Goldman Sees Japan Bond ‘Shocks’ Spilling Over to Treasuries

Delegations from Israel and Hamas began indirect negotiations in Egypt on Monday that the U.S. hopes will bring a halt to the war in Gaza, facing contentious issues such as demands that Israel pull out of the enclave and Hamas to disarm.

Israel and Hamas have both endorsed the overall principles behind President Donald Trump's plan, under which fighting would cease, hostages go free and aid pour into Gaza, the closest they have come to an end to fighting.

The plan also has the backing of Arab and Western states. Trump has called for negotiations to take place swiftly towards a final deal, in what Washington hails as the closest the sides have yet come to ending the fighting.

'MOVE FAST' SAYS TRUMP

"I am told that the first phase should be completed this week, and I am asking everyone to MOVE FAST," Trump said in a social media post.

But both sides are seeking clarifications of crucial details, including over issues that have wrecked all previous attempts to end the war and could defy any quick resolution.

Trump has told Israel to suspend its bombing of Gaza for the talks. Gaza residents said Israel had scaled back its offensive substantially, although it had not halted it altogether.

Gaza health authorities reported 19 people killed by Israeli strikes in the past 24 hours, around a third the typical daily toll of recent weeks when Israel has been mounting one of its biggest offensives of the war, an all-out assault on Gaza City.

DELEGATIONS ARRIVE

Egyptian state TV reported that the talks had begun at the Red Sea resort of Sharm El Sheikh.

The talks commenced on the eve of the second anniversary of the Hamas attack on Israel that triggered the war, when fighters killed 1,200 people and took 251 hostages, the deadliest day for Jews since the Holocaust.

Israel's retaliatory military campaign has killed more than 67,000 Palestinians and left the majority of 2.2 million Gazans homeless and hungry in the rubble of the enclave destroyed by relentless bombardment.

Egyptian sources said Hamas was seeking clarification of several details, including guarantees that Israel would follow through with promises to withdraw its troops from Gaza once the militants give up their leverage by freeing their hostages.

WARINESS ABOUT PROSPECTS OF BREAKTHROUGH

With Israeli forces blasting their way through Gaza City and flattening neighbourhoods as they advance, Gaza residents say a ceasefire now is their last hope that the enclave will emerge habitable.

"If there is a deal, then we survive. If there isn't, it is like we have been sentenced to death," said Gharam Mohammad, 20, displaced along with her family in central Gaza.

Inside Israel there is clamour for an end to the war to bring home hostages, although right-wing members of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's cabinet oppose any halt to fighting.

Though Trump says he wants a deal quickly, an official briefed on the negotiations, speaking on condition of anonymity, said he expected the round of talks kicking off on Monday would require at least a few days.

An official involved in ceasefire planning and a Palestinian source said Trump's deadline to send all hostages back within 72 hours could be impossible to meet in the case of bodies of dead hostages, some of which would need to be located and recovered from burial sites scattered across the battlefield.

A Palestinian official close to the talks was sceptical about prospects of a breakthrough given deep mutual mistrust, saying Hamas and other Palestinian factions were worried that Israel might ditch negotiations once it recovered the hostages.

The Israeli delegation includes officials from spy agencies Mossad and Shin Bet, Netanyahu's foreign policy adviser Ophir Falk and hostages coordinator Gal Hirsch. Israel's chief negotiator, Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer, was expected to join later this week, pending developments in the negotiations, according to three Israeli officials.

The Hamas delegation is led by the group's exiled Gaza leader, Khalil Al-Hayya, who survived an Israeli airstrike that killed his son in Doha, the Qatari capital, a month ago.

Negotiators from Hamas will seek clarity on the mechanism to achieve a swap of remaining hostages - both alive and dead - for Palestinian prisoners held in Israel, as well as an Israeli military withdrawal from Gaza and a ceasefire, according to a statement put out by the Islamist group late on Sunday.

A thorny issue is likely to be the Israeli demand, echoed in Trump's plan, that Hamas disarm, a Hamas source told Reuters. The group has insisted it will not disarm unless Israel ends its occupation and a Palestinian state is created.

On Monday, Israel deported scores of activists it detained last week from a flotilla attempting to bring aid to Gaza, including Swedish climate campaigner Greta Thunberg.

Reporting by Ahmed Fahmy in Sharm el-Sheikh, Nidal al-Mughrabi in Cairo, Andrew Mills in Dubai; Additionall reporting by Ludwig Burger and Ayhan Uyanik in Frankfurt and Ahmed Elimam and Tala Ramadan in DubaiWriting by Michael GeorgyEditing by Mark Heinrich, Peter Graff and Ros Russell

Source: Reuters

Source: investing.

