Coming Up This Week

• Brazil's general election started yesterday. Leftist former president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva won more votes than any other candidate with 48.4%, but failed to reach the 50% hurdle to avoid a runoff against right-wing incumbent Jair Bolsonaro, who won 43.2% of votes and has insinuated he wouldn't accept a loss. A worrisome 67% of Brazilians fear political violence, and there's speculation Bolsonaro will stage a coup to keep power if he loses the Oct. 30 runoff.
• Bosnia and Herzegovina also voted for president yesterday: a moderate Bosniak, Denis Becirevic, is leading exit polls.

• Aluminum: $2,197/ton
• Antimony (ingot min. 99.65% fob China): $12,400/ton
• Cobalt: $51,955/ton
• Copper: $7,542/ton
• Gold: $1,661/toz
• Lead: $1,876/ton
• Natural Gas (Nymex): $6.77/MMbtu
• WTI Crude Oil (Nymex): $79.49/barrel
• Zinc: $2,930/ton

• Venezuela released the rest of the "Citgo Six" - Citgo executives who were arrested after being lured to Venezuela on false pretenses in 2017 - as well as two other American prisoners, in exchange for two nephews of Pres. Maduro's wife who were convicted of drug smuggling.
• Such swaps are always contentious: critics say trading convicted criminals with links to enemy governments for wrongfully-detained American hostages only incentivizes rogue regimes to detain more U.S. citizens to trade.

• Iran also released two American prisoners: Siamak and Baquer Namazi. In exchange, the U.S. facilitated the release of about $7 billion in frozen Iranian funds from South Korea.
• The U.S. says it's pure coincidence that this prisoner release coincided with Venezuela's. U.S. hostage negotiators have clearly been busy.

• Ukraine formally applied to join NATO following Russia's annexation of four Ukrainian regions last week.
• All 30 NATO member states would have to agree to admit Ukraine, but that's a tough ask: with Ukraine at war, the alliance's Article 5 on mutual defense means member states would essentially be committing to join the war by admitting Ukraine.
• Plus, member states would have to agree on Ukrainian borders for the purposes of the Article 5 commitment: would they go to war over Russia's ongoing presence in occupied regions, or hold Russia to territory it occupied as of a certain date?
• Germany is sending Ukraine the first of four IRIS-T air defense systems in the coming days. The modern IRIS-Ts are especially good at defending against drones, including the Iranian-made kamikaze drones Russia has been using to attack Ukrainian infrastructure.
• Ukrainian forces made quiet progress pushing Russian forces back over 40 km (25 miles) along the Dnipro River in recently-annex parts of southern Ukraine in just one day.
• Their progress was reported by Russian bloggers, but Ukrainian officials barely mentioned it - perhaps to avoid poking the bear: Pres. Putin had threatened to retaliate forcefully if any Russian territory (including newly-annexed parts of Ukraine, according to him) was threatened.
• Ukraine also recaptured Lyman in the northeast.

• Burkina Faso's leader, Lt. Col. Paul-Henri Damiba, lost power the same way he won it: in a coup.
• Capt. Ibrahim Traoré will lead the new government and hopes to do more to improve security than either of his two immediate predecessors.
• The situation is dire: analysts say the government controls as little as 60% of its territory.

• At least 125 people were killed in a stampede at a soccer game between close rivals in Indonesia. Fans of Arema FC were upset about a 3-2 loss to rivals Persebaya Surabaya and started throwing objects at players and officials; police responded with tear gas.