🇲🇱🇨🇦🇷🇺 Canadian gold mining company Barrick Gold temporarily suspended mining operations in Mali, and Russia is poised to fill any potential void.

Barrick’s decision is the result of a multiyear Russian-supported campaign to extract more money from Western mining companies and possibly pressure them out of Mali entirely.

The Malian government and Barrick had been at odds after both parties failed to agree on a restructured contract after Mali reformed its mining code in 2023 to secure a bigger share of mining revenue.

Russia had lobbied Mali to evict Western gold mining companies and reallot Western-owned contracts to Russian companies since the arrival of the Wagner Group in 2021.

Russia has increased cooperation on natural resource exploitation in Mali since March 2024 and used the same strategy that it has in Mali to secure access to uranium sites in neighboring Niger after the Nigerien junta pressured Western mining companies to halt operations.

Increased Russian access to mining in the Sahel will boost the Russian economy & mitigate Western efforts to isolate Russia.

📎 criticalthreats

🇪🇬🇺🇳🇱🇾 Egypt confirms support for UNSMIL efforts to resolve Libyan crisis

Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdel Aaty has expressed his country’s aspiration to enhance cooperation with the Acting Head of the United Nations Support Mission to Libya (UNSMIL), Stephanie Koury, in a way that serves efforts to reach an intra-Libyan solution to the crisis in Libya.

https://libyaobserver.ly/inbrief/egypt-confirms-support-unsmil-efforts-resolve-libyan-crisis

South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem says Homeland Security needs to work more closely with the CIA to identify how U.S. citizens are becoming radicalized

📎 Ken Klippenstein

📝 S2 Underground on X:

"I don't know much, but signing a bill that allows an international consortium to dictate what speech is and is not allowed in the United States, *and to allow that organization to change those definitions at will...AFTER the law was passed*, might be fairly well radicalizing, just a tiny bit.

She literally granted legal authority over Americans to a foreign entity.

But what do I know, I've been told these things are forbidden to bring up anyway."

📎 s2_underground

🇺🇸🇮🇱/🇮🇷 Senior European officials believe that Israel will launch an attack on Iran's nuclear facilities after Trump takes office

📎 OSTINTdefender

🇲🇽 Mexico President Claudia: "What do you call someone who asks for intervention from another country?"

Reporter: "A traitor to the homeland."

President nods: "The opposition is desperate because the people of Mexico overwhelmingly support us."

📎 COMBATE

📝 Anon: Not a good sign when a President acknowledges that their country might be invaded by their neighbor soon.

🇺🇸🇮🇱 Senator Ted Cruz on X:

"The Trump administration, with Marco Rubio as Secretary of State, are going to reverse the Biden administration's policies undermining Israel.

They're going to end sanctions on Israel Jews living in Judea and Samaria, impose the mandatory sanctions passed by Congress against Palestinians for terrorism, and end the secret boycotts Biden officials have been imposing against Israelis.

I look forward to Marco's confirmation as Secretary of State immediately after President Trump is inaugurated on Monday."

📎 Senator Ted Cruz

🇺🇸🏛🇮🇱 AIPAC now holds 329 seats in the United States House of Representatives:

🔵 86 DEM
⚫️ 329 AIPAC
🔴 19 GOP
⚪️ 1 vacant

📎 AIPAC Tracker

🇮🇱❌🇮🇱 — Ben Gvir's party has resigned, the resignation headline was titled:

The end of our path in government due to "surrendering to terrorism"

🇺🇸🇵🇭 U.S. and Philippine Navies held their first joint patrol in the South China Sea involving an aircraft carrier this week with the Carl Vinson Carrier Strike Group. The first joint patrol of 2025 also included BRP Andrés Bonifacio, BRP Antonio Luna, USS Princeton and USS Sterett.

