CHINA/JAPAN - Beijing and Tokyo sealed a multi-billion dollar currency swap arrangement on Friday, aimed at enhancing financial stability and spurring business activity in both countries. According to the Bank of Japan (BOJ), the arrangement which will last until October 25, 2021, will allow the exchange of local currencies between the two central banks for up to 200 billion yuan or 3.4 trillion yen ($30 billion). The meeting comes as Asia’s two biggest economies look to strengthen relations against a backdrop of trade friction with the United States. China has been actively seeking to boost the use of its currency in mutual trade settlements with partners, bypassing the US dollar. The idea of moving away from the dollar in global trade has become a trend lately among countries like Russia, China, Japan, Iran, Turkey, Venezuela, and others.

USA - As the wealthy continue sucking the country dry, the question now isn’t if the US will cease to provide a decent standard of living for its people. Rather it is how many people will be sacrificed on the way down. In America, the richest nation in the world when measured by raw GDP, children are getting sick from living by open pools of raw sewage.

GERMANY - Angela Merkel quit politics today after it became crystal clear the German nation was turning its back on the mainstream and finding comfort in the parties more usually on the fringes. The two big winners from the collapse of Merkel’s CDU in the Hesse state elections yesterday were laser-focused single issue parties with a crystal clear dog-whistle message.

USA - Recreational marijuana is now legal in Canada, and as my colleague Tony Mecia writes, a Democratic takeover of the House could help facilitate legal pot in more places in the United States. And soon. Legalizing cannabis has a number of upsides. It’s projected to help the farming economy while hurting the smuggling economy, and sparing small-time offenders from outsize sentences — and that’s not to mention its medicinal uses, for chronic pain, PTSD, and chemo patients’ nausea. But beyond these known and anticipated benefits looms one risk proponents ought to know but tend not to: Marijuana increases a user’s likelihood to develop psychotic symptoms. It’s a complex set of mental disorders that covers symptoms like hallucinations, paranoid delusions, all the way to full-blown schizophrenia — which... has no known cure.

USA - First they say have no children, now no pets! According to a study out Monday on global climate change, your dog (or your cat) is probably killing the environment, and if you want to stem the tide of global warming, it's time to say "good-bye" to Fido and Fluffy. Researchers at the University of Sydney in Australia claim that those 163 million pets have a detrimental impact on the environment, from the food they consume to the waste they produce. Alternatively, the researchers recommend having your pets go vegetarian, something that's not recommended by veterinarians or animal health and welfare experts who concede that having some type of meat-based protein is best for your four-legged friends — particularly those whose ancestors were carnivorous.

USA - Could it be possible that the US is heading for a major war?  If you ask most Americans that question, they will look at you like you are crazy.  For most people in this country, war with either Russia or China is not something to even be remotely concerned about.  But the Russians and the Chinese both see things very differently. 

EUROPE - For those who do not follow Europe closely, the European Union took the unprecedented step Tuesday (23rd of October) of rejecting Italy’s draft budget as incompatible with the bloc’s rules on fiscal discipline. This has simply validated the position many take in Italy that they are an occupied country. The decision is escalating a battle between Europe’s establishment and Italians and the sooner you exit the Euro, the better Italy will survive.

USA - We continue to see extremely wild swings on Wall Street. On Monday, at one point the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 352 points, and then later it was down 566 points. At the closing bell the Dow had officially lost 245 points, and all of this extreme volatility is making investors very nervous. Investors like markets that are predictable, because it is a whole lot easier to make money when things move in a predictable fashion ...we are starting to see things happen that we have not witnessed since the last financial crisis. Specifically, the S&P 500 just broke the bull market trendline that had not been violated since the market bottomed out in early 2009.

