Spanish daily newspaper ABC.es reports that some of the worst quake damage in Venezuela is concentrated in Caraballeda and Catia La Mar, where high-rise towers built under the Great Housing Mission Venezuela, or Gran Misión Vivienda Venezuela (GMVV), were reduced to rubble.

The Chávez-era socialist housing program is now facing scrutiny after the outlet noted, “The explanation given by engineers and construction specialists is that low-quality materials were used in the Chavista Housing Mission, without supervision and without applying anti-seismic standards.” 

GMVV was later expanded by the socialist Maduro regime without regard for the quality of building materials or anti-seismic standards, leaving only a handful of the 193 buildings in one housing complex in quake-ravaged Catia La Mar standing. 

The devastating earthquakes in Venezuela exposed exactly how the socialist government built housing for their people. Look at this video from La Guaira.

The buildings in the Misión Vivienda program were constructed using expanded polystyrene (EPS) panels coated with a thin layer… pic.twitter.com/N4qLX7W3Xa

— Maila Maria Rosa (@MailaMariaRosa) June 28, 2026

“None of the official buildings would withstand an engineering inspection, much less an earthquake of magnitude 7.5, like the one last Wednesday,” the outlet stated.

Según múltiples reportes independientes y testimonios de las zonas afectadas confirman que #HechoEnSucialismo es: muerte, destrucción y dolor

Las propiedades de la #MisionVivienda son las que mayormente se han caído o sufrido daños sustanciales (si no se han derrumbado)

Una… pic.twitter.com/DT0AMEuNUi

— Bonyuet (@DBonyuet) June 28, 2026

Transparency Venezuela has previously alleged widespread corruption in the socialist housing program, including unfinished or failed projects linked to foreign contractors from Chavismo-aligned countries.

The outlet said many of these social housing projects “collapsed like sandcastles,” and the head of the Chilean rescue teams on the ground told AFP News last Friday that there is “little chance of finding people alive.”

A satellite image reveals the collapse of five residential buildings of the Housing Mission in Venezuela 🇻🇪 pic.twitter.com/mBQRQEThPA

— BowTiedMara (@BowTiedMara) June 27, 2026

The collapse of Venezuela’s GMVV is becoming another case study in how socialist corruption fails at delivering even the most basic needs for the people. What was sold by the left-wing government as housing for all now appears to have produced high-rise death traps, built with low-quality materials, weak oversight and inadequate seismic standards. 

The result is grim: 1,500 dead, 50,000 missing…

Yet another example of socialist governance has instead become a symbol of state failure and corruption.

Last week we showed four China-linked charts which made it very clear that, laughable flatlined 5% GDP notwithstanding, China’s economy appears to be on the verge of yet another collapse (explaining the unprecedented drop in both Chinese oil imports and refining output): between autos, real estate, banks and overall consumption, the economy – as seen by the market – was in freefall.

China is fine pic.twitter.com/PFJzVCz9Ba

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) June 26, 2026

With sentiment collapsing, and amid growing speculation that Beijing will have no choice but to unleash another firehose of fiscal and monetary stimulus, it came as little surprise overnight when China’s central bank set the interest rate on its new overnight liquidity tool at a level that was below expectations, in what some economists see as a de facto rate cut that could push down market borrowing costs.

As Bloomberg reports, the People’s Bank of China said it conducted 300 billion yuan ($44 billion) of overnight reverse repo agreements in open market operations on Monday, according to a statement that didn’t disclose the rate of interest it charged on its new instrument. To avoid confusion, readers should always remember that a reverse repo in China is a repo in the US. And vice versa. The central bank uses the operation to funnel short-term funds to the market to influence borrowing costs, and it accepts eligible bonds as collateral.

The official rate of the facility – the first such overnight facility unlike the bank’s traditional 7-day operations – came in at 1.25%, Reuters reported. Unlike other liquidity instruments, the PBOC did not announce the borrowing cost for the overnight reverse repos. That compared with the median forecast of 1.35% in a Bloomberg survey. 

