Rebels led by the M23 armed group claim to have taken control of Goma, a key city in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo.

The rapid advance represents a severe escalation of a long-standing conflict that has triggered one of the world's biggest humanitarian crises. More than 400,000 people have been displaced, and at least 13 soldiers from international peacekeeping forces have been killed, since the start of this year alone, according to UN estimates.

Who are M23?
The eastern hills of the DRC, bordering Rwanda, are a "tinderbox of rebel and militia fiefdoms", said The Guardian, "stemming from two regional wars" that erupted on Congolese soil after the 1994 Rwandan genocide.

M23, which formed in 2012 as an offshoot of another group, takes its name from the 23 March 2009 peace deal that ended a previous uprising. The group is mostly made up of former DRC soldiers who defected from the army, accusing the government of failing to uphold that agreement. They are primarily ethnic Tutsis – nearly a million of whom were murdered in the Rwandan genocide.

It is one of about 100 armed groups "vying for a foothold in the mineral-rich region", said Sky News. M23 briefly took over Goma in 2012 but was "pushed out" in 2013, said Al Jazeera. It "resurfaced" in 2021, "possibly because of renewed Rwandan support", and has since taken control of vast swathes of eastern DRC.

What does M23 want?
M23 says it fights in defence of ethnic Tutsis in the DRC, who face discrimination and violence from ethnic Hutu militias. But the DRC has huge supplies of minerals including gold, tin, copper, coltan and cobalt, and M23 seek to "gain control" over the region's resources, said DW. The group is already generating substantial sums per month from taxes on coltan production in mining towns under its control.

Who is it fighting?
The rebels are battling the Congolese army and its allied forces, including UN peacekeeping troops and soldiers from the 16 countries that make up the Southern African Development Community.

The US, France and the UK have said Rwandan troops are supporting M23. Rwanda has consistently denied providing financial and logistical support to the group, but the DRC has severed ties with its neighbour over the issue.

The sudden rise of China's DeepSeek "should be a wake-up call" for US tech firms, Donald Trump said yesterday, after the foreign start-up's new AI assistant overtook OpenAI's ChatGPT as the most popular free app in Apple's US app store.

The Chinese AI chatbot's success sent shockwaves through Wall Street, erasing $1 trillion (£800 billion) from the tech-heavy Nasdaq stock exchange. That the DeepSeek-R1 open-source reasoning model was also developed at a fraction of the cost of its rivals "is causing panic within US tech companies and in the stock market", said NBC News.

This is AI's "Sputnik moment", said US venture capitalist Marc Andreessen on X – a reference to the Soviet Union's launch of the first Earth-orbiting satellite in 1957, which kickstarted the Cold War space race.

Better performance, lower cost
Unlike other chatbots such as ChatGPT, DeepSeek-R1 articulates its reasoning before delivering a response to a prompt. DeepSeek claims R1 is "near or better than rival models" for mathematical tasks, general knowledge and question-and-answer performance, said Bloomberg, yet was trained for only around $6 million.

This low-cost development seems to have been driven as much by necessity as invention, after the US restricted the sale of the most advanced microchip technology to China. Without the "steady supply of important chips", said the BBC, the Chinese developers have "shared their work with each other and experimented with new approaches to technology". The result is AI models "that require far less computing power than before", and because they "cost a lot less than previously thought possible", they have "the potential to upend the industry".

The dangers
A major drawback of DeepSeek-R1 is that it "comes with Chinese censorship baked in", said Sherwood News. The AI assistant is unable to answer questions on the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre or Taiwan's pro-democracy movement, and gives a "government-aligned response" when prompted on the treatment of China's Uyghur minority. It also declines to give detailed responses about China's President Xi Jinping, although it does answer prompts about other world leaders.

These examples "highlight a dangerous aspect" of developing large language models, said the tech news site. If "the model-builders can choose which data defines 'the truth'" for the model then "that same 'truth' informs the people who use it".

Few things are as romantic as whisking your partner away for a relaxing break. And with Valentine's Day around the corner, it's a good excuse to start planning the perfect getaway.

Glenapp Castle, Ayrshire
"Classic romance is on the menu" at this grand 19th-century castle on Scotland's Ayrshire coast, said London's The Standard. Expect a "fairytale atmosphere of turrets, towers and whiskies by a roaring fire", with 110 acres of gardens and woodland to explore. To make things extra special, consider the All You Need Is Love package, which includes "lovey-dovey touches" such as a rose petal turndown, breakfast in bed and a bottle of champagne in your suite on arrival.

The Tawny, Staffordshire
This "deconstructed hotel" (pictured above) in the heart of rural Staffordshire comprises a collection of shepherd's huts, treehouses and waterside boathouses, said The Independent. To make the most of the stunning surroundings, all have "bubbling outdoor bathtubs" and cosy robes to "cuddle up in afterwards". Days are easy to fill "wandering through woodland stretches", taking a dip in the "steamy, Roman Baths-style outdoor pool" and dining at the "magical", "leafy-walled" Plumicorn restaurant.

The Forager's Cabin, Powys
"Hidden away in private woodland", this Welsh sanctuary has "something of a Tolkien feel", said The Telegraph. Strung with "romantic fairylights", the rustic cabin has "big, round windows" reminiscent of the Shire in "Lord of the Rings". "Thoughtful touches" including the wood-fired hot tub, super-king-size bed, and log burner make this the perfect place to "switch off" with your loved one. In the evening, head to the "sundowner" area at the edge of the woods for cocktails.

UK's Brexit freedoms have been squandered
Melanie Phillips in The Times
As the fifth anniversary of the UK's departure from the EU approaches, polling suggests "most people would now choose to rejoin", writes Melanie Phillips. That's "hardly surprising", given that the "opportunities" that Brexit offered have been "squandered". Instead of "reducing regulations", we have "clung to EU red tape". But Brexit was all about democracy and independence, and "nothing has changed", so "rowing back" would be "cynical opportunism" by "those who lost the argument".

Once again, it's more money for London and nothing for the North
Andrew Fisher in The i Paper
According to "rumours", the government is about to "endorse" a third runway at Heathrow Airport, writes Andrew Fisher. But this expansion would be "bad for our climate-change targets and London's air quality", and we should instead focus on "rebalancing the country". Rather than investing in "polluting infrastructure" in the Southeast, "give mayors and devolved nations" the required "budgets and powers to kick-start growth" with infrastructure projects "across the whole of the UK".

The hypocrisy of Ed Miliband's vanity photographer
Jawad Iqbal in The Spectator
Energy Secretary Ed Miliband is "looking to hire" a photographer to help him "grab headlines" and "stand out on social media", despite "previously criticising politicians who did the same thing", writes Jawad Iqbal. Some might view that as hypocritical, but "not our Ed". Yet the government is "constantly telling the public that money is short" and that "no stone will be left unturned in the quest for savings". And "vanity photographers would be a good place to start, no"?