❗️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.

❗️Farmers 🚜 driving tractors are blocking highways in the Netherlands 🇳🇱 in the latest protest sparked by a government pledge to rein in pollution emissions, a move that will hit the country’s agriculture sector by forcing farmers to reduce their animal herds 🐄 or shut-down their farms.

Dutch broadcaster NOS reported that farmers lit small fires 🔥 outside town halls in the city of Apeldoorn and the town of Epe in the central Netherlands.

The Dutch governing coalition has mandated reductions in emissions of nitrogen oxides and ammonia of up to 70% in many areas of the country close to protected nature areas — even reaching as high as 95% in some places.

The Pentagon has agreed to fund the entire $120 million cost of a heavy rare earths separation facility to be built in 🇺🇸 Texas by Australia’s Lynas Rare Earths. Rare earths are a group of 17 elements with unique properties used in virtually every piece of modern technology, from smartphones to jet engines. Although the United States pioneered the industry during World War II, China 🇨🇳 now controls over half of global rare earths mining ⛏and 80 to 90 percent of intermediate processing.

A 2021 study by the U.S. Department of Energy found that a one-year export ban on rare earths by China could cause a 40 percent drop in magnet 🧲 production outside of China as metals would become harder to obtain. China controls the price of multiple commodities of rare earths because they are by far the most dominant producer.

Biden admin alongside the G-7 🇨🇦 🇩🇪 🇫🇷 🇯🇵 🇮🇹 🇬🇧 🇺🇸 announced that they will ban gold imports into G-7 countries from Russia in order to "further impose financial costs on Moscow.

The biggest buyers of gold in recent years have not been G7 countries, many of whom naively sold much if not all their gold in the recent past and have refused or simply don't have the funds to restock; instead purchases have all been by developing nation central banks (like India🇮🇳 and Turkey, and of course China🇨🇳 which however has a habit of only revealing its true gold inventory every decade or so.

The interchangeability of rubles into gold via banks in 🇷🇺Russia has been a strategy to keep gold within the country as well. Russia and EAEU/SCO countries need gold to increases reserves for their plans to back national currencies by commodities.

Farming update:
❗️Germany🇩🇪- The poultry industry in Lower Saxony warns of the consequences of a gas shortage in the agricultural sector and demands priority for its branch in the supply. Without gas, it is not only the supply of poultry meat 🍗and eggs🥚 that is at risk. There would also be immediate animal welfare problems on the farms. From the hatchery to the barn to the slaughterhouse, all companies in the poultry industry are dependent on the energy source.

❗️'Vets and ecologists' in the UK 🇬🇧publishes study to show that industrial (factory) farming of animals may reduce the risk of pandemics and the emergence of dangerous diseases compared to 'free range farming'🐓. A widespread switch to low-yield farming (free range/homesteading) would result in the destruction and disturbance of vast areas of natural habitats and increases the risk of viral🦠 spillover.

❗️Tightening milk 🥛output is set to continue into next year across Europe, including in the UK, as input costs soar and as farmers in the 🇪🇺EU scramble to meet the bloc’s green-oriented production rules. “Lots of farmers are quitting dairying 🐄 as they choose not to make the needed investments to meet the new requirements.”

📌 The UK 🇬🇧 will cut off gas supplies to mainland Europe🇪🇺 if it is hit by severe shortages under an emergency plan that energy companies warn risks exacerbating a crisis on the continent. European gas 🔥companies have appealed to the UK to work with the EU and warned shutting off interconnectors could backfire if prolonged shortages occur. Britain imports large volumes of gas from the continent at the height of winter.

📌 Since March, two undersea pipelines connecting Britain with Belgium 🇧🇪and the Netherlands🇳🇱 have been working at maximum capacity, exporting 75mn cubic metres a day of gas to the continent. The UK has minimal gas storage capacity so excess supplies, including imported cargoes of liquefied natural gas (LNG), are sent to the continent when demand is low in the summer months. (Photo- Natural gas pipelines in red)

US policy towards oil markets enters self-destructive path.

❌ U.S. 🇺🇸crude inventory in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) fell to 497.9 million barrels, the lowest since April 1986.
❌ Biden says he will 🇸🇦 not ask Saudi Arabia for increased oil production, blames 🇷🇺 Russia for rising prices ⛽️.
❌ Biden admin drilling plan may exclude all waters beyond Gulf of Mexico.
❌ The CEO of Shell, has raised doubts about plans by G7 nations to impose a price cap on Russian oil. “You will continue to just see Russian 🇷🇺 crude go to countries that are perfectly OK to still purchase Urals".
❌ Last month, Biden admin delays oil and gas lease sales 🛢amid environmental protest.
❌ In May, Biden admin cancels high-profile Alaska oil and gas lease sale.