The PBOC’s benchmark remained at 1.4%, 15bps higher than the facility rate, as it provided 157.5 billion yuan of seven-day reverse repo. 

The decision, which intentionally came in below well telegraphed estimates, now sets the stage for looser monetary policy including a possible cut in loan prime rates — China’s lending benchmarks — as early as next month, according to Citigroup and Standard Chartered.

“Today’s move is not an outright easing, in our view — but it likely opens the door to one,” Citigroup economists led by Xiangrong Yu said in a note. “The asymmetric move likely signals an easing bias, without a formal cut.”

That will come next.

The operation marked the first time that the PBOC deployed the tool to manage liquidity, and many traders said the move is a first step in a gradual shift toward a benchmark overnight rate. Such a transition is likely to bring China closer to the practice of its global peers such as the Federal Reserve, which relies heavily on its overnight target rate to manage the US economy.

“The People’s Bank of China appeared to signal that it wants borrowing costs to fall by setting the rate on its new overnight reverse repo 10 basis points lower than markets had expected. This backs our view that the PBOC will trim its policy rate to reduce financial burdens on businesses and households and support demand”, said Bloomberg’s David Qu.

The new facility is expected to give the PBOC better control over short-end borrowing costs and allow it to smooth out any big swings in market liquidity. The cost of overnight borrowing in the interbank market has become more volatile since May, as the central bank sought to ease a glut of money in the financial system, with demand for cash typically rising at the end of each quarter.

The yield on China’s 10-year government bonds slipped one basis point to 1.71% after the announcement, extending its drop into a third session. Both the overnight and seven-day repo rates eased.

Still, despite the strong hint of easing policy, some analysts still believe the PBOC will be looking to maintain the policy status quo, for now, by keeping the seven-day benchmark steady while publicly omitting details about the new overnight rate.

“The overnight reverse repo is primarily a liquidity tool aimed at smoothing seasonal funding stress, rather than a tool to signal a particular policy stance,” said Frances Cheung, head of foreign exchange and rates strategy at Oversea-Chinese Banking Corp. “The timing of the operations today and tomorrow ahead of the half-year end — and the amount bigger than the seven-day reverse repo — both support this notion.”

Talk of a rate cut in China gained substantial traction as the Chinese economy slowed dramatically in the second quarter, with retail sales and investment falling at a pace unseen since the pandemic.

Still, most economists expect the PBOC to keep its policy rate unchanged throughout 2026, although Huang Yiping, an adviser to the central bank, said a rate cut still remains a possibility.

“The next step is to lower de facto lending rates, including a possible reduction of LPR rates” across both one- and five-year durations “to support a stabilization of credit growth,” said Becky Liu, head of Greater China macro strategy at Standard Chartered.

“We had long argued that China is firmly staying on an easing path, and will likely to take advantage of the interest rate framework reform to lower de facto rates,” she said.

Lynn Song, China economist at ING, said it’s possible the new rate may have been kept undisclosed to avoid “diluting” the significance of the seven-day benchmark.

“Given the overnight rate is still the most liquid and important rate for trading activity, it makes sense this will eventually be the level that policymakers seek to control,” Song said. “However, it probably will take some time. We probably need some track record and maturity for the overnight repo facility and how it affects market overnight rates before this shift is made.”

Authored by James Howard Kunstler,

“. . . there is no saving the Left. Whatever happens to them, it will have to happen without people like you or me trying to get them to return to any place of sanity.”

– Sasha Stone on Substack

A punishing heat-dome creeps over the eastern half of the country just in time for the gala Fourth of July week.

The days are brutal, but anything and everything crawls out of the woodwork when that blazing sun goes down and the moon comes out.

Everyone’s on edge, but the edge of what?

I will tell you.

