Good morning and Happy Friday. Two quick headlines today.

🇻🇪 Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado appeared at a rally in Caracas on Thursday and was briefly detained by police. Machado has been in hiding since July’s rigged election and appeared a day before President Maduro’s inauguration, planned for today (Friday). Machado and her exiled running mate Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia remain highly popular in Venezuela and her quick release indicates that she is still a great threat to Maduro’s government which the US and other countries fail to recognize. [More - Washington Post]

🇬🇧 Elon Musk is reportedly strategizing on ways to oust British Prime Minister Sir Kier Starmer. Unlike his support of Donald Trump as a US citizen, any intervention by Musk in elections in the UK and Europe would class as foreign interference. [More - Reuters]

We had a great AI quick wins session yesterday as a prelude to the practical AI implementation workshops starting on January 21.

Over five weeks, we’ll be going deep into how to use AI to cut back on busy work and free up more time for high-level thinking. Teams I’ve worked with have already ‘bought back’ literally hundreds of hours a year. using AI .Plus, we’ll work through the necessary strategic planning for how to best implement AI into your team and workflows to produce an actionable roadmap to bring this to life.

As a reminder, newsletter readers can use the link below to attend for 50% off (just $250), but that offer expires tonight. If you’re keen to implement AI for you and your team in 2025, this five-week series of workshops is a great place to start.

If you're looking to take advantage of AI to improve your risk, crisis, and security operations, this is the place to start.

(Remember, these cohorts are deliberately small to maximize the practical nature of the sessions, so there are only ten seats in each group.)

On to the numbers

Key Metrics

WTI is $74.31 (Down)

Low |-------- < -----------| High

Wheat is $185.735 (Down)

Low |------ < -------------| High

EuroDollar is $1.03 (Down)

Low | < -------------------| High

YuanDollar is $0.14 (Unchanged)

Low |---------- < > ---------| High

Graphs are illustrative to show comparative price over last 180 days

Metrics via AlphaVantage updated Jan 09 2025 21:16 UTC

Africa Stability Ratings and News Summary

More Unstable

🇩🇿 Algeria, 🇦🇴 Angola, 🇧🇯 Benin, 🇧🇫 Burkina Faso, 🇧🇮 Burundi, 🇨🇲 Cameroon, 🇨🇫 Central African Republic, 🇹🇩 Chad, 🇰🇲 Comoros, 🇨🇩 Democratic Republic Of The Congo, 🇩🇯 Djibouti, 🇬🇶 Equatorial Guinea, 🇪🇷 Eritrea, 🇸🇿 Eswatini, 🇪🇹 Ethiopia, 🇬🇦 Gabon, 🇬🇭 Ghana, 🇬🇳 Guinea, 🇬🇼 Guinea-Bissau, 🇨🇮 Ivory Coast, 🇰🇪 Kenya, 🇱🇸 Lesotho, 🇱🇷 Liberia, 🇲🇬 Madagascar, 🇲🇼 Malawi, 🇲🇱 Mali, 🇲🇷 Mauritania, 🇲🇺 Mauritius, 🇲🇿 Mozambique, 🇳🇪 Niger, 🇳🇬 Nigeria, 🇨🇬 Republic of the Congo, 🇷🇼 Rwanda, 🇸🇳 Senegal, 🇸🇱 Sierra Leone, 🇸🇴 Somalia, 🇿🇦 South Africa, 🇸🇸 South Sudan, 🇸🇩 Sudan, 🇹🇬 Togo, 🇺🇬 Uganda, 🇪🇭 Western Sahara, 🇿🇼 Zimbabwe

More Stable

No countries were more stable over this period

Unchanged

🇧🇼 Botswana, 🇨🇻 Cape Verde, 🇲🇦 Morocco, 🇳🇦 Namibia, 🇸🇹 São Tomé and Príncipe, 🇹🇿 Tanzania, 🇬🇲 The Gambia, 🇿🇲 Zambia

Africa News Summary

In the Democratic Republic of Congo, efforts to integrate refugees into local communities are showing positive results. A community-based program has successfully connected refugees with local residents, fostering social cohesion and aiding economic recovery in the region [SOURCE - ABC]. However, the security situation remains precarious as the M23 rebel group has seized control of the strategic town of Masisi, escalating ongoing conflicts and underscoring the need for international intervention to stabilize the area [SOURCE - BBC].

Amid these challenges, the Democratic Republic of Congo's mining sector is attracting attention from global investors. Chinese firm Zijin plans to commence lithium production in the country by early 2026, capitalizing on the growing demand for battery metals [SOURCE - Financial Post]. This development aligns with a positive outlook for battery metals, despite a recent drop in Q4 demand [SOURCE - Yahoo Finance].

In a related incident, Chinese nationals were arrested in the Democratic Republic of Congo for smuggling gold and cash, highlighting the urgent need for improved regulatory frameworks in the mining sector [SOURCE - BBC].

As the Democratic Republic of Congo grapples with these multifaceted challenges, the broader African landscape is also witnessing significant developments. In Algeria, tensions with France have escalated following the arrest of Algerian social media influencers accused of inciting violence. This crackdown reflects the growing strain in Franco-Algerian relations [SOURCE - ABC News].

Meanwhile, the global oil market remains volatile, with analysts warning that Brent Oil prices are heavily influenced by OPEC+ decisions. Algeria's position in this market remains uncertain as the country navigates its internal challenges [SOURCE - Rigzone].

In South Africa, the government is focusing on enhancing border security while pursuing environmental sustainability. However, the economic recovery is hindered by a significant loss of tax revenue due to the outflow of affluent residents, which has led to a R3 billion shortfall [SOURCE - The South African]. Additionally, ArcelorMittal's decision to close a site, risking 3,500 jobs, reflects the broader economic challenges facing the country [SOURCE - NDTV Profit].

In Kenya, recent police repression of protests has drawn criticism, highlighting ongoing tensions between law enforcement and civil society [SOURCE - World Politics Review]. However, amidst these challenges, Simbisa Brands is expanding its business operations, which could provide new opportunities for local entrepreneurs [SOURCE - The Zimbabwe Mail].

In Nigeria, the stock market has shown surprising resilience, defying economic headwinds to soar in the first week of 2025. This unexpected growth reflects a growing business community eager to seize opportunities despite inflation and interest rate concerns [SOURCE - Riotimes Online].

Long Reads

Here are some longer pieces I’m going to be catching up on this weekend.

• Risk transfer via insurance seems to be something that is less and less viable for natural disasters. The Washington Post, Bloomberg and Wired look at the difficulty of providing adequate insurance for catastrophic events like the LA wildfires.

• I’ve been deep into the weeds on AI reasoning models this last week or two as I’m working on a model to solve complex like structuring negotiations or geopolitical analysis. Training and tasking the models to do this requires a different approach but Meta’s head of AI, Yann LeCun, believes the architecture of the models may need to be altogether different for us to see human-like reasoning in a model. His paper ‘A Path Towards Autonomous Machine Intelligence’ here explains.

Have a great weekend and I will see you again on Monday.

Carpe tomorrow!

PS - Don’t forget the AI workshop discount for SITREP readers expires tonight learn more and sign up here