U.S.-Philippines drills, Middle East de-escalation, and Asian political shifts

Off Leash update 4/22 -The Philippines and the U.S. begin annual joint military exercises today, but this time the exercises take place far from Philippine territorial waters in a part of the central South China Sea claimed by China. Though international law allows the exercises to take place there, China will see them as a provocation. -Passover begins at sundown today and ends at sundown next Tuesday. North Macedonia votes for president on Wednesday. U.S. SecState Blinken will visit China this week with a warning to Beijing to stop Chinese companies from helping Russia make military hardware. -Commodity Prices Aluminum: $2,669/ton Antimony (ingot min. 99.65% fob China): $14,200/ton Cobalt: $27,830/ton Copper: $9,876/ton Gold: $2,337/toz Lead: $2,219/ton Natural Gas (Nymex): $1.77/MMbtu WTI Crude Oil (Nymex): $82.77/barrel Zinc: $2,852/ton -Iran and Israel Both Iran and Israel seem to be standing down after their tit-for-tat exchange of unprecedented direct strikes last week. Iran downplayed Israel's drone strike on Friday and seems content to let it be the last shot in this volley. Israel's Friday strike hit a defensive battery near some of Iran's most important nuclear infrastructure. Western officials said Israel's objective was to show that it could penetrate Iranian defenses undetected - and it apparently did on Friday. Some Israeli media reports suggest Israel used a supersonic "Rampage" missile in that final strike on Friday. Neither Israel nor Iran are confirming those reports: Iranian officials are happy to let the public believe the foreign minister's comment that the weapons deployed agaisnt Isfahan were "like toys our children play with" rather than a high-tech, 1,250 lb (567 kg) missile. Separately, Iraq's pro-Iran Popular Mobilisation Forces accused the U.S. of striking one of its bases near Baghdad, killing one militant -Gaza The U.S. is reportedly planning to slap sanctions on the Israel Defence Forces' Netzah Yehuda Battalion for alleged human rights violations it committted in the West Bank. PM Netanyahu vowed to "fight" the sanctions, which would suspend U.S. funding and training for the unit. Israel's head of military intelligence, Aharon Haliva, became the first senior official to resign over the failure to foresee and prevent Hamas's Oct. 7 attacks. The attacks happened over six months ago, but as protests against PM Netanyahu's handling of the war grow, critics want heads to roll. Ukraine -Sadly after much delay and politicking, the U.S. House approved a long-stalled $95 billion foreign aid bill for Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan. Ukraine celebrated the news: $61 billion of the total is earmarked for it, including $14 billion for weapons. The Kremlin warned that the bill's passage would "further ruin" Ukraine. -Venezuela Saturday was the deadline for swapping candidates on the ballot for Venezuela's July presidential election. The opposition had hoped to put its unity leader, Maria Corina Machado, on the ballot, but she's still barred from running under a politically-motivated technicality, so all 10 parties in the main opposition coalition aligned behind a relatively unknown former diplomat, Edmundo González, as their candidate. -Myanmar Recently-united rebel groups are rapidly retaking territory from government forces in Myanmar. Rebels now control over half the country. China The Maldives' pro-China ruling People's National Congress (PNC) party won a decisive victory in this weekend's parliamentary elections, with enough seats to secure an outright majority. The PNC's leader, incumbent president Muizzu, steered the country closer to China but has been restrained by a pro-India party's control of the legislature. Now that the PNC controls the legislature too, we'll likely see the Maldives pivot more sharply towards China. 1/2