Coming Up This Week

• The U.S. Open tennis tournament starts today in New York, and the Paralympics begin Wednesday in Paris.
• Thursday is the 75th anniversary of the first Soviet atomic bomb test - and also the international day against nuclear weapons testing. Three countries - India, Pakistan, and North Korea - have not signed the 1996 Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty prohibiting testing, and five - China, Egypt, Iran, Israel, and the U.S. - have signed but not ratified it.
• Sunday is the 85th anniversary of the start of World War II.
• Azerbaijan and Germany both hold parliamentary elections on Sunday.

Commodity Prices

• Aluminum: $2,542/ton
• Antimony (ingot min. 99.65% fob China): $24,500/ton
• Cobalt: $24,300/ton
• Copper: $9,289/ton
• Gold: $2,512/toz
• Lead: $2,117/ton
• Natural Gas (Nymex): $2.02/MMbtu
• WTI Crude Oil (Nymex): $74.83/barrel
• Zinc: $2,912/ton

Israel and Gaza

• Hamas sent a delegation to peace talks in Cairo, but they left early after rejecting Israel's demand for an ongoing Israeli presence in the Philadelphi Corridor.
• Meanwhile in the north, Israel and Hezbollah exchanged much heavier gunfire than usual, briefly raising concerns about a broader regional war. Then both sides abruptly pulled back after proving what seemed like symbolic points.
• Hezbollah called its strikes a "complete success" and Israel also seemed satisfied that its "pre-emptive" strikes succeeded in weakening Hezbollah's barrage.

Venezuela

• The EU issued a gently-worded condemnation of Pres. Maduro's election theft, calling on Venezuela's National Electoral Council (CNE) to release official voting records (or actas), and pointing out that - given currently publicly-available actas - "Edmundo González Urrutia would appear to be the winner of the presidential election by a significant majority."
• Maduro and the CNE have ignored much more strongly-worded critiques than that, so the EU's diplomatic comments are unlikely to change their thinking.

Sudan

• Sudan's junta leader, Gen. Abdel Fatah Al Burhan, vowed to "fight for 100 years."
• His side didn't show up to peace talks in Geneva, which ended on Friday without a deal. However, army representatives participated by phone, and the two sides were able to make some minor progress on improving aid flows.

Russia

• The U.S. slapped sanctions on 63 Russian, 42 Chinese, and 18 third-country firms for supporting Russia's war in Ukraine. Some of the targeted firms helped send U.S. military and dual-use technology to Russia, while others helped supply Russia with parts to make other military kit and weapons, including Shahed-136 drones.
• Four prisoners claiming allegiance to Islamic State laid seige to a prison in Volgograd (southern Russia), killing four prison guards and taking 12 people - eight guards and four fellow inmates - hostage before snipers "liquidated" the hostage-takers.

Ukraine

• Ukraine traded 115 of the Russian prisoners it took in Kursk for 115 Ukrainian prisoners of war.
• It was the first prisoner swap since Ukraine began its Kursk incursion. A Washington Post analysis concluded that Ukraine has captured at least another 132 Russian prisoners in Kursk that it could trade in a future swap; most seem to be new conscripts with little fighting experience.
• Russia launched a massive wave of drone attacks on Kyiv and northwestern Ukraine this morning, targeting infrastructure. Air defenses are active, but imperfect: the Russian strikes damaged at least one building in Lutsk and caused widespread power and water outages in several areas.
• Separately, a Russian Iskander-M missile struck a hotel in Donetsk housing journalists, killing one British safety advisor for Reuters and injuring six others - including three more foreigners.

North Korea

• Kim Jong Un gleefully supervised a test of a domestically-developed kamikaze drone destroying a target that resembled South Korea's main battle tank, the K-2. The test was probably intended as a retort to ongoing U.S.-South Korea military exercises that run through Thursday.

Myanmar

• China's military announced plans to conduct live-fire drills and carry out air-ground patrols near its border with Myanmar.
• China is reacting to an escalation in battles between Myanmar's ruling junta and a strengthening coalition of rebel forces in border regions: stray bullets from their skirmishes have crossed the border, causing injuries and damaging property on the Chinese side.
• Of course, if China truly wanted to prevent Myanmar's war from spilling over the border, it could stop surreptitiously supporting both sides of it.

Other News

• French authorities arrested Pavel Durov, the founder of the Telegram messaging app, for failing to stop the spread of illicit material on his app. Free speech advocates - including a former top advisor to late Russian dissident Alexei Navalny - decried his arrest.
• The Baloch Liberation Army claimed a coordinated series of attacks in southwest Pakistan that killed at least 60 people. The separatists want independence from Pakistan, which doesn't want to relinquish Balochistan's natural resources and strategic port. These were the BLA's biggest attacks in years.