USA - President Donald Trump borrowed a serpent staff from a child at the White House Halloween event on Sunday to wave in the direction of the media as he and first lady Melania Trump distributed chocolate bars and twizzlers to the children of military families before once again attacking the press on Twitter. 'Do you know what I'm doing,' he asked the two little girls, who were dressed in Egyptian style costumes as the first lady chuckled at his antics. He waved the staff up and down and all around, as if he were casting a spell. After the kids were gone, however, the president took to Twitter to attack the media. 'The Fake News is doing everything in their power to blame Republicans, Conservatives and me for the division and hatred that has been going on for so long in our Country. Actually, it is their Fake & Dishonest reporting which is causing problems far greater than they understand,' he wrote on Sunday evening.

EUROPE - A European court has ruled that people can be fined and prosecuted in criminal court for saying things about religious figures. Specifically, saying things about the Muslim prophet Mohammad is verboten, and state punishment is appropriate: The European Court of Human Rights has ruled a woman convicted by an Austrian court of calling the Prophet Mohammed a paedophile did not have her freedom of speech rights infringed.

BRAZIL - Far-right lawmaker Jair Bolsonaro won Brazil's presidential election on Sunday, riding a wave of frustration over corruption and crime that brought a dramatic swing to the right in the world's fourth-largest democracy. With 94 percent of ballots counted, Bolsonaro had 56 percent of the votes in the run-off election against left-wing hopeful Fernando Haddad of the Workers Party (PT), who had 44 percent, according to the electoral authority TSE. "We cannot continue flirting with communism ... We are going to change the destiny of Brazil," Bolsonaro said in an acceptance address in which he vowed to carry out his campaign promises to stamp out corruption after years of leftist rule. The 63-year-old seven-term congressman has vowed to crack down on crime in Brazil's cities and farm belt by granting police more autonomy to shoot at criminals. He also wants to let more Brazilians buy weapons to fight crime.

USA - Stocks around the globe rose in the wake of the election of Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil and German Chancellor Angela Merkel announcing she would step down as leader of her party. Brazilian stocks soared on Monday morning, pushing its benchmark Bovespa stock index up 3.1 percent to a record high. Stocks retreated later in the day, as investors booked profits from the run up in stocks that seen the iShares MSCI Brazil ETF rise more than 18 percent this month. Germany’s DAX 30 had its best daily gain in nearly two months, rising 1.2 percent. Italy’s FTSE MIB Italy index rose 1.95%. The U.K.’s FTSE 100 rose 1.3 percent. Political change is sweeping the globe and stock investors appear to like what they see.

VATICAN - Pope Francis said Saturday that recent accusations leveled against him for allegedly mishandling the case of serial homosexual abuser Cardinal Theodore McCarrick are really an attack against the Church itself. In his final address to the synod of bishops — which he delivered off the cuff — the pope said that while the sons and daughters of the Church are all sinners, the Church herself is holy. “Because of our sins, the great accuser takes advantage and roams about seeking someone to accuse, as we read in the first chapter of Job,” Francis said, apparently referring to the devil as well as those who play into his hands. “Right now, he is accusing us forcefully, and this accusation becomes persecution as well,” he said

GERMANY - Germany has been trying to bring the navies of NATO and EU countries on the Baltic closer together since Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014, starting with regular meetings of fleet commanders the following year. It is also building a new naval command center in Rostock designed to house a permanent staff of international officers. In times of crisis, this will be able to lead NATO or EU operations in the Baltic from 2023. Defence Minister Ursula von der Leyen said last month that as the biggest NATO and EU country on the Baltic, Germany must “take more responsibility for the region” - a sign it is slowly shedding its post-World War Two reluctance to take the military lead. Other Western countries welcome the German initiative. “We are very happy that Germany has taken the lead in that sense,” Finnish navy chief Admiral Veijo Taipalus said.

GERMANY - The Eurosceptic Alternative for Germany (AfD) party has gained seats in Hesse and now holds parliamentary seats in every single German state, according to exit polls. Meanwhile, Merkel's CDU has seen party support plummet. German Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democratic Union (CDU) suffered an electoral shock, winning only 28 percent. The results were quite a disappointment for the CDU candidate and Minister-President of Hesse, Volker Bouffier, a Merkel man who has stuck with her through thick and thin.