Coming Up This Week

• Egypt's two-day presidential election ends today. Pres. Sisi is effectively running unopposed and voter interest is low.
• Ukraine's Pres. Zelensky is visiting Argentina today and will then travel to Washington to meet Pres. Biden tomorrow. He hopes to reinvigorate international military support for Ukraine - especially in the U.S., where Congress is losing interest in continuing to fund the war.
• Venezuela's Pres. Maduro and Guyana's Pres. Ali will meet Thursday in St. Vincent and the Grenadines to discuss their red-hot border dispute. They're not going to resolve the long-simmering dispute in this meeting since neither side is ready to give up its goals.

• Aluminum: $2,134/ton
• Antimony (ingot min. 99.65% fob China): $11,950/ton
• Cobalt: $31,975/ton
• Copper: $8,449/ton
• Gold: $1,980/toz
• Lead: $2,026/ton
• Natural Gas (Nymex): $2.31/MMbtu
• WTI Crude Oil (Nymex): $71.07/barrel
• Zinc: $2,400/ton

• The U.S. is facing criticism for vetoing Friday's UN Security Council resolution calling for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza. An analyst explained the likely rationale behind the veto: "The U.S. has decided to give Israel a longer leash to meet its war aims."
• Meanwhile, Israel continues to press towards its aims in Gaza: Pres. Netanyahu said dozens of Hamas fighters have surrendered and called on more of them to recognize "the beginning of the end" for Hamas and its leader-in-hiding.

• Sudan's warring generals - Gen. Burhan and Gen. Dagalo - agreed to meet face-to-face and try to find common ground for a ceasefire and eventual power-sharing agreement.
• It's not clear when or where they would meet, and there are no signs either of them is ready to make the kind of concessions required for a lasting deal: just today, Gen. Burhan's government expelled 15 Emirati diplomats for allegedly supporting Gen. Dagalo's side in the war.

• Pres. Putin announced he will run for reelection in 2024, surprising nobody. It also won't surprise anyone when he wins the poll in May: he's sidelined or eliminated all credible opposition.
• Speaking of sidelined opposition, jailed dissident Alexey Navalny failed to appear for a remote court date today. His closest allies say they haven't heard from him in five days, and staff at the prison where he was being held say he's no longer an inmate there.
• Analysts suspect Navalny was transferred to another facility just as Putin was announcing his campaign for reelection to keep the opposition distracted from complaining about Putin's announcement.

• The Philippines and China both accused each other's vessels of causing collisions in the South China Sea. China blamed the Philippines for "provocative acts" and said it was merely carrying out "law-enforcement activities" to bar several hundred volunteer vessels from reaching the grounded Sierra Madre tanker they sought to resupply.
• The Filipino resupply flotilla invited journalists on their mission: one NYT reporter said the feeling of Chinese water cannons hitting the boat was "like an earthquake at sea."

• Regional bloc ECOWAS announced a new committee aimed at negotiating a return to democracy with the junta ruling Niger since they deposed Pres. Barzoum in July.
• ECOWAS is holding Niger - as well as the other junta-run countries in the region (Mali, Burkina Faso) - under strict sanctions, and hopes the promise of sanctions relief will bring the juntas to the negotiating table.

• A U.S. F-16 crashed into the sea off the coast of South Korea during a training exercise. The pilot ejected safely and was rescued by the South Korean navy.
• Kenya suffered a third nationwide power outage in as many months. Its transport minister called for an investigation into "possible acts of sabotage and coverup," but the real culprit is probably poor maintenance.