Coming Up This Week

• Taiwan inaugurated President Lai Ching-te today. In his inauguration speech, Lai called on China to "stop intimidating Taiwan politically and militarily."
• Later today, a British court will issue a final decision on whether WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange can appeal his extradition to the U.S., where he faces charges under the Espionage Act.
• The UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) holds its first Global Supply Chain Forum tomorrow through Friday in Barbados to discuss international trade and logistics, with a particular focus on making supply chains more resilient and sustainable.
• Two hyped summer blockbuster-hopefuls will be released on Friday: Mad Max Furiosa and Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes.
• G7 finance ministers meet Thursday through Saturday in Stresa, Italy.

Commodity Prices

• Aluminum: $2,612/ton
• Antimony (ingot min. 99.65% fob China): $16,200/ton
• Cobalt: $27,830/ton
• Copper: $10,668/ton
• Gold: $2,444/toz
• Lead: $2,284/ton
• Natural Gas (Nymex): $2.64/MMbtu
• WTI Crude Oil (Nymex): $79.84/barrel
• Zinc: $3,031/ton

Iran

• Iran's Pres. Raisi, Foreign Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian, and several other Iranian officials died in a helicopter crash in mountainous northwestern East Azerbaijan province - reportedly due to fog.
• There are no indications of a foreign hand or foul play yet: this may be another instance of Iranian VIP air escorts succombing to poor aircraft maintenance.
• Raisi was a conservative Shia cleric deeply reviled by liberals, whose dissent his government crushed with violence and mass arrests.
• Iran's First Vice President, Mohammad Mokhber, will replace Raisi until new elections can be held, which must happen within 50 days.
• Analysts don't expect drastic political changes in Iran because of Raisi's death: the country's clerics will likely influence the vote to ensure the next president is another conservative hardliner like Raisi.
• While the presidency is only a figurehead role in Iran, Raisi was also seen as a possible successor to his mentor, Ayatollah Khamenei, in the more influential role of Supreme Leader.
• Internal rumors suggest the race to replace Khamenei was down to Raisi and the Ayatollah's son, Mojtaba Khamenei, so Mojtaba now looks like the likeliest candidate to succeed his father.

DRC

• Pres. Tshisekedi survived an early morning coup attempt yesterday. The putschists didn't get far: the army says they only gained access to the president's office - which was empty at 4 am on a Sunday - and failed to breach the part of the Palais de la Nation where Tshisekedi lives.
• The army killed the leader of the coup - reported to be exiled fringe politician Christian Malanga, who has lived mainly in the U.S. since a previous aborted coup attempt on Tshisekedi's predecessor, Joseph Kabila, in 2017.
• The army also arrested around fifty other participants in the coup attempt - including three U.S. citizens (reportedly Malanga's son, a cannibis entrepreneur described as Malanga's business partner, and a third man).
• The U.S. Ambassador to DRC said she was "very concerned" about the Americans' (rumored) involvement.
• A parallel attack targeted the home of Vital Kamarhe, a member of parliament likely to be anointed its next speaker, and killed two of Kamarhe's guards, but failed to reach Kamarhe himself.
• Malanga reportedly live-streamed the attempted coup on his Facebook page, justifying the attack as an attempt to oust Tshisekedi and Kamarhe for their misrule: "We, the militants, are tired. We cannot drag on with Tshisekedi and Kamerhe, they have done too many stupid things in this country."

Israel

• Israel's defense minister, Yoav Gallant, and centrist leader Benny Gantz gave PM Netanyahu an ultimatum to finalize a post-war plan for Gaza before June 8 or risk losing Gantz's party's support in Netanyahu's fragile coalition government (though the coalition would still enjoy a small majority without Gantz's party's support).
• Their challenge is evidence that some Israeli officials are growing tired of Netanyahu's measured - and, they say, self-interested - strategy for Gaza.

Saudi Arabia

• U.S. National Security Advisor Sullivan met Saudi Crown Prince MBS in Dharan (home to Saudi Aramco's headquarters) on Saturday, and they reportedly made good progress towards a bilateral security deal that insiders say is just "days away" now.
• The U.S.-Saudi deal has implications for Israel and Gaza too, since its signing would begin the process of normalizing relations between Saudi and Israel...though SecState Blinken has said that normalization would be contingent on a long-shot third prong to the agreement creating a "credible pathway to a Palestinian state."

Ukraine and Russia

• Ukraine and Russia exchanged drone and missile strikes on cities and infrastructure targets in each other's territory. Russia's attacks focused on northeast Ukraine, including Kharkiv, and Ukraine dispatched dozens of drones into the southern Krasnodar region of Russia.
• Pres. Putin said Russia had no plans to capture Kharkiv, but merely wanted to create a "buffer zone" in Ukraine's north to protect the Russian border.
• First of all, few take Putin at his word anymore: he and other senior Russian officials also vigorously denied that they planned to invade Ukraine for months as they amassed troops at the border, with the Russian Ambassador to the U.S. stating that "there is no invasion; there [are] no such plans" on February 20, 2022 - four days before Russia did, in fact, launch a well-planned invasion of Ukraine.
• Second, a buffer zone along Ukraine's northern border with Russia wouldn't even really help defend against the long-range drone attacks Ukraine is carrying out inside Russia.

Sahel

• The Pentagon confirmed that U.S. troops will complete their withdrawal from Niger by September 15.
• U.S. defense officials had hoped to find a compromise to allow ~1,000 U.S. troops to continue their counterterrorism surveillance work - despite the junta's embrace of Russian trainers who recently arrived in the country - but it seems like Niger's military leaders prefer to follow the lead of their fellow juntas in Mali and Burkina Faso and turn towards Russia instead.

Afghanistan

• Islamic State-Khorasan (IS-K) claimed an attack in Bamiyan on Friday that killed three Spanish tourists and three Afghans.
• IS's mouthpiece, Aamaq, said: "the attack was in response to the IS leaders’ directions to target citizens of the European Union wherever they are found."

South Africa

• South Africa's highest court ruled ex-president Jacob Zuma ineligible to run for Parliament in next week's elections because of his previous criminal conviction for refusing to testify in an inquiry into corruption allegations.
• Zuma's ineligibility will probably boost the African National Congress (ANC) party he represented as president from 2009-2018, since the new uMkhonto we Sizwe (MK) party he founded late last year to rival his former ANC would have splintered the ANC vote.

Other News

• Ukrainian boxer Oleksandr Usyk united his WBA, IBF, WBO, IBO, and The Ring heavyweight boxing titles with Briton Tyson Fury's WBC title by beating Fury in a 12-round decision in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. That made Usyk the first fighter since Lennox Lewis in 1999 to unify all major men's heavyweight boxing titles.