First, could there be a richer (or more obvious) target for bloody mischief than this year’s national holiday, the 250th birthday of a nation that millions lucky enough to live here have been trained-up to hate on?

Even the sons and daughters (including pretend “daughters”) of millionaires have gone mad-dog on America, the poster-boy being Marxist-jihadi New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, the Left’s new avatar-general.

Since no one is more hated than the, ahem, Celebrator-in-Chief, you might want to steer clear of conspicuous public celebrations this week. Antifa and even worse gangs are out there right now, making plans and laying traps. Maybe not so much in places like Texas, where eight Antifas were just sentenced collectively to 450 years in the slammer for shooting up the Prairieland ICE Detention Center in Alvarado. . . but here in the Empire State and other Blue-ish jurisdictions, all bets are off. Be careful ‘out there’ among the smokin’ ribs, the fireworks shows, and big music venues.

You can see how this summer, and the nauseating slide down to the midterm elections, are shaping up. The party of “Our Democracy” is desperate to an extreme now, all disfigured by a communist leprosy eating away at its public face (and a cancer of fraud metastasizing through its innards). It has become such an obvious monster, raging with its hair lit-up, that anyone with half a functioning brain is shying away, stealing off into the gloaming. The party has nothing left but chaos and, in the weeks ahead, anything that might be disrupted probably will be.

The objective is to create so much havoc and distress throughout the country – especially the big cities – that Mr. Trump will have to invoke the Insurrection Act, and by doing so, the Lefty-left hope to create conditions so adverse that an orderly Election Day cannot happen.

The Insurrection Act would be the Left’s cue to declare Mr. Trump the very “king” whose coronation they have busily rehearsed all year, and then, voila, you get a new French-style American Revolution 2.0, complete with guillotine and transgender Jacobins turning the country upside-down.

You might consider the theory that the nation actually needs to suffer a genuine nightmare to wake up from.

The Revolution 1.0 we celebrate this week was, after all, a nightmarish struggle rife with hardship and loss. Nine signers of the Declaration of Independence died from war-related tribulations. Five were imprisoned and tortured. Twelve had homes ransacked and burned. And then, of course, the military action itself, including travails such as the winter at Valley Forge, the disastrous New York Campaign, and the never-ending logistics crisis, no food, no clothing, no munitions.

In the present summer of travail we face, you can expect at least some major wake-up calls issued by the bloc in the country that has not gone insane — which happens to include many in Mr. Trump’s executive branch. I’m serenely confident that real evidence of 2020 election fraud will finally emerge, coincidental with indictments. Do you think that the Fulton County, GA, election records were seized last winter for no reason? Say goodbye to that old “baseless” talking point.

There are, of course, a whole lot of other seditious and treasonous Beltway villains nervously awaiting administration of the law. You know their names. It appears that the new supervising US Attorney in the Southern District of Florida, Joseph DiGenova, is reorganizing the so-called “grand conspiracy” case against this large cadre of coupsters into a folio of discrete cases — RussiaGate, Fake Impeachment #1, the Mar-a-Lago raid, etc. — to make them more manageable and move them more speedily forward. Don’t be surprised if one or more of these cases happens to drop before the midterms. (Democratic Party true-blue loyalists could be surprised, even shocked to their socks, since these indictments will refute everything that has become essential to their identities as the good and righteous people of this land.)

Just one more item for now in the wake-up folder, coming a little out of left-field: things are looking eerie in the region of the San Andreas fault that runs through California, and perhaps the Seattle fault as well.

The earth’s geology even seems to be manifesting a degree of chaos.

It’s been shaky along the Pacific Rim “Ring of Fire” for many months.

Significant earthquakes have struck Japan (7.4 offshore Honshu/Miyako area), Indonesia (7.4 near Bitung), the Philippines, Tonga, Vanuatu, Chile, Papua New Guinea.

