Amid a dispute between Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and other major oil producers, collectively known as OPEC+, called off talks (Bloomberg) about global oil supply without reaching an anticipated deal to increase output. The breakdown in talks sent the West Texas Intermediate crude oil benchmark price to hit its highest level (CNBC) in six years. 

OPEC+ countries jointly cut oil production at the start of the pandemic and were expected to approve a Saudi- and Russia-backed plan to increase production levels, building on a previous increase in May. But talks were called off after a disagreement over how the UAE would calculate its production quota, underscoring a growing economic rivalry (Reuters) between Saudi Arabia and the UAE. Tensions between Riyadh and Abu Dhabi have risen over Saudi Arabia’s push to become a regional trade and business hub and over the countries’ diverging positions on the war in Yemen.

Citing national security concerns, Beijing began investigating three Chinese tech platforms (FT) listed on U.S. stock exchanges shortly after banning the ride-sharing company Didi Chuxing from Chinese app stores following the company’s listing on the New York Stock Exchange. Online recruitment company Boss Zhipin and truck-hailing apps Yunmanman and Huochebang are banned from registering new users while under investigation.
 
In Foreign Affairs, Jude Blanchette writes that President Xi Jinping’s expansive definition of national security will steer China in a more inward and paranoid direction.
 
Japan: Authorities announced that twenty-nine people are missing (Kyodo) and four have died after heavy rainfall caused a massive mudslide in Shizuoka Prefecture on Saturday.

Tajikistan’s military plans to reinforce its border with Afghanistan after more than one thousand Afghan troops crossed into the country (RFE/RL) in one night to escape Taliban militants. Tajik authorities said they are preparing for an influx of refugees and noted that the Taliban controls two-thirds of the Afghanistan-Tajikistan border.
 
Myanmar: Security forces in the Sagaing region killed at least twenty-five people (Reuters) in a confrontation with opponents of the ruling military junta, according to residents and local media. 
 
CFR’s Joshua Kurlantzick discusses how Myanmar could become a failed state.

A preliminary study by Israel’s Ministry of Health found that amid the spread of the coronavirus’s Delta variant, the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine is only 64 percent effective (Times of Israel) in preventing symptomatic illness. When the Delta variant was less prevalent in Israel in May, the vaccine was 94 percent effective.

Ghana plans to issue up to $2 billion in bonds to finance social and environmental projects by November, which would make it the first African country to sell so-called social bonds, Finance Minister Ken Ofori-Atta told Bloomberg.
 
Nigeria: Gunmen kidnapped 140 students (AFP) from a school in the country’s northern Kaduna State, a school official said. Some one thousand students have been abducted across Nigeria since December.

The United States, Lithuania, and Poland will join Ukraine for a military exercise (Reuters) involving more than 1,200 service members in Ukraine’s western Lviv region beginning July 17, the Ukrainian military said. It will be Ukraine’s second military drill with foreign partners in a month. 
 
Belarus: The country’s Supreme Court sentenced opposition figure Viktar Babaryka (AP) to fourteen years in prison for corruption charges he says were fabricated to block him from running against President Alexander Lukashenko in last year’s election.

The Mexican government designated state-owned oil company Petroleos Mexicanos (WSJ), also known as Pemex, as the operator of the Zama oil field that Pemex shares with a consortium led by the U.S. firm Talos Energy, which discovered the field in 2017. Talos Energy has said it should be the field’s operator.
 
Honduras: A Tegucigalpa court found former dam company head Roberto David Castillo guilty of ordering the 2016 murder (Guardian) of environmentalist Berta Caceres, who led a campaign against the construction of a twenty-two-megawatt dam.
 
CFR’s Paul J. Angelo and David Gevarter discuss Caceres’s murder and other killings of Latin American environmentalists.

Potentially life-threatening rains and winds are expected in southern Florida (CNN) today as Tropical Storm Elsa approaches the peninsula. Governor Ron DeSantis has issued a state of emergency for twenty-six counties, and President Joe Biden approved an emergency declaration for the state.