% on Monday. Chip-making equipment maker Tokyo Electron (8035.T), opens new tab and technology start-up investor SoftBank Group (9984.T), opens new tab slid 5%.

"It's clearly a sell first, ask questions later approach, and we've actually seen that kind of move in the past in Japan," said Kei Okamura, a portfolio manager at Neuberger Berman, referring to a global market meltdown in August headlined by Japan's Nikkei.

In Europe on Tuesday, shares in Dutch semiconductor company ASML (ASML.AS), opens new tab, which closed down 7.1% on Monday, opened up 0.9%, while shares in BE Semiconductor (BESI.AS), opens new tab rose 1.2%.

Over in the U.S., Broadcom (AVGO.O), opens new tab finished down 17.4%, while ChatGPT backer Microsoft (MSFT.O), opens new tab fell 2.1% and Google parent Alphabet (GOOGL.O), opens new tab closed down 4.2%. The Philadelphia semiconductor index (.SOX), opens new tab tumbled 9.2%, for its deepest percentage drop since March 2020.

NO MARGIN OF ERROR

The selloff has brought into the spotlight the crowded positioning among investors and the billions of dollars U.S. tech giants are pouring in to develop AI capabilities, as well as the extremely high valuation of some of these firms.

"What makes Monday's tech selloff so jarring is that the valuations of many of these AI and tech companies offer no margin of error," said David Bahnsen, chief investment officer at The Bahnsen Group.

"The excessive weighting these tech stocks have in many investor portfolios and the high concentration these tech stocks have in the market indices was a significant and under-appreciated risk issue."

The hype around AI has powered a huge flow of capital into equities, inflating valuations and lifting stock markets to record highs, leading to an increase of around $10 trillion in the market value of "Magnificent Seven" companies since ChatGPT kicked off the AI boom in November 2022.

It is not just the chipmakers and tech companies but companies focused on data centres also taking a hit, with Malaysia's utility conglomerate YTL Power (YTLP.KL), opens new tab down 9% on Tuesday, its third session of steep loss.

"We're still, like many investors, gathering information," said Neuberger Berman's Okamura, noting that a lot of investors are scrambling to gather more information and decide their next move.

"I think we’re going to see many more of these (developments) going forward. And we’ve seen technological advancements like this that have had implications for cost spend."

Investor focus will be on the flurry of tech earnings this week, with executives likely keen to calm frayed nerves and ease concerns about capital spending.

AI RACE

Little is known about the Hangzhou startup behind DeepSeek, whose controlling shareholder is Liang Wenfeng, co-founder of quantitative hedge fund High-Flyer, records showed.

Its researchers wrote in a paper last month that its DeepSeek-V3 model, launched on Jan. 10, used Nvidia's lower-capability H800 chips for training, at a cost of less than $6 million.

The launch and the popularity of the app contrasts with the lacklustre reception that met the Chinese ChatGPT equivalent made by search engine giant Baidu (9888.HK), opens new tab, which exposed the gap in AI capabilities between U.S. and Chinese firms.

An area chart titled "The Magnificent Seven’s slice of the S&P 500" that tracks the metric.

The quality and cost efficiency of DeepSeek's models have flipped this narrative on its head and prompted a warning from U.S. President Donald Trump, who called it "a wakeup call for our industries."

Japan's digital minister Masaaki Taira said DeepSeek's emergence had upended conventional wisdom that Chinese AI was years behind.

"It's been said that Chinese generative AI might be about five years behind, but that turned out to be wrong and it seems to be on a fairly good track," Taira said, adding that Japan was taking a closer look into suggestions that Chinese AI may be more cost effective.

An area chart titled "The Magnificent Seven’s slice of the S&P 500" that tracks the metric.

The quality and cost efficiency of DeepSeek's models have flipped this narrative on its head and prompted a warning from U.S. President Donald Trump, who called it "a wakeup call for our industries."

Japan's digital minister Masaaki Taira said DeepSeek's emergence had upended conventional wisdom that Chinese AI was years behind.

