Crypto regulations update:
❗️ 5 US 🇺🇸senators join chorus of disapproval of ‘backdoor regulation’ in SEC staff accounting bulletin. The bulletin said platforms such as Coinbase and Robinhood, should list digital assets as liabilities on their balance sheets at fair value.

❗️The deputy governor of the Bank of Canada 🇨🇦 recommended that the authority needs to regulate the crypto industry before it has grown too large to be ignored.

❗️ EU 🇪🇺 calls for further regulation of crypto market after Celsius Network's recent suspension of withdrawals, the crash of Terra and crypto potentially being used to circumvent sanctions on Russia.

❗️New bill introduced in Russian 🇷🇺 Parliament, if passed would prohibit using “digital financial actives” (DFA) to pay for goods or services. One of the main conceptual problems is that the bill treats the DFAs, known as tokens and not cryptocurrencies, as a payment method while they are generally being used as security tokens.

👉 The fertile black soil in northeastern China 🇨🇳, which the Chinese grain community relies on, is in an alarming state of degradation due to over-use. In the past 60 years, the organic content of the black soil tillage layer has dropped by 33%, and in some areas by 50%.

👉 China has successfully produced quarter of the world’s grain🌾 and fed one-fifth of the world’s population with less than 10% of the world’s arable land. Chinese demand continues to outstrip domestic supply. China's 5 year plan shows the use of fertilizers and pesticides must continue to decrease, and the use of animal manure must reach 80% or more by 2025. Before 2007, there was no agriculture insurance market and now China is the second-largest crop insurance market in the world.

👉 China relies heavily on soybean imports, and they normally constitute more than 80 percent of domestic soybean consumption. China is virtually self-sufficient in rice. Imports of rice only account for 3 percent of the nation's total demand, and are mainly used to meet tastes for exotic varieties. Since 2020, due to declines in planting acreage and an increase in demand for livestock feed 🐖, domestic imports of wheat and corn have surged significantly.

📌 Argentina’s 🇦🇷 central bank lifted its benchmark interest rate for the sixth time this year to 52% as the government struggles to cool inflation expectations. The central bank also raised the minimum rate on fixed-term deposits for savers to 53%. Annual inflation is running at a 30-year high of 61%. 📈 The government also published decrees updating the annual budget to reflect targets within the IMF program, such as the primary fiscal deficit.

📌 Persistent drought ☀️ and high fertilizer prices are conspiring to cut Argentina’s 2022-23 wheat 🌾 planting area estimate. Argentina is among the world’s major exporters of wheat, and exports are expected to curb, with estimates at 14 million tonnes on 20 million tonnes of production for 2022-23.

📌 Argentina, 🇦🇷 could seek to nationalize the troubled soymeal giant Vicentin, which has a large debt with the state.

📌 Argentina creates diesel ⛽️import incentives for refiners to fight shortage.

📌 American 🇺🇸 semiconductor giants are pressing Congress to pass legislation that would provide $52 billion for their industry, warning that they may otherwise relocate overseas.

📌 Taiwan 🇹🇼 Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, TSMC manufactures 92% of the advanced semiconductors necessary for every smartphone, laptop and ballistic missile. U.S. firms such as Nvidia, Qualcomm and Apple 📱outsource almost all their manufacturing to Taiwan.

📌 TSMC has built a $12 billion fabrication plant in Phoenix, Az 🇺🇸USA. (TSMC) has officially announced its 2nm class process node. It’s set to ship to customers in 2025. The company also revealed more details regarding its 3nm technology, which is due to begin production later this year.

📌 US share of semiconductor R&D has dropped drastically and domestic chip production has fallen from 40% to below 15%.📉 Investment is not encouraged by our financial markets or our government policies.

❗️Lithuania 🇱🇹 has told the Russian 🇷🇺 region of Kaliningrad that it will block the import and export of a large number of goods by rail in abiding by Western sanctions. The clampdown would affect between 40-50% of the products that are imported to and exported from Russia through Lithuania.

❗️Lithuania is violating its Agreement concerning international road transport 🚂 (with protocols). Signed at Vilnius on 18 November 1993.

❗️Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis says it’s not Lithuania but the EU imposing 🇪🇺 sanctions.

