US-Colombia Reach Deal After Deportation Flight Standoff
Colombian Pres. Gustavo Petro on Sunday agreed to accept military aircraft carrying deported migrants after US Pres. Donald Trump threatened to impose tariffs and sanctions on the South American nation for earlier refusing to accept military flights carrying deportees.
Colombia had blocked two US Air Force C-17 transport planes carrying deportees from landing in the country on Sunday, stating that migrants shouldn't be treated as criminals and demanding dignified treatment protocols.
In response, Trump said he would "immediately" impose 25% emergency tariffs on Colombian imports (to be raised to 50% within a week), along with travel bans and visa restrictions for Colombian officials and their supporters.
Narrative A
The US government must take decisive action against countries that refuse to accept their deported citizens, as this undermines America's national security and immigration enforcement efforts. Strong measures, including tariffs and sanctions, are necessary to ensure compliance with international obligations and protect US borders.
Narrative B
Migrants deserve humane treatment and dignity during deportation processes, and military aircraft transport criminalizes individuals who have committed no violent offenses. Countries have the right to establish protocols ensuring their citizens' dignified return without facing excessive economic retaliation.
Narrative C
The US-Colombia standoff not only almost brought the countries to the brink of a trade war, but it also served as a warning to US allies and adversaries alike either back down and cooperate with Trump or face the consequences for defying his orders. Autocracy, is it?
Nerd narrative
There's a 50% chance that the average tariff on goods entering the US for Q4 2025 will be at least 4.34%, according to the Metaculus prediction community.
M23 Rebels Seize Goma as DRC-Rwanda Tensions Escalate
Rwanda-backed rebels, the M23, announced on Sunday that they had taken control of Goma, the largest city in eastern Congo. The United Nations described the situation as critical, with widespread panic affecting its 2M residents.
The ongoing escalation of the conflict has led to significant casualties, including the deaths of thirteen peacekeepers — nine South Africans, three Malawians, and one Uruguayan, who were killed in clashes with rebels during recent fighting. On Sunday, the rebels urged the Congolese army to surrender their weapons.
The Democratic Republic of Congo has formally severed diplomatic ties with Rwanda, recalling its diplomats and requesting Rwandan authorities to cease diplomatic activities in Kinshasa, following accusations that Rwanda is supporting the M23 rebels' offensive in the mineral-rich region.
Narrative A
The Congolese government faces an existential threat from Rwanda-backed M23 rebels who have violated territorial sovereignty and caused massive humanitarian displacement. Rwanda's military presence in eastern Congo represents a clear act of aggression that has destabilized the region and led to massive civilian casualties.
Narrative B
Rwanda's security concerns are legitimate due to the presence of FDLR militia (former Rwandan Hutu officers) near its border, and the Congolese military's collaboration with these groups poses a direct threat. The conflict stems from long-standing discrimination against Tutsi minorities in eastern Congo that require protection.
Nerd narrative
There is a 61% chance that the DRC will experience a civil war before 2036, according to the Metaculus prediction community.
Belarus Election: Lukashenko Wins 7th Term
Pres. Alexander Lukashenko won the Belarusian national election with 86.82% of the vote, the country's Central Election Commission declared on Monday. The 70-year-old former collective farm boss won a seventh five-year term, and the final results will be formally announced by Feb. 5.
Four others — Sergei Syrankov, Oleg Gaidukevich, Anna Kanopatskaya and Alexander Khizhnyak — won 3.21%, 2.02%, 1.86%, and 1.74%, respectively, of the votes polled.
The 2025 election marks the first presidential vote since 2020, which saw mass protests alleging election fraud. Following a government crackdown, more than 1K people reportedly remain imprisoned in Belarus, including Nobel Peace Prize winner Ales Bialiatski.
Narrative A
Belarus maintains a tough democracy that doesn't silence anyone, with Lukashenko guaranteeing peace and order in the country while preventing the chaos that protest leaders attempted to sow in 2020. The government has successfully preserved stability and improved living conditions since Lukashenko first took office, maintaining crucial economic and political ties with Russia and furthering regional stability.
Narrative B
The election represents a complete farce lacking any democratic legitimacy, conducted amid unprecedented repression of human rights and restrictions on political participation. The regime has imprisoned or forced into exile all genuine opposition figures while allowing only hand-picked candidates to create an illusion of competition.