Source: Bloomberg

Ukraine is in talks with key donors to pay for another batch of US weapons even as some allies have been dragging their feet over providing financing, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said.

Contributions from countries including the Netherlands, Germany, Canada, Sweden, Denmark and Norway “allowed us to buy scarce things that are made only in the US,” Zelenskiy told reporters in Kyiv on Monday. “Now we are talking to these countries for a second round,” he said, adding that other partners had been less quick to help.

The money is critically important as Ukraine is facing an increase in Russian attacks on its energy infrastructure ahead of winter.

After Donald Trump froze direct military aid to Ukraine earlier this year, Kyiv is now getting US-made weapons via a special procurement program called PURL. It allows Ukraine to purchase arms from the US, including Patriot anti-missile systems, with funds provided mostly by European partners.

Zelenskiy posted last week that Ukraine was coordinating with the US on the fifth and sixth package of weapon procurements under the PURL program and was targeting purchases of $1 billion per month to “fully realize its potential.”

The Baltic countries have contributed some money through PURL as well, though their budgets are small, Zelenskiy said in a joint news conference with Dutch Prime Minister Dick Schoof on Monday.

Zelenskiy’s latest attempt to rally partners comes as Czech billionaire Andrej Babis’s victory in parliamentary elections on Saturday has stoked doubts over the future of the initiative to channel globally sourced artillery shells to Ukraine, an idea originally spearheaded by Prague. Babis has denounced it as a system that serves largely to line the pockets of weapons manufacturers.

The Russian threat is not limited to Ukraine as the continent’s countries have to deal with drones that violate their airspace, the Dutch prime minister said. “Nobody in Europe can claim that Russian aggression is not our problem,” Schoof said.

While Ukraine is seeking US-made air defense systems to protect its cities and energy infrastructure, it’s also carrying out retaliatory strikes inside Russia with domestically made weapons, Zelenskiy said.

Asked whether Ukraine had deployed its latest Flamingo long-range missiles against Russian refineries, Zelenskiy said recent attacks didn’t just involve drones, without elaborating further.

“Our defense in winter is air defense,” the president said. “And here everything depends on the PURL program.”

Source: Bloomberg

The U.S. Supreme Court began its new nine-month term on Monday with major cases in store concerning presidential powers as Donald Trump probes the limits of his authority under the U.S. Constitution and federal law, while turning away a high-profile appeal by Jeffrey Epstein's former girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell.

Before hearing arguments in its first two cases of the term, the court rebuffed appeals in multiple cases. One of them was a bid by British socialite Maxwell to overturn her conviction for helping Epstein, the late financier and convicted sex offender, sexually abuse teenage girls, as the justices steered clear of a case that continues to hound Trump and his administration.

The justices also rejected Missouri's appeal to revive a Republican-backed law intended to prevent enforcement of several federal gun laws in the state and a bid by the conservative activist group Project Veritas to invalidate on constitutional free speech grounds an Oregon law that generally bans unannounced recordings of conversations.

Chief Justice John Roberts, who has now served in the post for two decades, said before arguments commenced in the first case that "I have the honor to announce" that the new term is now convened.

The court takes up its first big case of the term on Tuesday in a dispute over the legality of a Colorado law that bans "conversion therapy" intended to change a minor's sexual orientation or gender identity. That is one of a passel of cases touching on hot-button U.S. culture wars issues, with others due to be argued focusing on transgender student athletes, gun rights and race.

But the major theme of the term promises to be the authority of the president in cases involving Trump, who returned to office in January.

The court, whose 6-3 conservative majority includes three justices appointed by Trump during his first term in office, already has backed the Republican president in a series of cases decided on an emergency basis this year.

In the one case this year involving Trump in which the justices heard arguments, the conservative majority handed him a major victory that buttressed presidential powers. In that case, which arose from a dispute over Trump's efforts to limit birthright citizenship, the court in June restricted the ability of judges to impede his policies nationwide.

The court has arguments coming in November, December and January in three big cases involving Trump over the legality of his sweeping tariffs and his moves to fire officials from agencies set up by Congress with certain job protections meant to insulate them from presidential interference. The latter two cases are challenges to his actions to oust Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook and Federal Trade Commission member Rebecca Slaughter.

The first case argued on Monday involved whether a Texas judge violated the rights of David Villarreal under the Constitution's Sixth Amendment to have a lawyer assist in his defense in his murder trial. The judge prohibited Villarreal from discussing his testimony with his attorney during an overnight recess in the trial. Villarreal was convicted in 2018 and sentenced to 60 years in prison.