"It's been said that Chinese generative AI might be about five years behind, but that turned out to be wrong and it seems to be on a fairly good track," Taira said, adding that Japan was taking a closer look into suggestions that Chinese AI may be more cost effective.⍐

China's Deep Seek prompts global sell-off in AI-linked stocks

By Sinéad Carew, Amanda Cooper and Ankur Banerjee

January 27, 2025

• Summary
• 
  

• Tech stocks sink; Nvidia drops sharply
• China's Deep Seek AI assistance surges in popularity
• Nervous investors seek safe havens, dollar falls

LONDON/SINGAPORE, Jan 27 (Reuters) - Investors made a quick exit from a host of technology stocks from Tokyo to New York on Monday as the emergence of a low-cost Chinese artificial intelligence model challenged the dominance of current AI leaders such as Nvidia (NVDA.O), opens new tab.

Raising questions about the level of investment needed for AI, startup DeepSeek launched a free AI assistant last week that it says uses less data at a fraction of the cost of incumbent services.

And by Monday DeepSeek's assistant had overtaken U.S. rival ChatGPT in downloads from Apple's app store.

The news led Nasdaq (.IXIC), opens new tab to open down more than 3%. The tech-heavy index has since pared losses but was still down 2.9% at midday, with leading AI chipmaker Nvidia (NVDA.O), opens new tab its biggest drag with a loss of more than 15%.

The Nasdaq's next biggest drag was chip maker Broadcom Inc (AVGO.O), opens new tab, down 15%, followed by Microsoft (MSFT.O), opens new tab, off 3.7%, and Google parent Alphabet (GOOGL.O), opens new tab, which fell 2.7%.

The Philadelphia semiconductor index (.SOX), opens new tab tumbled 7.9%, eyeing its biggest percentage drop since March 2020.

Their declines followed a sell-off that started in Asia, with Japan's SoftBank Group (9984.T), opens new tab finishing down 8.3%, and moved through Europe where ASML (ASML.AS), opens new tab fell 7.6%.

"If it’s true that DeepSeek is the proverbial 'better mousetrap,' that could disrupt the entire AI narrative that has helped drive the markets over the last two years," said Brian Jacobsen, chief economist at Annex Wealth Management in Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin,

"It could mean less demand for chips, less need for a massive build-out of power production to fuel the models, and less need for large-scale data centers. However, it could also mean that AI becomes more accessible and help kickstart the development of a wide array of useful applications," Jacobsen said.

The hype around AI has powered a huge inflow of capital into the equity markets in the last 18 months, as investors bought into the technology, which inflated company valuations and lifted stock markets to new highs.

On Wednesday U.S. AI-related stocks rallied after President Donald Trump announced a private-sector plan for what he said would be a $500 billion investment in AI infrastructure through a joint venture known as Stargate.

Since then SoftBank has announced a $19 billion commitment to help fund the Stargate joint venture with companies including OpenAI and Oracle , whose shares were down 7.8% on Monday.

U.S.-traded shares in ASML, which counts Taiwan's TSMC (2330.TW), opens new tab, Intel (INTC.O), opens new tab and Samsung (005930.KS), opens new tab as its customers, dropped more than 6%. In Europe energy technology company Siemens Energy (ENR1n.DE), opens new tab lost 19%.

Little is known about the small Hangzhou startup behind DeepSeek. Its researchers wrote in a paper last month the DeepSeek-V3 model, launched on Jan. 10, used Nvidia's H800 chips for training, spending less than $6 million - the figure referenced by Pictet's Withaar.

H800 chips are not top of the line. Initially developed as a reduced-capability product to get around curbs on sales to China, they were subsequently banned by U.S. sanctions.

'SPUTNIK MOMENT'

Marc Andreessen, the Silicon Valley venture capitalist, said in a post on X on Sunday that DeepSeek's R1 model was AI's "Sputnik moment," referencing the former Soviet Union's launch of a satellite that marked the start of the space race in the late 1950s.

"DeepSeek R1 is one of the most amazing and impressive breakthroughs I've ever seen — and as open source, a profound gift to the world," he said in a separate post.

Given the volatility in equities, investors sought out safe-havens such as U.S. Treasuries. This pushed 10-year yields down to 4.55% while currencies like Japan's yen and the Swiss franc rallied against the dollar.

Big Tech has ramped up spending on developing AI capabilities and optimism over the possible returns has driven stock valuations sky-high.

Shares in Nvidia are down more than 7% for the year to date but the stock rose 171% in 2024 and 239% in 2023 to trades at 56 times the value of its earnings.

In comparison the Nasdaq (.IXIC), opens new tab trades at a multiple of 16 to the value of its constituents' earnings, LSEG data showed.

Among other stocks, Vertiv Holdings (VRT.N), opens new tab, which builds data center infrastructure, slumped 27%.