❗️Russia’s Baltic Fleet has ⚓️ reportedly launched live-fire exercises in the Kaliningrad Region with an estimated 1,000 servicemen and over 100 units of military hardware taking part.

Climate change policy reverses in 🇪🇺 Europe as sanctions against 🇷🇺 Russia backfires:
❌ The Netherlands 🇳🇱 will allow more power production from coal-fired plants to help ensure natural-gas security. The Cabinet will immediately change a law that forces ⛏coal-fired power stations to operate at maximum 35% of their capacity in order to limit carbon-dioxide emissions.

❌ State-controlled Verbund AG, Austria’s 🇦🇹 biggest utility and most valuable company, was ordered late Sunday to prepare its mothballed Mellach coal-fired station 🏭for operation.

❌ Germany 🇩🇪 will seek to compensate for a cut in Russian gas supplies by increasing the burning of coal.

❌ Renewables 2022 Global Status Report says says that the world is using more fossil fuels 🔥than ever as the transition to green energy stalls.

❌ Bulgaria 🇧🇬, Poland 🇵🇱, Finland 🇫🇮, The Netherlands 🇳🇱 and Denmark 🇩🇰 have failed to pay for gas in rubles and have been cut from Russian gas supplies.

❗️Producer price inflation in Germany 🇩🇪 rose at a record pace in May, the fastest increase since the beginning of data collection in 1949. prices ballooned 33.6% year-on-year last month, following April’s 33.5% increase. On a monthly basis, producer prices gained 1.6% after growing 2.8% in April. Price increases continue to be driven primarily by soaring energy costs, which were up 87.1% from the previous year. The price of natural gas, 🔥 which German industry relies on heavily, skyrocketed by 148.1%. As a result, memes of Weimar Germany hyperinflation are appearing on social media. (Photo)

❗️German Economy Minister claims this is an economic attack by President Putin🇷🇺, to stir up fear. Concerns arise over future high interest burden on government debt.💶 For 2024 interest payments on bonds is estimated at just under 25.2 billion euros.

CBDC Update:
❌A 42-page chapter in the Bank for International Settlements’ (BIS)🇨🇭annual economic report envisions a future where programmability and tokenization are built on top of CBDC’s.

❌Bank of Israel 🇮🇱 experiments with CBDC smart contracts and privacy.

❌The Hong Kong 🇭🇰 Monetary Authority announced a joint research project with the Bank of Israel (BOI) and BIS to study cybersecurity issues in retail CBDCs.

❌"A U.S. 🇺🇸 CBDC could potentially help maintain the dollar's international standing,"-Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell.

❌The European Union 🇪🇺 needs to carefully consider the impact from issuing a digital euro - Institute of International Finance. “A clear qualitative and quantitative impact assessment of the range of possible designs of a digital euro,” looking at the “various risks … to financial stability, is needed”.

❗️European Union 🇪🇺 leaders aim to maintain pressure on 🇷🇺Russia, with gold among assets that may be targeted in a possible next round of sanctions.

❗️UN 🇺🇳said that governments should improve and publish their gold trade data, to help eliminate smuggling and violence around mines, and the trading of unethical gold extracted from areas of armed conflict.

❗️Switzerland 🇨🇭imported gold from Russia for the first time since February, showing the industry’s stance toward the nation’s precious metals may be softening. Most refiners swore off accepting new gold from Russia after the London Bullion Market Association removed the country’s own fabricators from its accredited list. While that was viewed as a de facto ban on fresh Russian gold from the London market, one of the world’s biggest, the rules don’t prohibit Russian metal from being processed by other refiners 🔥.

📌 A potential European Commission 🇪🇺 (EC) act to classify lithium as a Category 1A reproductive toxin in this year’s fourth quarter could undermine the European Union (EU)’s attempt to create and support a domestic battery materials supply chain. Should the European Commission take this decision, it may undermine the EU’s energy security and net zero goals, in addition to increasing costs for the domestic EV market.

📌 Zimbabwe 🇿🇼 holds Africa's largest lithium reserves, the fifth-largest globally, with its province of Masvingo home to the Bikita mine - site of the world's largest-known deposit of the metal at around 11 million tonnes. 🇨🇳 Chinese companies are making in roads in acquisitions of lithium mining companies in Zimbabwe after two decades of Western economic and political sanctions.

