Coming Up This Week

• Thursday is Madagascar's presidential election.
• China celebrates Singles Day - its biggest shopping day of the year - next Saturday. China's consumer sales have been struggling, so merchants will probably have to cut prices to boost sales this year.

• Aluminum: $2,228/ton
• Antimony (ingot min. 99.65% fob China): $11,950/ton
• Cobalt: $33,420/ton
• Copper: $8,143/ton
• Gold: $1,993/toz
• Lead: $2,123/ton
• Natural Gas (Nymex): $3.52/MMbtu
• WTI Crude Oil (Nymex): $80.51/barrel
• Zinc: $2,478/ton

• Israel said its military is carrying out an ongoing "significant operation" around Gaza City - "both below and above ground" - and Gaza is under another communications blackout that has limited reporting from inside.
• U.S. SecState Blinken visited Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas in the West Bank and called on regional allies in Jordan, Turkey, and Iraq. CIA Director Burns is also on a regional tour intended to convey support for U.S. allies.
• The U.S. likely wants Abbas's Palestinian Authority to take charge of Gaza - which Hamas has run since 2005 - but Abbas is reluctant and wants a "comprehensive political solution" to the broader Israeli-Palestinian conflict first.
• Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah has been unusually quiet about Hamas's war in Gaza, but he broke his silence Friday with an uncharacteristically moderated sermon in which he denied any prior knowledge of Hamas's plans to attack Israel - calling the Oct. 7 invasion "a 100% Palestinian operation" - and made it clear that Hezbollah doesn't plan to join the war at this point - although he warned that "all options are open" in the future and "the situation could escalate militarily at any time."
• The WSJ reported that Wagner Group plans to deliver Russian SA-22 (Pantsir) air defense systems to Hezbollah in Lebanon to deter or counter potential strikes from Israel, and U.S. intelligence suggests the Pantsirs would come from Syria. It's not clear if they've already been transferred to Lebanon.

• Guinea's deposed military leader, Moussa Dadis Camara, briefly left Central House prison in Conakry but was quickly recaptured and re-incarcerated.
• The junta that overthrew Camara in 2010 says he escaped with the help of some fellow plotters; his lawyers say he was unaware of the jailbreakers' plans and unwillingly kidnapped from the prison.
• Camara is imprisoned because he's on trial for ordering his troops to shoot pro-democracy (anti-military rule) demonstrators at a stadium rally in 2009. The massacre left 150 dead.

• Pres. Zelensky rebuked his top military commander for publicly calling the war a "stalemate," emphatically insisting: "this is not a stalemate."

• The UN Office on Drugs and Crime reported that opium cultivation - measured by hectares of crop, which correlates directly with production - shrank 95% between 2022 and 2023 under strict Taliban policies. Unfortunately, women's rights have declined by a similar degree under the Taliban.

• A 6.4-magnitude earthquake struck Nepal, killing at least 157 and causing tremors as far away as New Delhi.