Coming Up This Week

• Hungary assumes the rotating presidency of the EU today, and will hold the post through December. Some liberal EU lawmakers are concerned about letting a nationalist president with little regard for democratic norms lead the bloc, but EU presidents don't have much sway over policy anyway - especially when a new EU Parliament is just starting to settle in.
• The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) Summit takes place Wednesday and Thursday in Astana, Kazakhstan. Pres. Xi will attend. This year the SCO will add a 10th member: Belarus. China is celebrating the group's expansion as a "historic breakthrough" and a "pushback against the US' hegemonic abuse," but in reality the SCO has low standards and will accept any country willing to risk Western opprobrium by joining a rival organization [last year the SCO admitted Iran].
• The UK will vote in a general election starting Thursday, July 4.
• Iran will vote in a runoff election on Friday, after moderate (by Iranian standards) candidate Massoud Pezeshkian won the most votes but failed to secure a majority. More on that below.
• France will vote in a runoff legislative election on Sunday. The far-right did well in the first round, which likely indicates a hung parliament that won't be able to pass meaningful reforms.

Commodity Prices

• Aluminum: $2,525/ton
• Antimony (ingot min. 99.65% fob China): $22,900/ton
• Cobalt: $27,150/ton
• Copper: $9,599/ton
• Gold: $2,340/toz
• Lead: $2,224/ton
• Natural Gas (Nymex): $2.56/MMbtu
• WTI Crude Oil (Nymex): $81.90/barrel
• Zinc: $2,938/ton

Iran

• Assuming election officials confirm initial results from Friday's first-round presidential poll, Massoud Pezeshkian will face Saeed Jalili - a hardline former nuclear negotiator aligned with conservative Supreme Leader Khamenei - in this Friday's runoff.
• In the first round, Pezeshkian benefitted from a rivalry between Jalili and two other conservative candidates who split the conservative vote; on Friday, conservative voters will consolidate support for Jalili and probably elect him over Pezeshkian [the Iranian presidency is a fairly toothless role anyway, since the clerics call the shots].
• Voter turnout was the lowest ever, at around 40% lower than even the clerics had predicted. That suggests voters were uninterested in any of the candidates the clerics approved for them to choose from.

Nigeria

• Two reportedly female suicide bombers killed at least 18 people in Borno, northern Nigeria.
• No group has claimed the attacks yet, but Islamic State's West Africa Province (ISWAP) is currently more active in the area than the other Boko Haram splinter it bickers with, Jama’atu Ahlis-Sunna Lidda’Awati Wal-Jihad (JAS).
• This is the first major jihadist attack on civilians in months: lately, ISWAP and JAS have been too busy fighting each other to plan attacks like these on civilians [these targeted a wedding and a funeral].

North Korea

• North Korea tried - and failed - to launch two ballistic missiles this morning. One of them failed early, and may have crashed (or exploded) on land near Pyongyang.
• That's not quite the "offensive and overwhelming" punishment that North Korea had warned it would mete out in response to U.S.-South Korea-Japan military drills.

South Africa

• After weeks of negotiations, South Africa unveiled its new national unity cabinet.
• Having lost its majority for the first time since 1994, the African National Congress (ANC) was forced to give up some cabinet posts to the Democratic Alliance (DA) and other opposition parties.
• The DA will now have six portfolios - including some key ministries like Public Works and Infrastructure and Home Affairs that the ANC botched during its 30 years in charge - and six smaller opposition parties will each get one minor ministry to run.
• The DA's biggest victory was the appointment of its leader, John Steenhuisen, as Agriculture Minister - despite a furious spat last week that led Pres. Ramaphosa to accuse Steenhuisen of "moving the goalposts" and seeking to create a "parallel government."
• The DA had wanted to take over other key portfolios the ANC has badly mis-governed, like Trade and Industry - which the ANC reportedly offered to the DA before reconsidering and reneging. The ANC will also retain the finance ministry - lest an opposition Finance Minister discover and divulge just how much state money ANC officials have stolen over the years.

Israel

• Thousands of ultra-Orthodox Jewish men turned out to protest a new Supreme Court ruling allowing them to be drafted into military service.
• These aren't non-violent objectors: they threw rocks and attacked the car of one of their own Cabinet ministers for his failure to block the ruling. Rather, the violent demonstrators are objecting to the end of a longstanding exemption that has stired reserntment among non-exempt groups now being called up to fight in Gaza.
• The ruling is also a threat to PM Netanyahu's fragile coalition, which relies on support from ultra-Orthodox parties. If they withdraw their support, his government could fall.

Other News

• The U.S. European Command raised its alert level to Force Protection Condition "Charlie" at several U.S. bases in Europe - including the one in Stuttgart where its command is headquartered - for the first time in 10 years, suggesting that it received intelligence about an imminent "active-reliable threat" against the sites.