🇨🇴❌🇨🇴🇨🇴 — Video: Colombian Army helicopters evacuate injured civilians after the war that broke out between the Cuban-backed ELN and the FARC-EMC dissidents in Catatumbo, Norte de Santander

🔗 Revista Semana (@RevistaSemana)

🇺🇸❌📱 — United States Supreme Court upholds TikTok ban

🇨🇴❌🇨🇴 — Following the massacres of civilians by Venezuelan-backed ELN Marxist Terrorists, Colombian President Gustavo Petro called the events as War Crimes and suspended all peace talks with the Far-Left extremists

In a post on Twitter/X, the Progressive said:

What the ELN has committed in Catatumbo are war crimes.

The dialogue process with this group is suspended, the ELN has no desire for peace.

🔗 Gustavo Petro (@petrogustavo)

🇺🇸🔒📝 - CIA Analyst admits to Leaking Israeli Strike Plans on Iran and sending classified documents to IRGC-linked Telegram channels

➡️ Asif Rahman, a Muslim CIA analyst stationed at the U.S. Embassy in Cambodia, admitted in court today to leaking classified documents detailing Israel’s preparations for an attack on Iran in October and pasing.

➡️ Charged with two counts of sharing sensitive national security information, Rahman faces up to 20 years in prison.

➡️ Despite the maximum sentence, both sides have reportedly agreed to a plea deal of 6.5 years, which could be reduced further due to his admission of guilt.

➡️ Prosecutors allege Rahman acted out of ideological motives and warned of the risk that he could leak additional classified documents

#BREAKING
🇺🇸🛂❗️ — The Wall Street Journal reports that Trump Administration will begin Mass Deportations on Tuesday, starting by Chicago an New York city!

➡️ The incoming Trump administration is planning a large-scale immigration raid in Chicago next week, according to four people familiar with the planning, the first move in President-elect Donald Trump’s promised mass deportation campaign.

➡️ Upwards of 200 Agents with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement or ICE are expected to take part in the Raid; which will be the start of a Campaign, likely to involve other Cities across the United States with a Large Population of Immigrants, including New York, Los Angeles, Denver, and Miami

#BREAKING
🇺🇸🛂❗️ — New York Post reports that ICE officers are prepping for a ‘big f–king operation’ across sanctuary cities immediately after Trump inauguration

➡️ The ICE man cometh | Immigration and Customs Enforcement is preparing to launch a “big f–king operation” across sanctuary cities — including Chicago and New York — immediately after President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration, multiple sources told The Post.

➡️ Starting Jan. 21, multi-day “ground operations” will be launched across cities that have served as safe havens for migrants because the local authorities do not cooperate with the federal government when it comes to immigration issues, sources said.

➡️ While it’s not clear who exactly will be targeted, Trump’s incoming border czar Tom Homan has vowed that the mass deportations will begin on Day 1 to focus on illegal immigrants who pose threats to the country.

🇺🇸💰 Trump-Backed World Liberty Financial to Acquire TRX for its Treasury

World Liberty Financial, the crypto project backed by the family of U.S. President-elect Donald Trump, plans to acquire tron (TRX) tokens for its treasury, according to a person familiar with the matter.

https://www.coindesk.com/business/2025/01/18/trump-backed-world-liberty-financial-to-acquire-trx-for-its-treasury-source

@FelipeChannel

🇺🇸📈 Looks like the creator of the Trump memecoin was seeded by deposits from Gate and Binance. These two exchanges do not allow US residents.

https://x.com/jconorgrogan/status/1880446986295603648

@FelipeChannel

🇺🇸🛳 U.S. Navy force posture ahead of the presidential transition of power

8 of America’s 11 aircraft carriers are active or working up, and 3 are currently deployed: Truman in the Middle East (5th Fleet), Vinson + Washington in the Indo-Pacific (7th Fleet)

📎 Ian Ellis

🇨🇳🇮🇳🛢 China and India Scramble for Crude as Sanctioned Russian Tankers Turn Back

The most aggressive Western sanctions imposed on Russia’s oil sector since Moscow’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine threaten to disrupt global supply as buyers — led by China and India — scour the Middle East for alternative suppliers. Some estimates suggest the measures could halve Russian oil exports and their introduction has driven up Brent futures by as much as $5 a barrel in recent days.

Buyers in both Asian nations have been asking producers in the Middle East including Saudi Arabia, Iraq, the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait to provide more oil, according to officials in those countries. But finding additional barrels would be difficult given that these countries have made commitments to OPEC+ — in which Moscow is a leading force — to keep supply restrained.

In a sign of a more-urgent need for barrels, China’s state owned refiners and larger independents have been frantically seeking out crude and selected so-called prompt barrels for more-immediate loading, according to traders. It’s been a similar picture for India’s state-owned plants, a critical source of buying of seaborne Russian cargoes, they said.

Sanctioned tankers were still delivering to ports in both China and India this week but New Delhi has warned that any designated vessels will only be allowed to deliver cargoes if they were loaded before Jan. 10 and discharged no later than March 12. After that, the ships will be off limits.

Some vessels heading to collect fresh loads are starting to abandon their voyages. At least five of the 77 ocean-going crude carriers — excluding the shuttle tankers tied to specific projects — sanctioned by OFAC have abandoned the journeys they were on at the time. The Atlas, Heng Tai and Venture were all heading to the Baltic when they made U-turns off the western coast of Europe and headed toward the Mediterranean.

In the Pacific, the Himalayan and the Salty Wolf both stopped journeys to the Russian port of Kozmino on Jan. 12. The Himalayan moved to waters off China’s Shandong province where it anchored. The Salty Wolf was last seen on Wednesday heading toward Singapore.

The measures have also made tankers not targeted by OFAC wary: two unsanctioned vessels heading toward the Arctic port of Murmansk — where both storage ships and all the shuttle tankers that fill them have been designated — turned round close to the Norwegian city of Tromso shortly after the measures were announced. They are now heading for the Baltic.

https://gcaptain.com/china-and-india-scramble-for-crude-as-sanctioned-russian-tankers-turn-back/

🇲🇱🇨🇦🇷🇺 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