Power utilities, expected to benefit from a surge in demand from power-hungry data centers needed to develop AI technology, also tumbled. Vistra (VST.N), opens new tab shares were down 24.4% while Constellation Energy (CEG.O), opens new tab shares were off more than 18% and NRG Energy (NRG.N), opens new tab fell 13%.

A line chart of the relative performance in percentage terms since May 2023 of the big US chipmakers and AI stocks.

⍐

Davos 2025: Special address by Donald J. Trump

Davos 2025: Special address by Donald J. Trump, President of the United States of America

Jan 23, 2025 WEC 2025

• Donald J Trump makes a special address at Davos just three days after being inaugurated as the 47th president of the US.
• Trump says his administration is working to fix the 'economic chaos' and will make the US 'stronger, wealthier and more united than ever before'.
• He vows to bring down oil and gas prices, eliminate regulations, introduce tax cuts for domestic producers and bring in tariffs on foreign goods.

This is an AI-generated transcript of President Trump's full address at Davos 2025.

This has been a truly historic week in the United States. Three days ago, I took the oath of office and we began the Golden Age of America.

The recent presidential election was won by millions of votes and all seven, every one of them, all seven swing states. It was a massive mandate from the American people, like hasn't been seen in many years.

And some of the political pundits, even some of my so-called enemies, said it was the most consequential election victory in 129 years. That's quite nice. What the world has witnessed in the past 72 hours is nothing less than a revolution of common sense.

Our country will soon be stronger, wealthier and more united than ever before, and the entire planet will be more peaceful and prosperous as a result of this incredible momentum, and what we're doing and going to do.

My administration is acting with unprecedented speed to fix the disasters we've inherited from a totally inept group of people, and to solve every single crisis facing our country.

This begins with confronting the economic chaos caused by the failed policies of the last administration. Over the past four years, our government racked up $8 trillion in wasteful deficit spending and inflicted nation wrecking energy restrictions, crippling regulations and hidden taxes like never before.

The result is the worst inflation crisis in modern history, and sky-high interest rates for our citizens and, even throughout the world, food prices and the price of almost every other thing known to mankind went through the roof.

Likewise, the cost of servicing the debt is more than 230% higher than was projected in 2020. The inflation rate we are inheriting remains 50% higher than the historic target. It was the highest inflation, probably, in the history of our country.

That's why from the moment I took office, I've taken rapid action to reverse each and every one of these radical left policies that created this calamity – in particular with immigration, crime and inflation.

On day one, I signed an executive order directing every member of my cabinet to marshal all powers at their disposal to defeat inflation and reduce the cost of daily life. I imposed a federal hiring freeze, a federal regulation freeze, a foreign aid freeze, and I created the new Department of Government Efficiency.

I terminated the ridiculous and incredibly wasteful Green New Deal – I call it the Green New Scam; withdrew from the one sided Paris climate accord; and ended the insane and costly electric vehicle mandate. We're going to let people buy the car they want to buy.

I declared a national energy emergency – and that's so important – a national energy emergency to unlock the liquid gold under our feet and pave the way for rapid approvals of new energy infrastructure.

The United States has the largest amount of oil and gas of any country on Earth, and we're going to use it. Not only will this reduce the cost of virtually all goods and services, it will make the United States a manufacturing superpower and the world capital of artificial intelligence and crypto.

My administration has also begun the largest deregulation campaign in history, far exceeding even the record-setting efforts of my last term.

In total, the Biden administration imposed $50,000 in additional regulatory costs on the average American household over the last four years. I have promised to eliminate 10 old regulations for every new regulation, which will soon put many thousands of dollars back in the pockets of American families.

To further unleash our economy, our majorities in the House and Senate – which we also took, along with the presidency – are going to pass the largest tax cut in American history, including massive tax cuts for workers and families, and big tax cuts for domestic producers and manufacturers.

And we're working with the Democrats on getting an extension of the original Trump tax cuts. As you probably know, by just reading any paper, my message to every business in the world is very simple: Come make your product in America and we will give you among the lowest taxes of any nation on Earth.

We're bringing them down very substantially, even from the original Trump tax cuts. But if you don't make your product in America, which is your prerogative, then very simply you will have to pay a tariff – differing amounts, but a tariff which will direct hundreds of billions of dollars and even trillions of dollars into our Treasury to strengthen our economy and pay down debt.

