https://whatsapp.com/channel/0029VaG07sTJENxyeTTfph1G *INTERNATIONAL NEWS* *07 February 2025* *NEWS HEADLINES* *Malawi president orders troops to withdraw from DR Congo* *ChatGPT Search is now free for everyone, no OpenAI account required – is it time to ditch Google?* *'Astonishing': Hottest January on Record Stuns Scientists* *NEWS IN DETAIL* *Malawi president orders troops to withdraw from DR Congo* Malawi's President Lazarus Chakwera has ordered the military to begin preparing to withdraw from their peacekeeping mission in the volatile eastern Democratic of Congo. The Malawian troops are part of the southern African regional bloc's military mission (SAMIDRC) deployed to DR Congo to help tackle armed groups. At least 20 peacekeepers, including 14 South Africans and three Malawians, were killed as the M23 rebels captured the key city of Goma, the capital of North Kivu province, last week. President Chakwera said on Wednesday that his decision was meant to "honour the declaration of a ceasefire by the parties", even though the fighting is continuing. In a statement read on state TV on Wednesday evening, he said the withdrawal of troops would "pave the way for their planned negotiations towards a lasting peace". Malawi Information Minister Moses Kunkuyu told the BBC Newsday programme that the planned withdrawal was being "made in good faith". He said a meeting by southern African leaders last week in Tanzania, on the sidelines of the Africa Energy Summit, had passed a resolution "to call for a ceasefire from all parties in the conflict, just to pave way for peaceful negotiations". "It is pursuant to that agreement that the president of Malawi has seen it fit to contribute to the peace-building effort by withdrawing troops from the region so that there is that peaceful negotiation". He did not indicate exactly when the troops would leave, but said what remained were the "operational aspects" and that they had communicated the decision to the DR Congo president and the southern Africa bloc. On Monday, the Rwanda-backed M23 rebel group declared a unilateral ceasefire "for humanitarian reasons", which was due to start the following day. However, fighting has since resumed, and the rebels have reportedly taken the mining town of Nyabibwe in the South Kivu province. The Malawian president has been under pressure to withdraw his country's forces from DR Congo in the wake of the deaths of peacekeepers. South Africa has faced similar pressure, but President Cyril Ramaphosa has vowed to keep his troops in DR Congo, saying they are subject to the SAMIDRC mission "which has operational timeframes and an end date". The mission was initially deployed in 2023 and was last year extended until December this year. The SAMIDRC mission was authorised by the southern African bloc (Sadc) to have 5,000 troops from South Africa, Malawi and Tanzania. South Africa, which leads the mission, was to deploy 2,900 troops and the rest shared between Malawi and Tanzania - although it is not clear how many troops are currently there. Malawi also has some soldiers in DR Congo serving under the UN peacekeeping force Monusco. Sadc leaders are due to meet in Tanzania this Saturday in a special joint summit with East African heads of states to address the DR Congo crisis. Bitter rivals DR Congo President Félix Tshisekedi and Rwanda's President Paul Kagame are both expected to attend. Meanwhile, the Ugandan military has denied reports it has sent troops to eastern DR Congo because of the fighting in and around Goma. Since their capture of Goma, the rebels have been seeking to seize territories in South Kivu, especially the capital Bukavu. Congolese authorities have enlisted hundreds of civilian volunteers to help defend the city. The rebel group has appointed top officials including a governor of North Kivu, to administer the territory. For the first time since they seized Goma, the M23 on Thursday held a rally in the city that saw rebel leader Corneille Nangaa address large crowds at the Unity Stadium. A warrant for Nangaa's arrest has been issued by a military court in Kinshasa, accusing him of war crimes and treason. The UN says nearly 3,000 people were killed during the M23's violent campaign to seize Goma. There are fears that diseases such as Mpox and cholera could spread beyond the city. The International Criminal Court has said its prosecutors are closely following events in DR Congo "including the grave escalation of violence over the past week". _BBC_ *ChatGPT Search is now free for everyone, no OpenAI account required – is it time to ditch Google?* ChatGPT Search is now available to everyone, regardless of whether you're signed into an OpenAI account or not. OpenAI announced the major update on X, bringing ChatGPT Search to the masses, without creating an account or giving any personal information to the world leaders in AI. ChatGPT Search is a search engine powered by, you guessed it, ChatGPT. It allows you to quickly search the web in the same way you would with Google Search, but get more in-depth results and summaries alongside sources. OpenAI says, "ChatGPT can search the web and get you fast, timely answers with links to relevant web sources directly in ChatGPT. ChatGPT will choose to search the web based on what you ask, or you can manually choose to search by clicking the web search icon." Until now, ChatGPT Search was completely free to use but you needed to sign into an OpenAI account before being able to look anything up. Now, users can use it just by accessing ChatGPT.com. This is an excellent addition to ChatGPT, which has been free to use without an OpenAI account for a while and could be the turning point for AI search engines as more and more people look for Google alternatives. ChatGPT Search will roll out to logged-out users over the next few days, so if you don't see the Search icon under your prompt today, try again tomorrow! ChatGPT Search is built into ChatGPT and wants to make the AI chatbot your go-to for all your information. In the past, ChatGPT would have a knowledge