Storms approach California, Tariff-eve for Canada and Mexico, UNRWA Shuts and DC Airport Disaster

Andrew Sheves ☔️ An atmospheric river approaching America’s west coast is expected to cause flooding and landslides. Recent wildfires have destroyed significant numbers of trees and undergrowth, which increases the chances of mudslides and runoffs in these areas. [More - BBC]

🛑 President Trump confirmed his intention to impose 25% tariffs on Canada and Mexico beginning February 1 (Saturday). He was less definitive on China, so it is unclear if the proposed 10% tax would be levied on Chinese imports. [More - Bloomberg]

🇺🇳 The United Nations Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA) ceased operations in Gaza as an Israeli law banning the organization came into effect. Although Hamas governed Gaza, UNRWA was the administrative backbone for the strip, running hospitals, schools and food distribution. The ban was imposed after it appeared that some UNRWA staff were also Hamas members but the ban leaves Gaza without any real form of administration and extends the humanitarian impact of the war. [More - alJazeera]

🇺🇸 America suffered its worst aviation disaster in decades when a regional jet on approach to DC’s Regan National Airport collided with a military helicopter on Wednesday night. There were no survivors from the 64 onboard the jet or the three helicopter crew. [Live updates - Wahington Post]

Self-Serve {API Access} Opens Up Next Week

APIs (application programming interface) used to confuse and terrify me, but I’ve come to realize that there are no bad APIs, only bad documentation and confusing connections. So I’ve spent a lot of time cleaning up the Decis API so it’s not a developer-level access point but a much more user-friendly tool.

But why does that matter if you’re not a developer?

Because a simple, self-serve API is something you can connect to a range of services. Services you use all the time like Excel or GoogleSheets. Or maybe to an RSS feed. So the technology isn’t important: the outcome is.

Now, you can have the Decis country data fed directly into the tools you use on your desktop so your country risk assessments or FOREX trading portfolio is always up to date. And my aim is that you can do it without being technical at all - in the case of Excel, it only takes half a dozen clicks to set up

(Don’t worry, devs, there’s still a GitHub page and manual setup if you prefer playing on hard mode.)

So if you fancy having dynamic country stability data fed directly into your day-to-day tools, you’ll love what I’m sharing next week. (You’ll like the price even more.)

Africa Stability Ratings and News Summary

More Unstable

🇩🇿 Algeria, 🇧🇯 Benin, 🇧🇫 Burkina Faso, 🇧🇮 Burundi, 🇨🇲 Cameroon, 🇨🇫 Central African Republic, 🇹🇩 Chad, 🇰🇲 Comoros, 🇨🇩 Democratic Republic Of The Cong

Carpe tomorrow!