Narrative C
Many Belarusians viewed the 2025 national election in a state of apathy, shaped by fears of instability and the suffocating inevitability of Lukashenko's victory. While Western critics denounce the process as undemocratic and regime loyalists champion it as essential, most Belarusians' focus is to preserve safety and stability in their everyday lives.
Nerd narrative
There is a 40% chance Russia will significantly incorporate Belarus into the Union State before 2030, according to the Metaculus prediction community.
UK: Russell Group Universities to Replace Traditional Exams
The Office for Students has approved plans by Russell Group universities, including Oxford and Cambridge, to move away from traditional examination methods and toward more inclusive alternatives, such as take-home and open-book tests.
The changes are part of the Access and Participation Plans, which universities must submit annually to demonstrate their support for disadvantaged students.
Oxford University has pledged to implement a more diverse range of assessments to improve degree outcomes for students from lower socioeconomic backgrounds, while Cambridge University aims to enhance results for Black-British and British-Bangladeshi students.
Left narrative
The current UK assessment models may not work fairly for all students, as some consistently attain lower grades than peers with similar prior academic performance. Universities should have the flexibility to trial and evaluate new assessment methods to ensure fair opportunities for all students while maintaining academic rigor.
Right narrative
This approach represents a patronizing dumbing down of university education that undermines academic integrity. Scrapping traditional examinations makes no sense as they provide a rigorous and fair assessment of student capabilities, and students from all backgrounds can excel in demanding educational environments.
Survivors Mark 80th Anniversary of Auschwitz Liberation
Around 50 former inmates and survivors of the Auschwitz concentration camp — alongside world leaders, royalty and other dignitaries — assembled at the site in southern Poland to commemorate 80 years since its liberation on Monday.
Some 7K prisoners were discovered by Soviet forces when the camp was liberated on Jan. 27, 1945, and the date has since marked International Holocaust Remembrance Day — a call to remember the atrocities carried out by Adolf Hitler and the Nazi regime so that such crimes are never repeated again.
Of the 6M Jews systematically murdered by the Nazis in the course of World War II, roughly 1M of those were killed at Auschwitz. The site, alongside others, was also used to exterminate Poles, Romani and Sinti people, as well as Soviet prisoners of war, Jehova's Witnesses, gay people, and those with physical or mental disabilities.
Pro-establishment narrative
Since the liberation of Auschwitz 80 years ago, it remains more imperative than ever to remember the atrocities carried out there and at other Nazi death camps so that such horrors are never again repeated. This is particularly because surveys show that a growing number of young people are completely unaware of what took place.
Establishment-critical narrative
While world leaders will make well-meaning statements about the need to remember the Holocaust, the reality is that far-right parties are once again prevalent across the Western world. Intolerance in the form of Islamophobia and anti-immigrant rhetoric is now widespread. Least of all, genocidal violence in Gaza shows that lessons of the past have not been learned.
PRC Company DeepSeek AI Sparks $1T US Stock Selloff
Chinese artificial intelligence (AI) company DeepSeek triggered a large US tech stock selloff after claiming to have developed an AI model for just $6M in two months, causing the Nasdaq to plunge more than 3% and threatening to wipe out $1T in market value.
DeepSeek's chatbot, which is free to use, surpassed OpenAI's ChatGPT to become the top free app in the Apple App Store. It claims to perform comparably in math, programming, and language reasoning to leading US models at a fraction of the cost and computing power.
US company Nvidia, the leading AI chip manufacturer, saw its shares plummet by 16.86%.
Narrative A
DeepSeek R1's development under US sanctions showcases their ineffectiveness in curbing China's AI innovation. Despite export controls on chips, DeepSeek has not only matched but in some cases surpassed ChatGPT o1, proving that these restrictions drive efficiency and ingenuity. By optimizing limited resources, DeepSeek has democratized AI — offering powerful tools to those in both rich and poor countries.
Narrative B
The AI race is far from over, with US companies still poised to reclaim leadership. While DeepSeek is impressive, its advancements are just part of a new dynamic where innovation cycles change monthly, not yearly. US firms like Google and OpenAI retain strong research capabilities and work within a vibrant, competition-based market of competition, which will likely lead to breakthroughs not solely dependent on hardware supremacy.
Nerd narrative
There is a 20% chance that OVH will buy AI accelerators designed by a Chinese firm before 2028, according to the Metaculus prediction community.