Under the Trump administration, there will be no better place on Earth to create jobs, build factories, or grow a company than right here in the good old USA. Already Americans’ economic – you can see, I think, maybe even in your in your wonderful, wonderful room that you're all gathered together, so many of my friends – but Americans'... the economic confidence is soaring like we haven't seen in many, many decades. Maybe not at all.

Upon my election, it was just announced a small business optimism skyrocketed by 41 points in a single month – that's the highest ever, there's never been anything like that.

SoftBank has announced between a $100 billion and $200 billion investment in the US economy because of the election result. And just two days ago, Oracle, SoftBank and OpenAi announced a $500 billion investment in AI infrastructure. Other companies likewise have announced billions, and billions, and billions –adding up to trillions – of investment in America, in the United States.

And it's also reported today in the papers that Saudi Arabia will be investing at least $600 billion in America. But I'll be asking the Crown Prince – who's a fantastic guy – to round it out to around $1 trillion. I think they'll do that because we've been very good to them.

And I'm also going to ask Saudi Arabia and OPEC to bring down the cost of oil. You got to bring it down, which frankly, I'm surprised they didn't do before the election. That didn't show a lot of love by them not doing it. I was a little surprised by that.

If the price came down, the Russia-Ukraine war would end immediately. Right now, the price is high enough that that war will continue. You've got to bring down the oil price. You're going to end that war.

They should have done it long ago. They're very responsible actually – to a certain extent – for what's taking place. Millions of lives are being lost. With oil prices going down, I'll demand that interest rates drop immediately. And likewise, they should be dropping all over the world.

Interest rates should follow us. All over, the progress that you’re seeing is happening because of our historic victory in a recent presidential election, one that has become quite well known throughout the world.

I think a lot of things are happening to a lot of countries. They say that there's light shining all over the world since the election, and even countries that we aren't particularly friendly with are happy, because they understand what … there is a future and how great the future will be under our leadership. America is back and open for business.

And this week I'm also taking swift action to stop the invasion at our southern border. They allowed people to come in at levels that nobody's ever seen before. It was ridiculous. I decided a, and declared to do – and very, very importantly – a national emergency on our border immediately halted all entry of illegal border crossers, of which there were many, and began promptly returning the illegal trespassers back to the place from which they came.

That action, as you've probably seen, has already started very strongly. I've deployed active-duty US Military and National Guard troops to the border to assist in repelling the invasion. It was really an invasion. We will not allow our territory to be violated.

After four long years, the United States is strong and sovereign and a beautiful nation, once again. It's a strong sovereign nation. In addition, I'm pleased to report that America is also a free nation, once again.

On day one, I signed an executive order to stop all government censorship. No longer will our government label the speech of our own citizens as misinformation or disinformation, which are the favourite words of censors and those who wish to stop the free exchange of ideas and, frankly, progress. We have saved free speech in America, and we've saved it strongly with another historic executive order.

This week, I also ended the weaponization of law enforcement against the American people and, frankly, against politicians, and restored the fair, equal and impartial rule of law.

My administration has taken action to abolish all discriminatory diversity, equity and inclusion nonsense. And these are policies that were absolute nonsense throughout the government and the private sector.

With the recent, yet somewhat unexpected, great Supreme Court decision just made, America will once again become a merit-based country. You have to hear that word: merit-based country.

And I've made it official, an official policy of the United States that there are only two genders, male and female. And we will have no men participating in women's sports and transgender operations, which became the rage, will occur very rarely.

Finally, as we restore common sense in America, we're moving quickly to bring back strength and peace and stability abroad. I'm also going to ask all NATO nations to increase defence spending to 5% of GDP, which is what it should have been years ago. It was only at 2%, and most nations didn't pay until I came along.

I insisted that they pay, and they did because the United States was really paying the difference at that time and it was unfair to the United States. But many, many things have been unfair for many years to the United States.

Before even taking office, my team negotiated a ceasefire agreement in the Middle East, which wouldn't have happened without us, as I think most of the people in the room know. Earlier this week, the hostages began to return to their families. They are returning, and it's a beautiful sight, and they'll be coming in more and more. They started coming back on Sunday.

Our efforts to secure a peace settlement between Russia and Ukraine are now hopefully under way. It's so important to get that done. That is an absolute killing field. Millions of soldiers are being killed. Nobody has seen anything like it since World War two. They're laying dead all over the flat fields. It's a flat field, farmland, and there's millions of Russians and millions of Ukrainians, and nobody's seen anything like it since World War Two. It's time to end it.