The Venezuela “doublet” (June 24, Mag 7.2) occurred in a separate tectonic zone, but all zones are essentially connected by the movements of magma deep in the earth, solar activity (flares, etc), gravitational tidal forces, and so on.

On June 24, a Mag 5.6 shook Redwood Valley, in Mendocino California, a Mag 5.8 near Pistol River, Oregon, and a Mag 5.1 struck 40 miles west of Petrolia in Humboldt County, CA.

The east side of the Pacific rim (America’s West Coast) has been unusually quiet for some years now. Be alert. Things seem to be livening-up. Just sayin’.

Authored by Irina Slav via OilPrice.com,

• Oil prices are tumbling as tankers stream out of the Strait of Hormuz, but most of that traffic is stranded vessels finally allowed to leave, not new supply heading in.

• Iran struck a commercial ship near Oman this week even as the 60-day U.S.-Iran ceasefire holds and markets keep pricing in a supply glut.

• The U.S. strategic petroleum reserve is at its lowest level in four decades, and China may resume buying once it stops selling off the cargoes it’s offloading now.

Crude oil prices are in freefall after the United States and Iran agreed on a ceasefire, set to last 60 days. Traders expect the ceasefire to unleash an avalanche of crude, and indeed, tankers are leaving the Persian Gulf in growing numbers. And yet Iran just struck a commercial ship in Hormuz.

Bloomberg reported earlier this week that the ceasefire prompted huge discounts in available crude cargoes, noting how Angolan crude was selling at a $10 discount to dated Brent—for the first time in a decade. Not only this, but Chinese refiners were offering crude oil cargoes for sale, the publication wrote, citing unnamed traders.

“You actually get a discount to buy a barrel now versus a barrel tomorrow because of the weakness in the Asian pull on Middle Eastern grades,” Daan Struyven, co-head of global commodities at Goldman Sachs, told Bloomberg.

“Reopening is going well and quickly.”

This appears to be the general feeling in trading and analyst circles. Indeed, analysts were somewhat baffled by the speed with which oil prices dropped amid the reports of more tankers exiting the Strait of Hormuz loaded.

“The market has rebalanced through a meaningfully different mix of demand losses and inventory withdrawals than we initially assumed,” JP Morgan commodity analysts said, as quoted by the Wall Street Journal. 

ING, however, sounded a note of caution.

“The market is largely focused on the resumption of oil flows through the Strait of Hormuz, which continues to increase,” the Dutch bank’s commodity team wrote today.

“However, much of the increase reflects previously stranded vessels leaving the Persian Gulf. Vessel flows into the Gulf remain much more modest.”

Indeed, the Wall Street Journal also noted in its report that while there has been a strong rebound in tanker traffic out of Hormuz, it is made up of stranded vessels finally allowed to exit the chokepoint. Incoming tankers, however, are nowhere near outgoing numbers. The publication cited the chief executive of Phillips 66 as estimating some 90 to 100 million barrels set to leave the strait and adding, “Then the question is: Who will be brave enough to send ships back in? Will they be able to get insurance? How does that all play out?”

Interestingly, Bloomberg also focused on the stranded tankers now leaving the Strait of Hormuz as the basis for its prediction that a flood of crude is coming into the market. The suggestion here is that oil markets are about to flip from deficit to excess in a matter of days, which was immediately reflected in prices. “The market might be a little bit overenthusiastic of how quickly the supply side, particularly inventories, are going to stabilize,” TD Securities’ global head of commodity strategy Bart Melek told the Wall Street Journal.

The reported Iranian strike on a commercial vessel in Hormuz earlier this week could give those overenthusiastic market players a pause, but for now, there is nothing to suggest it. Oil benchmarks are set for a sharp weekly decline despite a slowdown in the price movement following the news.

“With the geopolitical risk premium once again creeping back into prices, markets will be watching intently to see if tanker traffic resumes or if these latest hurdles force producers to tap the brakes on planned production increases,” IG analyst Tony Sycamore said as quoted by Reuters.