📌 UK 🇬🇧inflation rises to fresh 40-year peak of 9.1% as cost-of-living crisis worsens. The average fuel prices rose again to new records with petrol increased to 189.33p/litre and ⛽️ diesel to 197.11p/litre.

📌 UK rail strike: 🇬🇧 second day of protests yesterday after negotiations with the National Union of Rail, 🚂 Maritime and Transport Workers fail again.

📌 The breakdown of regulatory co-operation between the UK and EU 🇪🇺 over financial services has become “collateral damage” in the dispute over the Northern Irish protocol.

📌 Returning the UK’s stockpile of weapons 🧨 to pre-Ukraine 🇺🇦 war levels could take years, the head of the armed forces has said.

👉 Sri Lanka’s 🇱🇰 prime minister says the island nation’s debt-laden economy has “collapsed” as it runs out of money to pay for food and fuel. Sri Lankans are skipping meals as they endure shortages, lining up for hours to try to buy scarce fuel. The government owes $51 billion and is unable to make interest payments on its loans.

👉 India's 🇮🇳 top diplomat held talks with Sri Lanka's president and prime minister as India signalled its willingness to go beyond the $4 billion in loans, swaps and aid that it has already provided.

👉 Prime Minister Wickremesinghe noted that the only safe option before the country now to get out of the dire situation it is facing, is to hold discussions with the IMF.

👉 The System for Transfer of Financial Messages (SPFS), 🇷🇺 Russia's replacement for SWIFT, is open to banks from the BRICS nations, according to Russian President Vladimir Putin. Efforts are being made to develop a global reserve currency based on a basket of the currencies of the BRICS.

👉 The Philippines 🇵🇭 is considering connecting to Russia's SPFS to continue trading with the country, Philippine Ambassador to Moscow Igor Bailen announced. (Video)

👉 Myanmar’s 🇲🇲 minister of investment and foreign economic relations, U Aung Naing Oo announced urgent need of consultations on SPFS between Russia and Myanmar.

👉 Russia's FM was in Iran 🇮🇷 yesterday to discuss “strengthening cooperation and coordination is an effective way to counter U.S. sanctions...” (code for SPFS? 🤔).

❌ Canadian 🇨🇦 sanctions on Russia 🇷🇺 now causes 'quasi-embargo' on natural gas to Germany 🇩🇪. The Gazprom gas turbine that Germany's Siemens Energy took to a Canadian factory to repair and that Gazprom blamed for the reduced Nord Stream1 flows is not coming back to Russia anytime soon due to failure on a viable solution for the turbine between Germany and Canada.

❌ Germany has triggered the second phase of its three-phase gas 🔥emergency plan as it braces up for the possibility of a complete halt of gas supplies from Russia via the Nord Stream 1 pipeline.

❌ Meanwhile, inflation 📈 surges to 7.7% in Canada, 🇨🇦Fastest Pace Since 1983. There are also more signs that imported inflation is spilling over into domestic price gains, with the cost of services rising 5.2% from a year earlier, the fastest pace since 1991.

One of Northern Italy's 🇮🇹 worst droughts in recent memory has dried up the country's Po River, unearthing relics that are typically covered up by the river's flowing currents.

The Po River, Italy's largest river at 405 miles long, is also the biggest reservoir of fresh water available in the country. The persistent drought, ☀️ which is being called the worst in 70 years, threatens to challenge Northern Italy's supply of drinking water 🚰 and make life difficult for farmers 🚜 in the region.

Much of Northern Italy has not had rain 🌧 for 110 days. Several Italian regions have already declared a state of emergency, looking to free up funds to counter the growing water crisis, while farming associations say agricultural output is set to plunge this year in key growing areas.

❌ A Newcastle-based company 🔬 has announced its goal of becoming the first in the 🇬🇧 UK to produce 100% animal-free "meat". Company says this could "improve the lives of millions" by reducing greenhouse gas emissions generated by livestock farming".