cut-off date that meant you couldn't ask for information about things that were happening in the world at the time of your prompt. With ChatGPT Search that has completely changed, and ChatGPT can now give you up-to-date information on everything from world politics to the latest sports scores. Google Search is engrained in society, most of the world's population with access to the internet use Google on a daily, if not hourly basis. OpenAI's alternative is an excellent option for those who want more from a search engine but I find myself opting to use my trusty ol' buddy Google more often than ChatGPT Search, even if it's not quite as knowledgeable. The joy of the internet is curating your own sources and choosing where you want to get information from. As it stands, ChatGPT Search's approach doesn't really work for me as I want to be in control of what I consume, and having a summary from multiple sources doesn't always give me that. ChatGPT Search is still in its infancy, and it's bound to improve over time. If you haven't ever tried an AI-powered search engine before, there's never been a better time. But is it time to ditch Google Search? I'm not convinced. _techradar.com_ *'Astonishing': Hottest January on Record Stuns Scientists* Last month was the hottest January on record, blitzing the previous high and stunning climate scientists who expected cooler La Nina conditions to finally start quelling a long-running heat streak. The Copernicus Climate Change Service said January was 1.75C hotter than pre-industrial times, extending a persistent run of historic highs over 2023 and 2024, as human-caused greenhouse gas emissions heat the planet. Climate scientists had expected this exceptional spell to subside after a warming El Nino event peaked in January 2024 and conditions gradually shifted to a cooling La Nina phase. But the heat has lingered at record or near-record levels ever since, sparking debate among scientists about what other factors could be driving warming to the top end of expectations. Scientists warn that every fraction of a degree of warming increases the intensity and frequency of extreme weather events like heatwaves, heavy rainfall and droughts. January was 0.09C hotter than the previous high of January 2024 – a "sizeable margin" in global temperature terms, said Julien Nicolas, a climate scientist from Copernicus. "This is what makes it a bit of a surprise… you're not seeing this cooling effect, or temporary brake at least, on the global temperature that we were expecting to see," he told AFP. Stefan Rahmstorf, from the University of Potsdam, said it was the first time that temperatures recorded during a La Nina period were above those of a preceding El Nino. "This is of serious concern – over the past sixty years, all twenty five La Nina January's have been cooler than surrounding years," he said. Weak La Nina This year La Nina is expected to be weak and Copernicus said prevailing temperatures in parts of the equatorial Pacific Ocean suggested "a slowing or stalling of the move towards" the cooling phenomenon. Nicolas said it could disappear completely by March. Last month, Copernicus said that global temperatures averaged across 2023 and 2024 had exceeded 1.5 degrees Celsius for the first time. This did not constitute a permanent breach of the long-term 1.5C warming target under the Paris climate accord – but was a clear sign that the limit was being tested. Overall, 2025 is not expected to follow 2023 and 2024 into the history books: scientists predict it will rank as the third hottest year yet. Copernicus said it would be closely monitoring ocean temperatures throughout 2025 for hints about how the climate might behave. Oceans are a vital climate regulator and carbon sink, and cooler waters can absorb greater amounts of heat from the atmosphere, helping to lower air temperatures. They also store 90 percent of the excess heat trapped by humanity's release of greenhouse gases. "This heat is bound to resurface periodically," said Nicolas. "I think that's also one of the questions – is this what has been happening over the past couple of years?" Sea surface temperatures have been exceptionally warm over 2023 and 2024, and Copernicus said readings in January were the second highest on record. "That is the thing that is a little puzzling – why they remain so warm," Nicolas said. Open questions Bill McGuire, a climate scientist from University College London, said it was "astonishing and frankly terrifying" that January remained at record highs despite La Nina emerging. Joel Hirschi, from the UK's National Oceanography Centre, cautioned against reading too much into a single month's data, saying record warmth had been observed following El Nino phases even after the onset of La Nina. Scientists are unanimous that burning fossil fuels has largely driven long-term global warming, and that natural climate variability can also influence temperatures from one year to the next. But natural warming cycles like El Nino could not alone explain what had taken place in the atmosphere and seas, and answers were being sought elsewhere. One theory is that a global shift to cleaner shipping fuels in 2020 accelerated warming by reducing sulphur emissions that make clouds more mirror-like and reflective of sunlight. In December, a peer-reviewed paper looked at whether a reduction in low-lying clouds had let more heat reach Earth's surface. "These are avenues that must be taken seriously, and remain open," Robert Vautard, a leading scientist with the UN's climate expert panel IPCC, told AFP. The EU monitor uses billions of measurements from satellites, ships, aircraft and weather stations to aid its climate calculations. Its records go back to 1940, but other sources of climate data – such as ice cores, tree rings and coral skeletons – allow scientists to expand their conclusions using evidence from much further in the past. Scientists say the current period is likely the warmest the Earth has been for the last 125,000 years. _Science Alert/ © Agence France-Presse_