And here in America, we have big events coming up. Next year, we have the 250th anniversary of America's founding. I'm so honoured to be president during that. That's been a big event. They've been talking about it for ten years.

We also have the World Cup, and I understand Gianni Infantino is in the room. He was very instrumental in helping us get it. He's there with you someplace, I think, and I want to thank him for that. And then we have the Olympics coming up, which I was instrumental in getting also in my first term.

And who would have known that by skipping a term, I would get the Olympics? I was upset, I said, ‘You know, I got the Olympics to come and I won’t be president.’ But it turned out, through a stroke of luck, or whatever you might call it, that I'm going to be president during the World Cup and the Olympics and the 250th anniversary. So that's going to be three big events.

And we've accomplished more in less than four days – we have really been working for four days – than other administrations have accomplished in four years. And we're just getting started. It's really an amazing thing to see, and the spirit, and the light over our country has been incredible.

Under the last administration, our nation has suffered greatly, but we are going to bring it back and make it greater, bigger, stronger, better than ever before. I want to thank everybody for being with you. I would have been there myself, except the inauguration was two days ago. I thought it might be a little bit quick to make it the first stop, but we'll get there one day.

We hope to get there, but I do appreciate I heard the audience is fantastic – and many of my friends are in the audience – and I will be taking questions now from some very distinguished people. Thank you all very much.⍐

Displaced Palestinians begin to return home to devastated northern Gaza

Displaced Palestinians begin to return home 

BEIRUT — Palestinians displaced from northern Gaza began a long-awaited journey home Monday morning after Israel and Hamas resolved a hostage dispute overnight that had threatened the fragile ceasefire agreement. Hamas provided Israel with the names of living hostages to be released in the first phase of the deal, saying that eight of the 33 hostages are dead, according to Basem Naim, a senior official with the group.

Video footage showed throngs of people walking along the coastal al-Rashid road, marking the first time since the early weeks of the 15-month war that Israel has allowed Palestinians to cross the Netzarim Corridor, which splits the enclave in two, and enter the north, where some of the worst fighting and destruction has happened.

Hamas called the return a “victory” against what it said were plans for the forced displacement of Palestinians.

Israeli troops had been blocking passage along the corridor because an Israeli hostage, 29-year-old Arbel Yehud, was not among the female captives Israel said Hamas had agreed to release first. A spokesman for the Qatari Foreign Ministry said the two sides had reached an “understanding” for Hamas to release Yehud and two other hostages before Friday. Three more hostages will be released Saturday, according to a statement from the Israeli prime minister’s office.

The statement, issued Sunday, said Israel had also received a list detailing the status of all the hostages who are to be released in the first phase of the ceasefire, including whether they are alive or dead. Israeli officials and families of hostages have sought that information since the deadly Hamas attack of Oct. 7, 2023. David Mencer, a spokesman for the Israeli prime minister’s office, confirmed Monday that eight of the hostages are dead and said their families have been notified.

Seven living hostages have already been freed since the ceasefire began, and 18 more, as well as the remains of the eight who died, are to be released in the coming weeks.

In Lebanon, a ceasefire that was set to expire Sunday was extended to Feb. 18, according to the White House and the Lebanese government. The extension came after Israel said it would not withdraw its troops from southern Lebanon by Sunday and as Lebanese civilians, encouraged by Hezbollah, marched into occupied villages, where many were met with Israeli fire. Twenty-four people were killed and 134 injured, Lebanon’s health ministry said Monday.

Here’s what else to know

Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said the ceasefires with Gaza and Lebanon will be “strictly enforced.” In a statement on social media, he said anyone who threatens Israel’s military or violates the rules “will bear the full consequences. We will not allow a return to the reality of October 7th.”

The European Union is lifting some sanctions against Syria, French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot said Monday, as part of a process that E.U. leaders have called a “step-for-step” approach to Syria linking sanctions relief to conditions, including that the country’s new Islamist leaders govern inclusively.

President Donald Trump said over the weekend he wanted Jordan and Egypt to take in more Palestinian refugees as part of a plan to “clean out” Gaza, a controversial approach previously advocated by Israel’s right wing and military hard-liners.

Newly confirmed U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth spoke to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu by phone Sunday. According to a readout released by the secretary’s office, the pair discussed the “unbreakable bond that exists between the United States and Israel” and reaffirmed the U.S. commitment to Israel’s self-defense.

Hazem Balousha contributed to this report.