❌ South African 🇿🇦 Mzansi Meat Company has become the first on the continent to produce lab-grown meat. They have been funded by South African and overseas investors. They take a biopsy 🧬 from an animal with some muscle and fat then put it in the process. ...because cells grow quite flat, it will be sold as minced meat.

❌ CNN - Cultivated/lab 🧪 meat may have better nutritional value due to growth in controlled environment, so less chance of disease, can have better nutritional inputs and be hormone/antibiotic free.

❌ Largest cultivated/lab chicken meat processing/growing facility (owned by US-based GOOD Meat Co.) in Asia opens in 🇸🇬 Singapore.

As The Netherlands, Austria and Germany fire up coal power stations because of energy sanctions to stick it to Putin and ‘fight climate change’, coal markets spike with developments.

❗️The EU 🇪🇺 is now buying more South African coal than ever, now @ 3.5 million tons so far this year. Protesters blocked roads leading to some coal power plants operated by South Africa's 🇿🇦 state-owned utility Eskom.

❗️Columbia 🇨🇴 hopes to fill market demand for the EU when the EU ban on importation of Russian 🇷🇺 coal takes effect in August.

❗️The French 🇫🇷 government could restart a coal-fired power plant in the Lorraine region in north eastern France this winter.

❗️Investment in ⛏ coal will jump 10% on-year in 2022, mainly by big users China 🇨🇳 and India🇮🇳 as a growing number of EU countries are planning a switch to coal.

❗️US 🇺🇸- Wisconsin's largest utilities will delay the retirement of three large coal plants, 🏭 including the Oak Creek Power Plant, due to energy supply fears.

📌 Cyberattack- Threat actors based in 🇷🇺 Russia, the Killnet collective, launched distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks against Lithuanian 🇱🇹 government institutions and private businesses in retaliation to blocking Russian goods to Kaliningrad.

📌 Lithuania's State Tax Inspectorate and a number of accounting firms were shut offline. "The attack will continue until Lithuania lifts the blockade," a Killnet spokesperson told Reuters. "We have demolished 1,652 web resources. And that's just so far.".

📌 The hackers 💻 had posted multiple videos to social media over the weekend warning the Lithuanian government it had 48 hours to remove the blockade against Kaliningrad or risk a “pinpoint strike at the heart of the Lithuanian system” affecting “more than 500 companies.”

❌ Ecuador 🇪🇨 has been brought to a near standstill after two weeks of tumultuous protests over a spike in fuel ⛽️and food prices. The head of state, Guillermo Lasso, denounced this Sunday that a humanitarian convoy was attacked with explosives 🧨 in southern Ecuador , a country where fourteen days of an indigenous mobilization against the cost of living have been completed.

❌ Ecuadorean indigenous organizations said on Monday, a 10-cent per gallon cut to gasoline ⛽️and diesel prices announced by President Guillermo Lasso was not enough to halt two weeks of protests.

❌ Ecuador’s oil 🛢 production is likely to halt completely within 48 hours if road blocks and vandalizing of oil wells continue, the Energy Ministry said.

South Africa 🇿🇦 is being hit by the worst power 🔌 outages in more than two years as the state electricity company contends with multiple plant breakdowns after illegal protests followed a deadlock in wage negotiations. If the strike is resolved, the power utility still faces a significant backlog of maintenance, which means load shedding 🔋 is likely to continue.

These protests included incidents of intimidation of working employees and blockading of roads leading to power stations 🏭 and other facilities, inhibiting the free flow of personnel and commodities required for the generation of electricity and smooth operations. Eskom generates about 80% of South Africa’s electricity from coal-fired plants.

U.S. 🇺🇸 authorities have stopped a ship 🚢 traveling from Russia 🇷🇺to Louisiana with a cargo of fuel products. The Daytona tanker is owned by Greek shipowner TMS Tankers Ltd. and was chartered by Vitol. It sailed from Russia’s Taman peninsula in the Black Sea in early June carrying fuel oil ⛽️and vacuum gasoil. The ship was prevented from discharging its cargo, and is undergoing checks by U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

The US embargo does not apply to crude and refined products that have passed through Russia, such as Kazakh oil🇰🇿, which uses the pipeline network of its neighbor to reach ports⚓️. The Taman peninsula terminal handles both Russian and Kazakh oil products.