新闻纵贯线 Today updated 20:00 2018/01/05（在线收听）

各国政要各有各忙，2018年政治前瞻

Welcome to 'Today' - an hour of world news and analysis -- from a different perspective. I'm Suyi

Coming up：

Based on what happened in the first few days of the New Year, 2018 seems to be another eventful year. 40 years have passed since China embarked on reform and opening-up, now the reform of the world's second largest economy is entering as what officials say uncharted water. Trump will be tested in the midterm election while the Russian-ties drama is far from over. The two Koreas have sent out a slew of conciliatory messages yet whether there will be any real breakthrough remains unclear. Russia continues to consolidate its military gains in Syria but is worried about another round of proxy war. Geopolitical games are more obvious in the Middle East spearheaded by Saudi Arabia and Iran, though these two countries are faced by their own issues. Macron is pushing forward his ambitious reform and to unite the EU at a turbulent time amid Brexit in which many difficulties are still waiting ahead. And German Chancellor Merkel is trying to survive her most serious political crisis, which could be an indication for a more exclusive and right-leaning Europe.

So today we will look ahead and talk about some major trends in 2018.

For more on this, we are joining in the studio by Dr. He Wenping, senior research fellow of the Institute of West Asia and African studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and Dr. Yahia H. ZOUBIR, Professor of International Studies & International Management, Director of Research in Geopolitics at KEDGE Business School

If you have any questions or want to leave comments, simply follow us on Weibo, we're 今日_CRI_TODAY. To listen to this episode again or catch up on previous episodes, you can download our podcast by searching for world news analysis.