Flagship

Fragile Gaza ceasefire begins

A temporary truce to end 15 months of fighting in Gaza began Sunday with the release of three Israeli hostages held by Hamas. The Israeli military also began withdrawing from several locations in the enclave, while some displaced Palestinians started returning home. The first phase of the ceasefire “will be a time of immense tension,” the BBC’s John Simpson noted. Three far-right Israeli cabinet members resigned over the deal, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is under pressure from other hardline lawmakers to restart the war; meanwhile, Hamas has portrayed the ceasefire as a victory. “The hatred between Israelis and Palestinians,” Simpson wrote, “is now fiercer than ever.”

TikTok keeps ticking in the US

TikTok came back online in the US Sunday, having shut down for just 14 hours as a national ban took effect. The reversal came after Donald Trump said he will delay the embargo with an executive order Monday following his inauguration — which TikTok’s CEO is attending. Several US lawmakers signaled they would push for the ban to be enforced, however. The Chinese-owned app’s long-term future remains unclear: It could be sold to an American owner — Trump floated a US government-backed joint venture — or perhaps the US law will be a blueprint for other countries to pursue their own bans. There’s another path, The Atlantic argued: Americans could simply move on, as many have already begun to do, and the app will join MySpace and Vine in the annals of social-media-that-was.

Trump inauguration offers policy clues

Donald Trump’s presidential inauguration represents a preview of his foreign policy approach. In a break from tradition, several foreign politicians and heads of state are on the guest list, including right-wing populist leaders Javier Milei of Argentina and Italy’s Giorgia Meloni. The global nature of Monday’s inauguration reflects a growing deference toward Trump instead of the defiance that marked his first term, The New York Times’ Peter Baker noted: “Much of the world, it seems, is bowing down to the incoming president.” Foreign leaders are also more accustomed to Trump’s transactional nature, analysts said. “No one is going to laugh this off,” one European diplomat said of the inauguration invites, “because they all need things from Trump.”

More banks exit net zero alliance

Several large banks outside of the US followed their American peers and pulled out of a global climate coalition. Four of Canada’s biggest lenders said Friday they will withdraw from the Net-Zero Banking Alliance, joining several US banks including JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs. Top European banks have also threatened to exit, the Financial Times reported. The exodus, which came as finance leaders prepared to attend the annual World Economic Forum in Davos, calls the United Nations-backed coalition’s future into question. The drawback coincides with Donald Trump’s return to power in the US and heightened criticism over the banking industry’s climate efforts, following years of green financing and environmental pledges.

Yoon supporters storm Seoul court

Supporters of impeached South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol stormed a Seoul courthouse Sunday. Rioters broke through police barricades, shattered windows, broke down doors, and attacked officers, according to local media. Just moments earlier, Yoon’s pre-trial detention was extended for up to six months and prosecutors issued a warrant to formally arrest him, deepening the country’s political crisis. “The nation has a long way to go to return to normalcy,” The Korea Herald wrote, even after a court rules on whether to permanently remove Yoon from office. Seoul is also grappling with the return of Donald Trump, whose threat of new tariffs could further harm the country’s slowing economy.

China’s population declined in 2024

China’s population declined in 2024 for a third straight year. Despite the number of births in the country rising for the first time in a decade, the new data reinforced that “population decline is not a blip, this is the new normal,” a Hong Kong-based professor said. China’s demographic challenges are closely intertwined with its economic pressures: Budgetary restraints led many young people to forego having kids, which will in turn lead to labor shortages. In the short term, Beijing is looking to boost domestic consumption while preparing for Donald Trump, who has threatened tariff hikes. China’s 2025 outlook is “one of near-term improvement, but this should not be mistaken for a long-term recovery,” the Atlantic Council wrote.

Myanmar told to put peace before elections

Southeast Asian leaders told Myanmar’s ruling military junta it should prioritize peace over holding elections. The junta, which took power in 2021, plans to hold an election this year, but many Western nations have already deemed it a sham, with opposition groups banned or boycotting the ballot. China has voiced support for the elections: As the country’s civil war has dragged on, Myanmar has increasingly relied on Beijing, analysts said, which in turn has stepped up support for the military regime. Washington’s approach to the conflict, meanwhile, has been marked by “caution and overall neglect,” an expert argued for the Stimson Center. Donald Trump now has an opening to “pursue a less risk-averse strategy.”

Chinese pol mulls more open internet

A senior Shanghai lawmaker argued the “great firewall of China” should be partially removed to boost the country’s economy. The “great firewall” is the web of laws and technical obstacles that together restrict internet access in China — its limits are already being tested as Americans embrace Chinese app Xiaohongshu as a TikTok alternative. During a recent legislative session, the Shanghai city legislator proposed the controls should be lifted in Chinese free-trade zones, financial districts, and universities, to attract investment and allow Chinese workers to learn from developed countries, the South China Morning Post reported. The government is skeptical about opening up to the wider world, however. The state-run newspaper that initially reported the comments has since deleted its story.

Very Large Telescope under threat

One of the world’s most advanced telescopes could be threatened by light pollution from a planned renewable energy project. The European Southern Observatory’s aptly named Very Large Telescope sits in Chile’s Atacama Desert under one of the world’s darkest skies. That quality has led to myriad discoveries: The VLT took the first image of a planet outside our solar system and observed the large-scale structures of the universe. The nearby renewables project — worth $10 billion — will produce and store green hydrogen, but ESO estimates it will generate as much light as a small city. One solution is to just move the project further away, a top ESO official said: “These two things cannot be in the same place. It’s as simple as that.”

Fossil fraud discovered

A fossil once thought to belong to a previously undiscovered marine dinosaur species appears to be a fraud. The jawbone fragment — believed to have belonged to a mosasaur — was apparently found in a Moroccan phosphate mine, where marine fossils do often turn up: Its shark-like teeth suggested a new species that scientists theorized lived some 66-72 million years ago. But a new analysis found the teeth had been stuck on by someone. Fossil forgery is common — last year, a 280-million-year-old lizard-like fossil was revealed to be a painted carving — and “mostly boils down to money,” New Scientist reported, and well-preserved specimens can fetch high prices: Some countries restrict private sales as a result.

Jan. 20:

• The US observes Martin Luther King Jr. Day.
• Chinese property developer Country Garden faces a liquidation hearing in a Hong Kong court.
• The European Union provides an updated Q3 2024 GDP estimate.

An ancient Roman statue is returning to public view for the first time in two hundred years. The sculpture of the Greek goddess Athena had belonged to the same British family since the mid-1700s, The Art Newspaper reported, until it was acquired by the Chicago-based Halsted A&A Foundation in 2023. It will go on display in the city later this month. The statue is a beguiling composite: Her head was carved during the reign of Emperor Augustus (31 BCE-14 CE), and her body under Emperor Claudius (41-54 CE), as well as some 18th-century restorations. “Such ‘pastiches’ have their own kind of allure, telling stories that span centuries, empires and hands of ownership,” Observer.com wrote.

An influential group of US lawmakers are calling on the State Department to open a representative office in Somaliland, the breakaway state in Somalia, to counter rising Chinese influence in the region, Semafor’s Yinka Adegoke reports.