There is also the matter of inventory refilling. As Bloomberg noted in its report, echoing analyst warnings, the world handled the Hormuz crisis by tapping oil in storage. China’s contribution to relative market balance was seen as particularly notable, since the world’s largest importer of crude could afford to reduce purchases by dipping into its massive oil inventory, reducing oil prices’ potential for skyrocketing. Yet with flows out of the Persian Gulf improving, Chinese refiners may start buying once again—presumably, after they sell all the cargoes they want to sell right now.

The U.S. also needs to refill, and rather urgently, because oil in storage is at levels low enough to start worrying some observers, with the strategic petroleum reserve sitting at the lowest level in four decades, lower than when it was in 2023, after the Biden administration released close to 200 million barrels. At the end of the week ending June 19, the SPR had 331.2 million barrels in it. The thing to remember about oil in storage, whether in the U.S. or anywhere else, is that not all of these barrels are actually available. There is a certain level of crude in the system that needs to be maintained in order for the system to keep working—the so-called minimum operational level.

So, it appears that a lot more oil is coming out of the Persian Gulf, and this is, naturally, weighing on prices. Yet there are doubts as to whether the rate of this outflow can be sustained over a longer period once the stranded ships clear out, which is potentially a booster for prices. The issue of insurance also looms large over the tanker market, as does the strength of the U.S.-Iran ceasefire.

Authored by Matt Margolis via PJMedia.com,

It’s been two years since Joe Biden’s catastrophic debate against President Donald Trump, which ultimately made his party realize they could no longer pretend he was fit for office and forced him out of the race.

Two years later, Biden is still proving how unfit he was, this time stumbling through a combative speech in front of the very people who used to cheer him on.

Biden showed up Saturday night at the Maryland Democrat Party’s Fight Back & Win Summit at Live! Casino & Hotel in Hanover, Md., to deliver a teleprompter-fed attack against Trump.

The crowd was full of party activists, the kind of room that should have been the easiest audience of his career.

Instead, hecklers interrupted him mid-speech, and by the time it was over, he struggled just to make his way off the stage.

Protesters screamed “Genocide Joe” through Joe Biden’s speech tonight.

Why are Democrats still dragging him out like this.

It’s just sad at this point. pic.twitter.com/pRk7SwAgWm

— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) June 28, 2026

If Biden wanted to use the event to prove that he still has some fight in him, what he delivered instead was a reminder of exactly why the Democrat establishment forced him out of the race two years ago.

Of course, Biden put on a show with his usual attack lines.

He accused the president of wrecking America’s alliances, enriching himself in office, and tanking the country’s standing both at home and abroad, calling it “corruption on a scale never seen before.”

This is from the guy who literally tried to put Trump, his political rival, in prison. 

Then came the line that should embarrass every Democrat in that room.

“Have you noticed that Americans are saying the economy under the Biden administration is a hell of a lot better than under Trump?” Biden asked, and the crowd actually applauded.

It’s not, of course.

Rampant inflation under Biden crushed American families and handed Trump the White House back in the first place.

Trump has since gotten inflation under control, something Biden apparently can’t bring himself to acknowledge even now.

Biden kept swinging anyway. “It’s simply stunning to me,” he said of Trump’s conduct.

“He has no shame, and frankly it’s embarrassing for the country. But Trump? Trump could care less.”

He also went after what he called Trump’s “vanity projects,” ticking off a list.

“It’s not just his vanity projects — tearing down the East Wing of the White House making room for his ballroom. Putting his name on the Kennedy Center. Building an arch in his own honor. Even hiring his own pool guy to fix the reflecting pool,” Biden said, before adding, “Whoa — what a loser.”

And then he got lost trying to exit the stage.

