Asia

Authored by Whitney Webb via TheAntiMedia.org,

When the U.S. overthrew the Taliban in the wake of 9/11 as part of its newly launched “war on terror,” it set the stage for the explosive growth of Afghanistan’s dying opium industry. A few short months before the invasion took place, the Taliban made headlines for having “dramatically ended the country’s massive opium trade” after the leader of the fundamentalist group had declared the substance to be un-Islamic. At the time, Afghanistan’s opium was used to produce 75 percent of the world’s heroin.

After a few short days of respite - suggested by some as indicative that the worst is over - China commodities are crashing again tonight with Dalian Iron ore snapping below 460 to its lowest since before Trump's election...

This has erased the entire post-Trump reflation trade hope...

By EconMatters

I was debating whether to put this post on our sister site Asia Pop Culture, but decided EconMatters.com seems a more appropriate place.  

Authored by Nourial Roubini via MarketWatch.com,

With Emmanuel Macron’s defeat of the right-wing populist Marine Le Pen in the French presidential election, the European Union and the euro have dodged a bullet. But geopolitical risks are continuing to proliferate.

"Iron ore doesn't have good fundamentals," warns one analyst as while the crackdown on leverage in Chinese capital markets (which has tightened liquidity everywhere) is the immediate catalyst, "supply-side pressure is huge as ever, and mills are still seeking to draw down inventories."