🇨🇳🛢 Excluding any US-Iran talks about Hormuz, China remains the most important factor for oil prices for the next 60 days or so. All eyes on Beijing.

Ex-China Asian oil imports have recovered to normal levels within the 2023-2025 range. What China does next is crucial.

Last week, I wrote this Opinion column about what China may do next. I see a recovery in oil imports in July and August, but purchases will remain 25% below pre-war levels. Based on my industry soundings, I don't see China stockpiling in the short-term.

Important to note that the (very preliminary) data for July 1-14 shows no recovery whatsoever in Chinese oil imports, with seaborne offloadings running at ~5.5m b/d (*below* June average), per Vortexa data. That's extraordinary for a country that pre-war was buying 10-12m b/d.

🔗 Javier Blas

🇺🇸🇮🇱 Rogan: Most people think Epstein was Mossad.

Vance: "Ya. Mossad or CIA or some other deep state, whether in America or Israel…He clearly had connections to the highest levels of American intelligence. He clearly had connections to the highest level of Israeli intelligence."

📝 Phillip: There’s something very bizarre about a top sitting official, presumably with classified access to the relevant info on Epstein, speculating about whether or not Epstein was actually US intelligence.

Similar to Abbott complaining about Muslims building Arab-only conclaves in his state as the sitting governor. Trump does this too, venting over Netanyahu’s behavior whilst doing absolutely nothing to restrain him.

Our politicians are cosplaying as podcasters—powerless members of the commentariat—bemoaning problems they were elected to solve and posing questions to which they already know the answers. If you just heard their rhetoric, you’d think they weren’t in office.

🔗 The Bulwark (@BulwarkOnline)

🇺🇸🇮🇱 Asked about Israeli government influence operations on the US, JD Vance says "I don't even mind" it, adding: "Foreign governments try to influence the United States all the time."

"Israel does it, other countries do it. It's just sort of the nature of the beast."

📝Anon: What kind of vice-president is unbothered by the fact that a foreign country interferes in its internal affairs to steer foreign policy in the interests of the aforementioned foreign country? Normal, sovereign countries do not tolerate foreign interference in their internal affairs.

🔗 Ken Klippenstein (@kenklippenstein)

🚢❌🇺🇸 Ship captains in the Persian Gulf fear crossing the Strait of Hormuz using the U.S-backed southern/Omani lane for fear of their ships being disabled or even sunk and for fear of sustaining casualties and injuries among their crew.

🔗 https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/some-ships-refusing-us-military-guided-hormuz-transits-after-attacks-sources-say-2026-07-15/

📢 🇺🇸 🛠 Rubio:

"Today, we face a new wave of this old evil.

Here in the United States, the share of left-wing terrorist attacks and plots has risen to levels not seen in decades.

In Germany, far-left violence has jumped by more than 40% in just the last year alone.

These are not abstract statistics; Americans have seen what those numbers mean.

Snipers, explosives, a transgender student opening fire on Catholic elementary school students, his gun marked with slogans like 'where is your God now.'"

Writer: Mhedi

📎 Mario Nawfal

📢 🇺🇸 🛠 "So many people in positions of power have repeatedly dismissed acts of violence and terrorism as legitimate forms of political expression, so long as they served a left-wing cause."

📎 State Department

📢 🇺🇸 🛠 Rubio: "In one 18 month period between 1971 and 1972, the FBI counted some 2,500 bombings on American soil—a rate of nearly 5 a day. The overwhelming share of that violence came from Left-Wing extremists... these are numbers that would shock most Americans today because we've been taught to believe that this kind of political violence, it simply doesn't exist or it's being exaggerated—but it does exist, and we're actually underestimating it."

📎 Rapid Response 47

📢 🇺🇸 🛠 Marco Rubio:

One of the criticisms you sometimes hear of communism is that it sounds good in theory but it never works in practice.

That's actually not true. Communism does not sound good in theory.

They despise the West because the West is great.

📎 Clash Report

📢 🇺🇸 🛠 Rubio: "For far too long, however, our counterterrorism doctrine has had a blind spot. A blind spot when it comes to extremist violence from the political left."

📎 State Department

📢 🇺🇸 🛠 Rubio: "Under President Trump, for the first time, the United States is building the infrastructure, the partnerships, and the strategy to defeat the scourge of far-left terror."

📎 State Department

🇾🇪⚔️🇵🇰 Reuters: In Pakistan there are growing concerns that Houthi ​involvement may be more likely to draw Pakistan into the conflict than the Iranian missile strikes were earlier this year. Pakistani soldiers are deployed near the Saudi border with Yemen, two Pakistani officials said, increasing ​their direct exposure.

There are also concerns in Islamabad that a Houthi-led escalation could disrupt shipping in the Red Sea, an important trade route that Pakistan and many other countries depend on. A widening conflict there could be more difficult to contain and could target Saudi interests in a way that forces Pakistan to intervene militarily under the terms of its mutual defense pact.

🔗 bonzerbarry

✊❌🗳⚖️ DSA Members: “We might not even have a president. Abolish the Senate, abolish the Supreme Court.”

🔗 DSA Watch (@DSA_Watch)

🇰🇷📉 The South Korean stock exchange trades as if its stuck in a financial crisis

The 30-day KOSPI index volatility spiked to 82 points, an all-time high.

Over the last several weeks, the gauge has doubled and exceeded the Great Financial Crisis peak of 81 points.

This is also now ~20 points above the high posted during the 2020 crash.

KOSPI was up as much as +116% year-to-date before falling into a bear market.

Now, the index is up +59% and is no longer the world's best-performing stock market after falling -26% from its June peak.

The bear market in South Korea caught many complacent investors off guard.

🔗 Global Markets Investor

🇺🇦 Ukrainian president, Vladimir Zelensky, has nominated Yevgeny Khmara for the ministry of defense.

Khmara is a Major-General in the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU). Previously he led the Center Special Operations “A” (Alpha) of the SBU. CSO Alpha is specialised in irregular warfare and assassination.

@CIG_telegram

🇦🇪 No disruption in the air traffic above Dubai meaning that the explosion reported on by Reuters was minor and not related to a resumption of drone and missile attacks by Iran on the UAE.

@CIG_telegram

📢 🇺🇸 🛠 Rubio: "Antifa militants and their comrades travel from across Europe and to the Americas to participate in each other's attacks, to funnel propaganda and training, materials, and target information through shared encrypted channels — moving through underground networks of safe houses, and finance and sustain their operations through transnational funds."

📎 Rapid Response 47