Joe still can’t find his way off the stage. pic.twitter.com/zO9wSb3Ef8

— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) June 28, 2026

Two years after that debate stage exposed him to the entire country that was pretending everything was okay, Biden refuses to go away, embarrassing himself repeatedly for speaking fees because now that he’s out of power (or at least his autopen is), he has no other way to make money

Summary

• Iran Foreign Ministry contradicts Trump on Doha talks: “We will not hold any negotiation meetings at any level with the American side in the coming days.”
• US-Iran talks may resume Tuesday in Doha, Trump declaring the plan in a Monday Truth Social, with Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner traveling to Qatar, though Tehran denies technical negotiations are scheduled.
• Qatar suspended most maritime activity as security deteriorates, while shipping through the Strait of Hormuz remains disrupted & slowed.
• Recent US-Iran strikes have clouded diplomacy, despite reports both sides have paused military action.
• Iran warned it could halt negotiations and said further US involvement in Hormuz would escalate tensions and delay the waterway’s reopening.

*  *  *

Iran Foreign Ministry Contradicts Trump: No Talks will be Held

Earlier Monday a White House official said the Witkoff-Kushner delegation was en route to Qatar for Iran talks, but it’s looking like Tehran will give the US a cold shoulder. Iran state Tasnim is citing Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson, who says:

“We will not hold any negotiation meetings at any level with the American side in the coming days,” directly contradicting prior reports coming out of Washington.

Bloomberg is also confirming the new statement out of the Iranian side. President Trump himself early Monday morning stated on Truth Social: “Iran has requested a meeting. It will take place tomorrow in Doha.” Also Fars has separately stated within the last hours:

“No nuclear negotiations have been held with the US so far, and there will be no negotiations on nuclear issues until Iran’s conditions are met.”

More latest:

IRAN SAYS DELEGATION WILL VISIT QATAR BUT RULES OUT US TALKS

So it seems Witkoff and Kushner will merely meet with Qatari and Pakistani mediators? It remains an open question whether the Iranians will be present in Doha at all. It could be Tehran is issuing the contradictory messaging in order to keep leverage and pressure up, or else to try and humiliate the White House. The Islamic Republic has been warning that more US military action against Iranian territory and in the Hormuz Strait could result in Iran walking away from the negotiating process altogether.

Witkoff-Kushner Delegation En Route to Qatar, Iran Mum

Bloomberg reports Monday that Special Envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner will meet with Qatar’s prime minister on Tuesday to discuss the talks with Iran, also citing Axios which spoke to a White House official. Will the Iranians actually be there?

• On Wednesday US and Iranian technical teams will meet separately with Qatari and Pakistani mediators, Axios says
• Witkoff and Kushner will travel to Doha today: Axios

So it seems the US delegation is in motion, even as Tehran has as yet offered no concrete public confirmation that an Iranian high level team is in route.

Qatar Halts Maritime Activity due to Unravelling Security Situation

A big move from Qatar to halt almost all shipping in its maritime territory on Monday:

Qatar has recommended a temporary halt to shipping and some maritime activities in the country until further notice, without providing a reason. The Qatari Ministry of Transport said the precautionary measure includes recreational and fishing boats, jet skis and other vessels. Although no reason was given for the unusual step, the decision was made after Doha announced last night that a Qatari citizen was killed by shrapnel hitting a vessel due to ‘military operations in the area,’ but did not provide further details.

The Qatari MOT suspends all maritime activities until further notice. https://t.co/FjXvico7QB

— barry with the NED (@bonzerbarry) June 29, 2026

Bloomberg reported earlier in the day: Just a handful of vessels made open transits over the weekend in the strait.

Trump: Talks Continue Tuesday in Doha

After some persisting Sunday reports, including in The Wall Street Journal, said that last week’s renewed tit-for-tat fighting between the US and Iran in the Strait of Hormuz had ‘stalled’ the next round of talks, President Trump stated on Truth Social Monday that a meeting on Iran would be held in Doha Tuesday. He stipulated that Iran has requested the talks.