📎 Aaron-Matthew Lariosa

🇺🇸📱 TikTok begins restoring service for U.S. users after Trump comments

The company said in a statement that TikTok was coming back online in the U.S. after President-elect Donald Trump provided assurances to the company’s service providers.

https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/tiktok-says-restoring-service-us-users-rcna188320

🇺🇸 Trump hated TikTok (because China) until it helped him win an election (as even he acknowledges) and now he’s going to save it and take a victory lap. So he’ll have X, TikTok, Insta, and Facebook all working on his behalf. That’s a big difference between now and 2017.

📎 Aaron Rupar

🇺🇸 Trump to Sign Executive Orders on Immigration, Energy, Government Hiring

President-elect Donald Trump is readying a blitz of executive orders that he plans to issue just hours after he is sworn into office, wielding his executive authority on day one to push forward his top priorities related to the border, energy and government reform.

The breadth of the orders, which would make major changes to immigration, energy and government hiring policies, illustrates the urgency with which Trump and his team plan to launch into an ambitious agenda.

They include declaring a national emergency on the U.S.-Mexico border, rescinding Biden administration directives on diversity, equity and inclusion and unwinding President Biden’s limits on drilling offshore and on federal land

https://www.wsj.com/politics/elections/trump-to-sign-executive-orders-on-immigration-energy-government-hiring-2e7e82c0

https://archive.is/oGPKv

🇺🇸🚢 Maersk's departure from Alaska leaves few carriers to fill capacity

The global shipping and transportation company Maersk announced on Dec. 19 it would cease operations in Dutch Harbor and Kodiak as part of its Transpacific Network routes. Maersk said in a statement the decision was due to its “ongoing effort to strengthen our product offerings and maintain reliability in the network.”

https://alaskapublic.org/news/economy/2025-01-15/maersks-departure-from-alaska-leaves-few-carriers-to-fill-capacity

📝 Sal Mercogliano: If only there were US-dedicated shipping to fill this requirement when foreign companies withdraw their vessels for other markets.

🇺🇸/🇨🇳🌎Marco Rubio will find China is hard to beat in Latin America

Marco Rubio, a flinty Cuban-American conservative and Donald Trump’s pick for secretary of state, will soon have to work with Latin American leaders. He must offer them alternatives if America is to compete with China in the region

When China first showed a serious interest in Latin America, a generation ago, it caused alarm in Washington and other Western capitals by channelling some of its largest investments and loans to left-wing, anti-American regimes, notably in Venezuela. In the years since prominent conservatives have continued to worry about enemies of the West colluding in the Southern hemisphere.

In late 2023 Marco Rubio, a Republican senator from Florida, demanded that President Joe Biden impose sanctions on a former left-wing Argentine president, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner. Noting Ms Kirchner’s conviction for graft, Mr Rubio accused her of enabling “malign actors like China and Iran to deepen their corrupt influence in a critical US ally, Argentina”. He pointed in particular to “nebulous agreements for public works contracts that compromise both the United States’ and Argentina’s security.” In particular, Mr Rubio pointed to a satellite-tracking radar station built by China in a remote Argentine desert, operated by a branch of the People’s Liberation Army.

https://archive.is/ZbVXg

🇺🇸🇨🇳 TRUMP WANTS CHINA TRIP IN FIRST 100 DAYS

Trump is reportedly eager to visit China soon after taking office.

Discussions include a potential meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping, possibly on U.S. soil.

Beijing, signaling openness to closer ties, is sending Vice President Han Zheng to Trump’s inauguration Monday.

Source: Reuters

📎 Mario Nawfal

🇺🇸📝 Andy Kaczynski writes on X:

"Just 33% of all Americans express a favorable view of the Democratic Party, an all-time low in CNN’s polling dating back to 1992

Four years ago, in the immediate aftermath of the January 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, the Democrats’ rating stood at 49%, and the Republicans’ at 32%"

https://edition.cnn.com/2025/01/19/politics/democrats-party-change-cnn-poll/index.html

📎 KFILE