Coming Up This Week

• ASEAN holds its 31st regional forum in Laos this week.
• Israeli PM Netanyahu is due to address the U.S. House of Representatives on Wednesday to plead for continued U.S. support for Israel - although his visit could be delayed to allow time for news of Pres. Biden's withdrawal from the November election to settle in. Whenever it happens, it will be Bibi's fourth address to Congress.
• The XXXIII Summer Olympic Games open in Paris on Friday. They'll last through Aug. 11.
• Venezuela will vote in an "election" on Sunday. That's in quotes because Pres. Maduro has already bullied and sidelined all meaningful opposition to ensure he'll win. The candidate the organized opposition is supporting, Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia, leads Maduro in the (free) polls, but few believe Maduro would let him win the race.

Commodity Prices

• Aluminum: $2,352/ton
• Antimony (ingot min. 99.65% fob China): $22,800/ton
• Cobalt: $26,625/ton
• Copper: $9,310/ton
• Gold: $2,395/toz
• Lead: $2,128/ton
• Natural Gas (Nymex): $2.22/MMbtu
• WTI Crude Oil (Nymex): $79.40/barrel
• Zinc: $2,777/ton

Yemen

• Israel and Yemen's Iran-backed Houthis exchanged fire over the weekend.
• First the Houthis carried out a drone strike on Tel Aviv early on Friday, killing one. It's unclear why Iron Dome didn't intercept the Houthi drone, which reportedly got within 100 meters of a U.S. Embassy branch office.
• Then Israel retaliated by firing on the Houthi-controlled Red Sea port of Hodeidah, killing at least six (according to Houthi officials). Israel's Foreign Minister ominously warned Iran that the Hodeidah operation "sends a clear message around, because Iran is located 200 kilometers closer than the port of Hodeidah."
• Last (as of now), more Houthi missiles were intercepted before they could reach their intended target in the southern Israeli city of Eilat.
• In a possibly related story, the U.S. Navy said a female aviator "became the first American woman to engage and kill an air-to-air contact" when she destroyed a Houthi drone sometime in recent days.

Gaza

• The Israeli military ordered civilians to evacuate eastern neighborhoods of Khan Younis in southern Gaza, ahead of what it said would be a "forceful operation" against militants hiding out there.

China

• China and the Philippines reached an inconsequential agreement over the Second Thomas Shoal in the South China Sea. They still bitterly dispute ownership of the atoll, and reports suggest they have only agreed to stop escalating their dispute over it - for now.

DRC

• DRC and M23 rebels extended a humanitarian truce by 15 days to Aug. 3.
• The truce is largely holding - in that there have been no major battles between the two sides since it was signed on July 5.
• However, M23 says government troops aren't respecting the agreement and locals have reported gunfire in some areas.

Sudan

• Multiple reports suggest that Sudan's two warring sides are now fighting each other over the border in Libya.
• Khalifa Haftar's 128th Brigade, which runs security in eastern Libya where the SLM/A-MM and RSF are fighting each other, said it arrested a gang of Sudanese and Chadians smuggling weapons into Libya to support the fight.

Vietnam

• Vietnam's powerful and long-serving leader, Nguyen Phu Trong, passed away "after a period of illness" that the Communist Party was as secretive about as it is about divulging its inner workings.
• Nguyen was the leading force in Vietnam's "blazing furnaces" drive against corruption, which snared several senior officials in recent months.
• He was also the leader who welcomed Pres. Putin for a state visit last month, in a delicate effort to balance geopolitical alliances with Russia and the West.
• We'll see how Nguyen's successors choose to align.