“Iran has requested a meeting. It will take place tomorrow in Doha,” Trump wrote on his social media platform in all caps. Axios reported late Sunday, citing a senior US official, that “We decided to stop all the kinetic activity” and make way for renewed talks.

NBC notes in the immediate aftermath of the statement, “There was no immediate reaction from Tehran. Hours earlier, a senior Iranian official denied any technical discussions were scheduled to take place.”

“Technical teams working on the implementation of the initial agreement between the two sides are scheduled to meet in Doha in the coming days, a source with knowledge of the talks,” the report continues.

Growing Tit-for-Tat Strikes Clouding Talks

Abbas Aslani from the Center for Middle East Strategic Studies has contextualized, “In the past few days the two sides have been flexing their muscles on this strategic issue – meaning the Strait of Hormuz, which is a leverage for Iran that can create a balance in the negotiations with the United States.” He added: “This has been clouding the atmosphere of the talks. The Iranian senior negotiator said they are not expecting those technical talks to be held this week.”

As for how this may or may not impact vessel traffic through the Strait of Hormuz in the wake of the MoU deal signing, and start of Switzerland technical talks earlier this month, Bloomberg reports that “Commercial shipping continued to move through the Strait of Hormuz at a reduced level after recent attacks on two vessels. A handful of vessels made open transits over the weekend, according to tracking data.”

Last Friday into the weekend saw the escalatory spiral go into overdrive, as red lines continue to be tested. By early Sunday morning, both Bahrain and Kuwait came under direct Iranian attacks. The strikes came just hours after the Pentagon proudly announced it had pounded multiple targets inside Iran  – a move Washington characterized as “retaliation” for Tehran’s continued harassment of commercial shipping lanes.

A short time before Trump’s latest Truth Social post proclaiming Doha talks set for Tuesday…

Iran denies reports of scheduled technical talks with US in Doha
——
Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi stated on Monday that “no technical talks” with the US are scheduled this week in the Qatari capital Doha, refuting recent western media assertions. IRNA reports… pic.twitter.com/pvAY6tYjxS

— The Cradle (@TheCradleMedia) June 29, 2026

Tehran Threatens ‘Complete Halt’ To US Negotiations

Tehran is now threatening a “complete halt” to all diplomatic negotiations, despite that Trump has been signaling that the gloves are completely off if things spill over into next year: “There may come a point when we are no longer able to be reasonable, and will be forced to militarily complete the job that we very successfully started,” he had said Saturday.

But then Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said on Sunday, “Any interference in this matter and any attempt to adopt new or separate arrangements compared to what is underway by Iran will only lead to more complicated situations and delays in the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, and will fuel tensions.” But for now, at least the two sides have ‘agreed’ to halt strikes, it was widely reported Sunday evening.