Palestinians Return to Northern Gaza
Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians streamed into northern Gaza on Monday after the Netzarim Corridor — a strip of land occupied by Israel that bisects the strip — was opened. The corridor was originally set to open on Sunday as part of the first phase of the cease-fire agreement.
Netzarim's opening was delayed due to disagreements around Arbel Yehud, a female civilian hostage Israel said it expected to be released last week. Qatar helped resolve the dispute, with Hamas agreeing to release Yehud as well as female soldier Agam Berger and another hostage on Thursday.
Cars entering northern Gaza are being inspected on the Salah al-Din road by Egyptian contractors alongside a US firm, according to an anonymous Egyptian official. An Israeli official said the vehicle checkpoint is designed to stop heavy arms flowing to northern Gaza.
Pro-Israel narrative
Allowing Palestinians to return to the north will only make it more difficult for Israel to resume the war if it needs to. Keeping civilians out of the north was Israel's most significant bargaining chip and it has now been conceded. Israel now has fewer options, and it's becoming ever-clearer that the war is largely over with Hamas still in power.
Pro-Palestine narrative
Though Israel worked for over a year to ethnically cleanse northern Gaza to make way for Jewish settlements, Palestinians have again thwarted attempts to indefinitely displace them. Despite the brutal realities of this genocidal war, Palestinians have expressed joy that they can finally return to what is left of their homes. Indeed, Palestinians will continue fighting for their freedom.
Nerd narrative
There's a 15% chance that the Gaza war end and significant progress will be made towards a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict before January 1, 2030, according to the Metaculus prediction community.
CIA Now Favors Lab Leak Theory for COVID Origin
The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) on Saturday released its revised position on COVID's origins, saying it now assesses with "low confidence" that the pandemic likely emerged from a research-related incident rather than natural transmission.
This assessment was completed during the final weeks of the Biden administration and declassified by new CIA Director John Ratcliffe, who was nominated by Pres. Donald Trump. Officials emphasized that no new intelligence prompted this change in position, but rather a fresh analysis of existing evidence.
Three US intelligence agencies now support the lab leak theory — the CIA, FBI (with moderate confidence), and Department of Energy (with low confidence). Four other agencies and the National Intelligence Council maintain that a natural origin is more likely.
Right narrative
The lab leak theory is supported by intelligence, science, and common sense. The preponderance of circumstantial evidence points to coronavirus research in Wuhan labs as responsible for spawning the global pandemic. Previous resistance to this conclusion was driven by liberal, woke political considerations rather than facts.
Left narrative
The source of the virus is a complex scientific issue that should be determined through rigorous scientific research rather than reassessments of old evidence by the new, hawkish Trump administration. China has consistently maintained transparency while cooperating with international investigations, including the WHO study that downplayed the odds of a lab leak being the cause.
Nerd narrative
There's a 1% chance that if a natural pandemic catastrophe occurs, it will reduce the human population by 95% or more, according to the Metaculus prediction community.
UK Watchdog: Lab-Grown Eggs and Sperm Near Reality
The UK's Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority announced that lab-grown human eggs and sperm, known as in-vitro gametes (IVGs), could become viable within the next decade, backed by significant Silicon Valley investment and rapid scientific advancement.
Scientists have already successfully created healthy mouse offspring using lab-grown eggs — including baby mice with two biological fathers — while US companies like Conception and Gameto are working to replicate this achievement with human cells.
The technology promises to remove age barriers to conception and could enable same-sex couples to have biological children together, while potentially providing new fertility treatment options for individuals with low sperm counts or ovarian reserves.
Narrative A
IVG will be a game-changer by offering safer, less invasive alternatives to traditional in vitro fertilization. It could eliminate the need for ovarian stimulation and oocyte retrieval, reducing health risks and discomfort for women. IVG also opens possibilities for genetic parenthood for diverse groups, including same-sex couples and post-menopausal women, enhancing inclusivity in family planning. To ensure a future of safe and accessible fertility, IVG must be part of the solution.
Narrative B
While IVG may produce some positive outcomes, society must draw an ethical line somewhere. The potential for misuse, like unwitting parenthood from lost cells or multiplex parenting with multiple genetic contributors, raises significant concerns. Solo reproduction also risks producing incestuous pregnancies and damaging family structures and consent. Ethical boundaries must be established to ensure healthy children and prevent exploitation.
Nerd narrative
There is a 50% chance that we will see the first live birth from human in-vitro gametogenesis by September 2032, according to the Metaculus prediction community.