The second case concerned whether a federal court must apply state laws requiring plaintiffs suing for medical malpractice to obtain an affidavit from a medical expert stating there are reasonable grounds to believe medical negligence has occurred.

Numerous states have adopted similar laws to tamp down on frivolous medical malpractice lawsuits.

The case was filed by a Florida man who alleges he received improper care for an ankle injury in Delaware, where he owns a home. Federal courts can handle cases when a plaintiff and defendant live in different states.

In other appeals rejected on Monday, the Supreme Court declined to hear a bid by Sberbank, Russia's largest bank, to avoid a lawsuit brought under an American anti-terrorism law alleging that it did business with a group blamed for downing a Malaysia Airlines jetliner over Ukraine in 2014.

The court also decided not to hear another bid by Turkey's state-owned lender Halkbank (HALKB.IS), opens new tab to avoid fraud, money laundering and conspiracy charges in the United States for allegedly helping Iran evade American economic sanctions.

Source: Reuters

Okay, reach for your tin foil hats and let’s stroll down the Conspiratorial Rabbit Trail. Ready, Everyone? Here goes:

When the Special Military Operation began in early 2022, during the 8th year of fighting in Ukraine, the new aspect of the conflict was cast strictly in terms of Democracy vs. Autocracy; valiant Ukraine holding back the onslaught of Russian tyranny; or the defense of Western democratic values against dark barbarism from the East; or the Rules-Based International Order against the forces of Chaos, etc. etc. No one talks that way today, unless it is Kalla Kallas, or the Lithuanian prime minister, Keith Kellogg, or cringingly recently by King Charles III. I suppose Anthony Blinken would, if he had access to a microphone. But he doesn’t.

The problem is, of course, that liberal democracy did not turn out to be the Fukuyamaian End of History that it was purported to be. (In February 2022, before my current views had quite solidified, I distinctly remember thinking, however, “Oh, History is back.”) The decline of democracy, so-stated, is most pronounced where its horn is tooted the most: Europe. Orwell predicted rightly, all political animals are equal, but some political animals are more equal than others. Don’t ask questions in Romania. Or Moldova. Running as an AfD candidate in Germany can get you fitted for a coffin in no time flat. And don’t even get me started on the U.K., where the governing elites are certifiably insane, and whose Prime Minister I’ve recently heard characterized as Tony Blair’s sock-puppet.

Real political expression can often seem more vibrant in the vilified countries–Russia, Hungary, Slovakia–though it may not translate to real political options. But no matter, dissent is decidedly not welcome in the European Parliament. Just ask Georgia what happens when you try to chart an independent course, based on your own country’s national interest. And of course, there is that bastion of freedom itself, Ukraine, where, if you are a man under 60 years of age, you don’t dare emerge from your flat, even if wheelchair-bound.

A friend characterized it thusly: “Ukraine is being not so much governed, as torn up at her beleaguered roots, by a bloodthirsty power-drunk drug-addicted neoliberal narcissist clown.” A clown, I might add, who is still allowed to address the United Nations. Anyone, (Simon Tisdall in today’s Guardian, for example) still repeating the Democracy vs. Tyranny narrative is simply not a serious person; to be avoided at cocktail parties and whose blatherings are to be dismissed out of hand.

As any reader here knows, I prefer Realist interpretations, best stated by John Mearsheimer, to-wit: Projection of Western hegemony vs. Russia’s “Red Line” (Eastward expansion of NATO vs. Russia’s defense of their Western border.) Realism rejects the view of NATO as a benign defensive alliance, which collapses in the face of even a cursory view of actual history. Russians had good reasons for viewing it as an existential threat directed at them, which of course it was.

The eastward march of NATO, the coup d’etat of 2014, the creeping NATOization of Ukraine in late 2021—all in the face of repeated, consistent, and increasingly urgent warnings from Moscow–do not need to be recounted again here. The real agenda was not, of course, the incorporation of what was demonstrably the most corrupt nation in Europe into NATO, but rather the destablization of Russia itself. For the Empire of the West, regime change is always on the agenda. Always. And so it will be until the Empire falls.

The idea, it seems, was always to overthrow the Russian government and/or oversee the establishment of a compliant one (a la Ukraine), and perhaps break the country up into more manageable bits. Once this was accomplished, we could turn our full attention to China. If this was indeed the plan, it has been a failure of yet unimagined and colossal magnitude that it indeed heralds the death of the Empire itself. Or so I thought.

