The president-elect of the United States, Donald Trump, will officially announce on Friday the nomination of the governor of North Dakota, Doug Burgum, as the next Secretary of the Interior.

This was announced on Thursday night during the speech he offered at the gala dinner held at his private club in Mar-a-Lago, in Palm Beach (Florida), which from today until Saturday hosts a new edition of the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC).

“We are going to reduce regulatory waste, fraud and inefficiency,” promised the Republican, winner of the electoral fair on November 5 and who will assume his second term on January 20.

Burgum: another one that Trump left in the race

Billionaire and former executive director of a technology company, Burgum ran in the primaries for the nomination of the Republican Party and even participated in the first two debates, finally abandoned the race to the White House last December.

Shortly after, Bergum, 68 years old and governor of North Dakota since 2016, gave his support to the former president (2017-2021) in the race for the Republican nomination and campaigned with him in several events.

His name was even on the final list of the Republican’s possible presidential running mates, who finally opted for Ohio Senator JD Vance.

The ‘gala’ of the CPAC

The president-elect has today been the leading figure of the gala dinner of the conservative America First Policy Institute that is held in his mansion and social club, and in which he has been presented by actor Sylvester Stallone, who referred to the Republican as “the second George Washington.”

JD Vance, the speaker of the House of Representatives, Mike Johnson, and billionaire Elon Musk, who is having a prominent participation in the transition process of the future Trump Administration, have been part of the gala.

“He’s good. He has done a fantastic job. Really an incredible mind,” Trump said at dinner.

The president of Argentina, Javier Milei, also participated in the event, who on the podium was “grateful” and “blessed” to be among “true giants.”

“You have done a fantastic job in a short time and it is an honor to have you here,” Trump said, who stressed that the libertarian “has made Argentina great again,” alluding to the slogan of his campaign since 2016.

The US president-elect announced today another outstanding nomination: that of former presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., known for his conspiracy theories about vaccines, as the new Secretary of Health.

Russia moved more than 7,000 North Korean soldiers to areas near the border with Ukraine in the last week of October, Ukrainian military intelligence (GUR) reported.

North Korean troops were transferred from training camps in eastern Russia – of which there are at least 5 – with the help of at least 28 military aircraft, GUR revealed on its Telegram channel.

The soldiers were equipped by Russia with mortars, AK-12 assault rifles, various machine guns, sniper rifles and anti-tank weapons. They also received some vision devices, thermographic cameras, sights and binoculars, according to GUR.

“It’s quite surprising that the world is turning a blind eye”

“It is quite surprising that the world is turning a blind eye to North Korea’s increasingly aggressive actions,” reacted Andri Yermak, head of the Ukrainian President’s office, Volodimir Zelenski.

Ukraine sees all the places where Russia is concentrating North Korean soldiers and could carry out preventive attacks against them if it had the permission of its Western allies, Zelenski had said on Friday night.

Instead of granting Ukraine this capacity, the United States, the United Kingdom and Germany are “simply waiting” for North Korean soldiers to start attacking the Ukrainians, the president wrote on Telegram, urging his country’s allies to act to prevent the escalation of the war.

Russia knocks down 26 Ukrainian drones

In addition, Russian anti-aircraft defenses shot down 24 Ukrainian drones last night over six regions of the country and the annexed Crimean peninsula, the Russian Ministry of Defense reported today on its Telegram channel.

According to the military report, all the unmanned aircraft used in the attack were fixed-wing.

Drones shot down in the Kursk region

Eight of the drones destroyed last night were shot down in the Kursk region, which borders Ukraine and part of whose territory has been occupied by Ukrainian troops since last August.

The night before over the Kursk region, 34 Ukrainian drones were destroyed.

The situation in that Russian federated entity is being followed with great attention because both the United States and NATO have denounced the deployment by Moscow of North Korean troops in that territory.

The Russian Ministry of Defense indicated that the other drones shot down last night were intercepted over the regions of Bryansk (8), Belgorod (2), Rostov (1) – all of them also bordering Ukraine -, Oriol (3), Nizhny Novgorod (1) and the Crimean Peninsula (1).

The UN special envoy for Western Sahara, Staffan De Mistura, stressed yesterday before the Security Council that “the time has come for Morocco to explain and detail its proposal for autonomy,” something he said he had “reiterated respectfully but firmly” to the Government of Rabat.

In his presentation yesterday before the Council behind closed doors, to which the media had access today, De Mistura showed his impatience for the blocking of the peace process between Morocco and the Saharawi independence group Polisario Front, and confessed that he even proposed a partition of the Saharawi territory between the north, which would be for Morocco, and the south, which would become an independent state, but he regretted having reaped a refusal by both parties.

Exposition of the UN envoy

He dedicated a large part of his exhibition to exploring the idea of Moroccan autonomy -categorically rejected by the Polisario-, and said that it has worked in places of the world as different as Greenland, Upper Adige or Scotland, but it remains to know what Morocco proposes for the Sahara beyond “a three-page plan” exposed in 2007.

That plan,” said De Mistura, has created expectations “and even the right to better understand what it means,” a right shared by the people affected but also by the Security Council and the UN General Secretariat, and even by the countries that in one way or another have supported it as a principle.

“It must be explained how this option can provide some kind of worthy form of self-determination for the people of the Sahara, and under what modality,” De Mistura insisted before the Council, before recalling that Morocco “must provide details of its vision.”

It’s almost 50 years since the beginning of the conflict

De Mistura concluded his speech by recalling that in 2025 it will be 50 years since the beginning of the conflict and that, if from now until six months there is no progress between the parties – that they do not even sit at the same table – it would be legitimate to ask about the involvement that the United Nations must continue to have in the process.

The UN sent a mission to the Sahara in 1991 (Minurso) in order to organize a self-determination referendum, but later Morocco put obstacles to that referendum and since 2007 has only proposed an imprecise offer of autonomy.

Since then, the Minurso has been left with the only task of observing the ceasefire, sporadically broken by both parties.