Portal:Current events/2025 January 29

Armed conflicts and attacks

• Kivu conflict
  • M23 offensive
    • 2025 Goma offensive
      • M23 rebels solidify control of Goma, North Kivu Province, and are confirmed to be holding captured Congolese troops and allied Wazalendo militants at the Stade de l'Unité. They also begin advancing on Bukavu, capital of the South Kivu Province, according to senior Congolese officials and a Rwandan diplomat. (Al Jazeera) (Reuters)
      • In an emergency address to the nation, Congolese president Félix Tshisekedi calls for calm and says "a vigorous and coordinated response against these terrorists and their sponsors is underway" by the armed forces, and also cancels participation in a regional summit with Rwandan president Paul Kagame. (Foreign Policy) (Le Monde)
    • Around 280 Romanian mercenaries fighting alongside the Congolese military in North Kivu surrender to the M23, according to the Rwandan military. They are now being transported to Kigali after being handed over to Rwandan authorities. (BBC News)
• War against the Islamic State
  • War in Somalia
    • Islamic State insurgency in Puntland
      • Puntland authorities deport around a thousand undocumented Ethiopians from the cities of Bosaso, Galkayo, Qardho, and the state’s capital, Garoowe, as part of an ongoing crackdown on foreigners without legal status, following the discovery of foreign fighters acting as Islamic State recruiters in the Cal Miskaad mountains of the Bari Region. (Hiiraan Online) (Idil News) (Horseed Media)
• Gaza war
  • 2025 Gaza war ceasefire
    • U.S. Middle East Envoy Steve Witkoff visits the Gaza Strip and meets with Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu to assure that the ceasefire remains intact. (NPR)
• Russian invasion of Ukraine
  • Battle of Chasiv Yar
    • Russian forces capture the city of Chasiv Yar in Donetsk Oblast, Ukraine, after a year of intense fighting for control of the front line city. (The Moscow Times)

Business and economy

• Expansion of Heathrow Airport
  • UK Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves approves the construction of a third runway at Greater London's Heathrow Airport after decades of delays. (Sky News)

Disasters and accidents

• 2025 Prayag Kumbh Mela
  • 2025 Prayag Maha Kumbh Mela crowd crush
    • At least 30 people are killed in a crowd crush at a Hindu festival in Prayagraj, Uttar Pradesh, India. (BBC News)
• 2025 Light Air Services Beechcraft 1900 crash
  • A Beechcraft 1900D carrying employees of an oil company crashes in Unity, South Sudan, killing 20 of the 21 people onboard, including one Indian and two Chinese nationals. (CNN) (Reuters)
• 2025 Potomac River mid-air collision
  • A PSA Airlines Bombardier CRJ-700 operating as American Eagle Flight 5342 collides with a U.S. Army Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawk over the Potomac River near Reagan National Airport in Washington, D.C., United States, killing at least 28 people between both aircraft and causing a shutdown of flights in and out of the airport. (WUSA-9) (NBC NEWS)
• Thirteen artisanal miners, including three children, are killed when a tunnel at a gold mine floods after a reservoir spill in Kangaba, Koulikoro, Mali. (Reuters)
• Five people, four from Norway and one from Switzerland, are killed in two separate avalanches while off-piste skiing in the French Alps. (BBC)
• A Venezuelan Ministry of Interior, Justice and Peace Cessna Citation II aircraft crashes shortly after takeoff from Generalissimo Francisco de Miranda Air Base in Caracas, Venezuela, killing all three people on board. (Caraota Digital)

International relations

• Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger formally withdraw from the ECOWAS regional bloc. (BBC)

Law and crime

• First 100 days of the second Donald Trump presidency
  • U.S. President Donald Trump signs the Laken Riley Act into law, the first legislation of Trump's second term. (NBC News)
  • President Trump announces plans to transform the United States detention facility in Cuba's Guantánamo Bay into a holding center for undocumented immigrants, capable of hosting 30,000 people. (Al Jazeera)
• Police in Stuttgart, Germany, arrest 59 French fans of the Paris Saint-Germain football club for hooliganism before a match against German club VfB Stuttgart. (DW)
• Former U.S. Senator Bob Menendez of New Jersey is sentenced to 11 years in prison, following his conviction on bribery and corruption charges. (BBC News)

Politics and elections

• Second presidency of Donald Trump
  • 2025 United States federal government grant pause
    • The United States Office of Management and Budget rescinds a memo from Monday that would have paused federal financial assistance programs implicated by select executive orders of President Donald Trump, following a temporary block of the order on Tuesday by a federal judge. Following the rescission, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt states that the Trump administration will continue to pursue a freeze of federal funds. (BBC News)
• Syrian civil war
  • Ahmed al-Sharaa is declared the president of Syria during the transition period, a month after Bashar al-Assad was ousted by rebel forces. (Reuters)

Sports

• 2025 in sumo
  • Mongolian sumōtori Hōshōryū Tomokatsu becomes the 74th yokozuna. (NHK)