Tin-foil hats secured? Consider this: What if the ultimate plan was never to defeat Russia at all? For it has rarely been done; the Golden Horde almost pulled it off some 800 years ago, and Sweden scored some victories for a season over 400 years ago. We expect such fantastical thinking from the EU elites (and Fredreich Merz, who raises no alarms by speaking of rearming Germany again.) But I would expect there to be at least a few objective students of History within the bowels of our Permanent State. Rather, what if the immediate plan is the the defeat of Europe, not Russia; reducing it to permanent vassal state status? There are three main ways in which this is being accomplished:

1.Ditch the inexpensive Russian oil that had been the foundation of Europe’s prosperity in recent decades. Beginning with their destruction of NordStream, this lengthy cutting-off-of-the-nose-to-spite-the-face is now nearly complete. The governing elites (save Hungary, Slovakia and Turkey) have convinced themselves that they will get cooties if they use “cheap Russian oil.” Instead they have opted for much more expensive fuel from us, and from…the Russians, after it has been first filtered through India. This is decimating economies and leaving many people struggling to survive. But no matter, their moral purity and “European values” are intact.

2.Deplete all European weapons stockpiles, throwing them heedlessly into the Black Hole of Ukraine. Of course the European elites cannot shake their Ukraine addiction because a) Zelensky wants more and they cannot refuse their creation, who might get angry with them; and b) they believe if Russia defeats Ukraine, they will come after Europe next. On the second point, one should ask for some empirical evidence. Unfortunately, there is none. Russia seems single-mindedly intent on securing its western border, and displays no apparent interest in what lies beyond. Indeed, what does Russia want with the meager crumbs of Europe, when a sumptious feast is being laid in the East? No matter, this story continues to be repeated to justify the ongoing bankrupting of Europe. They cannot manufacture the weapons Zelensky demands, so they must buy overpriced weaponry from the United States. And so, the engines of Empire are stoked. (One side point: NATO buying weapons from the U.S. is largely the U.S./NATO buing weapons from the U.S. Look for this twist to change, if it ever comes to it.)

3.As the President has made clear in recent pronouncements, Europe will bear ALL the cost for prolonging the war. Nothing prevents any one of the European governing elites from picking up the phone and calling the Kremlin, and beginning a dialogue. But that will never happen. The war must go on in the vain hope of eventually, somehow, tricking the U.S. into a long-lasting commitment to Europe (through Ukraine.) So what looms ahead for Europe? Certainly not prosperity. Civil unrest and bankruptcy seem on order, as Europe settles-in to being part American vassal-state, part “open-air museum.”

So, if this is the plan, I must say that it is succeeding beyond anyone’s wildest imagination. And the Russians have been exceedingly helpful. Russian tanks rolling across the steppes in traditional fashion would have alarmed Europeans and galvanized a true, unified response. Instead, Moscow pursues a slow and steady war of attrition, one that a) churns up the Ukrainian army, b) protects its own soldiers, and c) doesn’t unduly alarm the Europeans (despite their paranoid rhetoric.) For those of us who review the battle lines every day, there is no great sweep of territory underway (leading neocon dead-enders Lindsay Graham and Keith Kellogg to assert that the line is stalemated and/or Ukraine is actually winning.)

The Russians move forward, one field at a time. They protect their troops, the casualty figures whispered from Zelensky to Kellogg to DJT are works of upside-down fantasy fiction. The Russian army resists directly assaulting a town, preferring to encircle it with giant pincher movements. I’ve watched it again and again, and is now being played out in Povrovsk, Kostyantynivka, Siversk, and Kupyansk. Of course, Zelensky allows no retreat, ever. And so, they more or less fight to the last Ukrainian, in the killing fields of these cauldrons. By some estimates, Ukraine has lost 1.7 million men. Another 250,000 have deserted.

Donald Trump's recent Truth Social post is a curious piece in this scenario. If he meant what he said, then that does not speak well for him; showing him to be either be a fool or, as has been judged by some, as simply believing the last person he talked to; in this case, a 7-minute conversation with Zelensky. But, as is almost universally understood now (even by European leaders, in private), this was a work of deep sarcasm. But that is troubling as well. There is no diplomacy here. And there is no courage, only manipulation and evasion. I give DJT credit for often being shrewd, but he is never courageous, too given to trying to please everyone.

He deduces that since some claim Ukraine is winning, then the U.S. is not needed anymore; that Europe can supply whatever arms they do need, and that the U.S. will be happy to sell those weapons to them. In short, the U.S. has no strategic interest in this conflict, and leaves it to the European continent to sort out. This could have been stated straight-forwardly, repeatedly, beginning on 20 January 2025. DJT thinks Ukraine’s coming defeat will thus be blamed on Europe (I’m not too sure of that). The United States has its own problems, but in this scenario, will emerge in much better shape than the Europeans, responsible for the hollowed-out husk of Ukraine.

Source: Zero Hedge