Coming Up This Week

• The U.S. votes in a general election tomorrow. Judging by early voting - with around 75 million ballots cast already - turnout is likely to be high, at 60-66%.
• Saturday is the 35th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall.

• Aluminum: $2,600/ton
• Antimony (ingot min. 99.65% fob China): $25,300/ton
• Cobalt: $24,300/ton
• Copper: $9,571/ton
• Gold: $2,742/toz
• Lead: $3,054/ton
• Natural Gas (Nymex): $2.63/MMbtu
• WTI Crude Oil (Nymex): $71.51/barrel
• Zinc: $3,070/ton

• Mediators rushed to seal a ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas over the weekend, but neither Israel nor Hamas seem interested in a hasty pact.
• Instead, Israel carried out airstrikes in Gaza and Lebanon. One of the operations in Gaza killed Izz al-Din Kassab, who the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) called one of Hamas's "last high-ranking members."
• Israel also carried out a ground raid inside Syria, capturing a Syrian man whom Israel accuses of spying for Iran. It was the first time since the Oct. 7 attacks that Israel publicly acknowledged a ground operation inside Syrian territory.
• Separate reports said Israeli commandos also abducted a senior Hezbollah operative from his home in Batroun, Lebanon, in a bold speedboat operation. The IDF didn't officially acknowledge this one.

• Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, threatened a response to Israel's retaliatory strikes that could target the U.S. as well: "The enemies, whether the Zionist regime or the United States of America, will definitely receive a crushing response to what they are doing to Iran."
• In the immediate aftermath of Israel's Oct. 26 retaliation, Khamenei avoided calling for reprisals, leading analysts (including me) to believe Iran was going to let Israel have the last word. It now seems this volley of tit-for-tat strikes isn't over yet.
• That's consistent with recent warnings that Iranian diplomats have shared with Arab officials. One Egyptian official said Iranian diplomats privately disclosed that Iran is preparing a "strong and complex" response to the Oct. 26 strikes, which Iran says killed four soldiers and one civilian. Officials from Bahrain and Oman reported receiving similar notices from Iranian diplomats.

• Supporters of Bolivia's deposed former president Evo Morales stormed a military barracks and kidnapped around 20* of its soldiers. [*Some reports cited a much higher figure of 200 abducted soldiers.]
• Morales is resorting to increasingly desperate measures to force his way back into power and regain leadership of his party from his arch-rival, incumbent president Luis Arce.
• In conjunction with his supporters' kidnapping stunt, Morales began a hunger strike that he says he'll continue until Arce's government - which he accused of trying to assassinate him last month - agrees to talks.
• Morales insists he doesn't actually want to be president again and is only obeying the will of "the people" who "have asked me to return." [He's conveniently ignoring the fact that enough of "the people" asked him not to return that he failed to win reelection in the first round in 2019, sparking electoral antics that led to his ouster.]
• We can expect to see more desperate efforts from Morales and his supporters over the next nine months as the election draws closer.

• Ukraine's military said that North Korean soldiers fighting alongside Russian forces in Ukraine came under fire for the first time yesterday. It's not yet clear how the new recruits fared.

• Rwanda-backed M23 rebels captured the strategic town of Kamandi-Gite yesterday after two days of intense fighting with the Congolese military. Kamandi-Gite is about 80 miles (130 km) north of Goma and controls access to a large area around Lake Edward.

• Moldova's Pres. Sandu won reelection in a runoff yesterday. She'd been favored to win in the first round, but Russian election interference drove a wave of votes against her pro-Western program that forced the vote to a second round.