Overnight, Weekend Latest Developments

via Newsquawk…

• US CENTCOM announced that it conducted strikes against multiple Iranian targets on Saturday, on the orders of US President Trump, “in direct response to continued Iranian aggression against commercial shipping.” In retaliation, Iran’s IRGC responded by hitting 8 US military installations at the Ali Al Salem air base in Kuwait and the US Navy’s Fifth Fleet in Bahrain, according to IRNA. However, in the early hours of Monday, a US official said technical talks with Iran are slated to continue on all areas of the MoU, while the official added that both sides will stand down for now and that vessels can move freely.
• US official said Iranian drone and missile attacks on Kuwait and Bahrain failed and that all Iranian projectiles were intercepted or missed, according to ABC News.
• Iran cancelled technical talks with the US scheduled on Sunday and cited recent attacks on the country and a failure to meet conditions outlined in the MoU with the US. However, it was separately reported that the US and Iran agreed to halt strikes and meet this week, according to Axios citing a senior US official. Furthermore, US and Iran technical talks that were scheduled to be held on Tuesday in Switzerland, which would focus on nuclear and other issues, have reportedly been changed and will now be held in Doha on Tuesday and will focus on the Strait of Hormuz and recent escalation.
• Iran’s Foreign Minister Araghchi said the US and Israel have violated the MoU, particularly the first clause, which hinders the restoration of regional security, while he also stated that Iran seeks to implement the MoU in good faith in accordance with the principle of commitment for commitment and that they will act decisively against contract breaches.
• Mediators have reportedly set up communication channels to de-escalate any incidents with technical talks set to continue, according to reports.
• Iran’s President said they will get USD 6bln from Qatar of the USD 12bln of Iranian funds that were frozen due to US restrictions within Qatar, journalist Mallick reported.
• Israeli army said it attacked 3 Hezbollah headquarters in southern Lebanon last night.
• Israeli military has received no orders to withdraw from Lebanon, according to Al-Jadeed and Haaretz, citing an Israeli military source.
• Instructions have been given to the Israeli army to reduce the destruction of homes and infrastructure in areas of southern Lebanon it controls, Al Hadath reported citing Israeli media.
• Israel destroyed a Hezbollah underground tunnel in southern Lebanon, while Israeli forces reportedly shelled a Syrian village near the Golan Heights.
• Israeli PM Netanyahu and Defence Minister Katz said the IDF will remain in the southern Lebanon “security zone” after destroying a Hezbollah underground facility.
• Iran and Oman held the first meeting on the Strait of Hormuz, within the framework of Article 5 of the MoU, Mehr reported.

The PlayStation 6 is shaping up to launch during one of the most challenging periods in recent consumer electronics history. Soaring prices for key components – particularly RAM and high-speed SSDs – have pushed the estimated component cost for the next-generation console close to $1,000, according to recent analysis. Combined with Sony’s latest comments to investors, this suggests that a significantly higher launch price than many had hoped for is no longer out of the question.

In a recent investor Q&A session noted by Wccftech, Sony made its position clear: the company does not intend to sell hardware at a substantial loss. A representative stated that absorbing all recent component cost increases is “not realistic,” noting that Sony has already implemented selective price increases outside Japan, as detailed in Sony’s official investor briefing. Importantly, the company reported that these adjustments have not hurt demand so far.

“As for pricing, it is not realistic for us to absorb all component cost increases, and we have already implemented some price increases outside Japan. At present, however, sales are proceeding as planned, and we do not believe this has led to a decline in customer demand. As a principle, we do not intend to sell hardware at significant losses. At the same time, we are carefully monitoring the market and continuing to evaluate our approach. We believe it is important for us to make every effort to ensure that customers fully understand the value we provide in relation to pricing.”

This is a notable shift – as Microsoft and Sony had effectively subsidized hardware for years in order to gain market share. But thanks to elevated component costs due to insane prices, Sony appears unwilling to do that with the PS6.

How the hell is an average family supposed to afford a $1,000 gaming console? Sony apparently thinks it can justify higher pricing by clearly communicating the value – performance, features, and ecosystem – that the PS6 will deliver.  

Last week we noted that Xbox Series X/S consoles are also set for another price hike. 

According to The Game Business: 

Xbox Chief Strategy Officer Matthew Ball told The Game Business earlier in the month that there are already supply issues.

“I can tell you definitively demand for our console exceeds the supply,” he told us. “We are putting them in as many stores as possible. We are producing them as quickly as possible. There is a severe limitation to how quickly we can do that, but it’s not a question of appetite. We need to do more, but there are constraints here. And so there are, unfortunately, a number of different markets in which we do not have supply. There are other markets in which we have inadequate supply. That is a privilege as a company it is a challenge for us to figure out.”

The Verge, meanwhile, reported that Xbox prices will jump starting August 11, with 512GB models increasing by $100 and 1TB models rising by $150. The price hike now means the Xbox Series S starts at around $499.99, while the disc-less Xbox Series X starts at $749.99 and the disc-drive version at $799.99.