United States

Submitted by Roberty Parry via ConsortiumNews.com (h/t Contra Corner blog),

When Taliban leader Mullah Akhtar Mansour was killed recently in a US drone strike, we noted that experts cautioned that it would make local insurgents even less likely to participate in long-stalled peace efforts, and it would likely lead to an escalation of Taliban retaliation efforts.

Mullah Akhtar Mansour, Taliban militants' leader

The US Gold Market is best known as the home of gold futures
trading on the COMEX in New York. The COMEX has a literal monopoly on gold
futures trading volumes worldwide, but very little physical gold is actually
exchanged between COMEX trading participants, and gold inventories maintained
in COMEX vaults in New York are extremely low. This COMEX Gold Futures Market
infographic guides you through the largest gold futures market in the world,
COMEX.

With the US closed for Memorial Day and UK markets offline due to a bank holiday, overnight volumes have been weaker than normal on little newsflow. The main story remains the stronger USD following Yellen's hawkish Friday speech, which not only led to the lowest Yuan fixing since February 2011...

... but pushed the USDJPY almost as high as 111.50 overnight before paring gains, however it was enough to send the Nikkei 1.4% higher.

John Hudson reports that the Obama administration is finally blocking the transfer of cluster munitions to Saudi Arabia: