United States

The Pentagon has just confirmed deployment of US Special Forces in Lebanon to support the Lebanese Army in an upcoming coordinated military campaign aimed to clean out an ISIS border pocket in the country's northwest. Regional media outlets are describing the coming major new offensive as "imminent". But awkwardly for the US, the fight will necessitate some level of coordination with Hezbollah, which the US considers a terrorist organization.

Authored by Kevin Smith, Tavi Costa, and Nils Jensen via Crescat Capital,

Crescat Capital's Q2 letter to investors shouold be retitled "everything you wanted to know about the looming bursting of the world's biggest credit bubble... but were afraid to ask..." Don't say we didn't warn you...

A global punitive campaign on North Korea propelled by sharp new U.N. sanctions - amounting to a $1 billion ban on North Korea exports - received a welcome, and unexpected, boost on Sunday from China, the North's economic lifeline, when Beijing slammed its neighbor for its ongoing missile and nuclear tests.

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov held their first meeting since Donald Trump signed into law new sanctions against Moscow which Russia said amounted to a full-scale trade war and ended hopes for better ties, sending relations between the two nations back to their lows, hit during the Obama administration.

Authored by Llewellyn King via InsideSources.com,

In October 1973, the world shuddered when the Arab members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries imposed an oil embargo on the United States and other nations that provided military aid to Israel in the Yom Kippur war. At the same time, they ramped up prices.