Monday Morning News Briefing

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Monday, October 23, 2017 Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, leader of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), smiles during a news conference after Japan’s lower house election, at the LDP headquarters in Tokyo, Japan October 22, 2017. Japan Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, buoyed by a huge election win for lawmakers who favor revising Japan’s post-war, pacifist constitution, signalled a push towards his long-held goal. Abe’s convincing election victory lifted the Nikkei to its highest in 21 years and world stocks to an all-time high, despite an escalation of Spain’s constitutional crisis that weighed on the country’s banks. A rapidly weakening typhoon Lan made landfall in Japan, setting off landslides and flooding that prompted evacuation orders for tens of thousands of people, but then headed out to sea after largely sparing the capital, Tokyo. Breakingviews - Abe wins mandate to give Japan a raise Spain Regional leader of Catalonia, Carles Puigdemont, will lose all powers and will stop receiving a salary once the Senate approves article 155 which imposes direct central government rule on the region, the Deputy Prime Minister said. Catalonia said it is confident all officials including police would defy attempts by Madrid to enforce direct rule on the region, in an escalating dispute that has raised fears of unrest among Spain’s European allies. Iran Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard stands to benefit from heightened tension between Washington and Tehran, officials and analysts said. U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said it’s time for Iranian-backed militias and their Iranian advisers who helped Iraq defeat Islamic State to “go home”. Business U.S. President Donald Trump said he will make his choice for who should lead the Federal Reserve soon and is still weighing at least three people: Federal Reserve Governor Jerome Powell, Stanford University economist John Taylor and current Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen. U.S. refineries from Ohio to Minnesota are capitalizing on access to cheap crude from Western Canada and North Dakota oilfields, helping their region break a historic dependence on fuel from the Gulf Coast. Cisco Systems, the world’s largest networking gear manufacturer, is nearing a deal to buy U.S. telecommunications software firmBroadSoft for close to $2 billion, a source said. GlaxoSmithKline has wins U.S. approval for a new and improved shingles vaccine, the second of three key products for which the British drugmaker expects approval this year. Chinese firms Primavera Capital Group and CITIC Private Equity plan to raise new dollar-denominated funds totaling around $5 billion in a bid to bolster their firepower for offshore investments, sources told Reuters. Kaspersky Lab, the Moscow-based company, says it will ask independent parties to conduct security reviews of its widely used anti-virus software to help dispel allegations that the Russian government uses the products to conduct espionage. Britain’s financial watchdog has fined Bank of America’s Merrill Lynch investment banking arm 34.5 million pounds ($45.5 million) for its third transaction reporting failure in just over a decade. People climb after jumping off a bridge, which has a height of 30 meters, in Hortolandia, Brazil, October 22, 2017. According to organizers, 245 people were attempting set a new world record for "rope jumping", in which people, tied to a safety cord, jump off a bridge. REUTERS/Paulo Whitaker World U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley arrived in Ethiopia, among the first visits to Africa by a senior member of Trump’s administration that diplomats hope will shed light on his plans to engage with the continent. UK Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson said a military option must remain on the table in dealing with North Korea’s nuclear program, adding that nobody wants tensions in the Korean peninsula to be resolved in such a way. Southeast Asian defense ministers expressed “grave concern” over North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs and urge the reclusive country to meet its international obligations and resume communications. Indonesia said it has made “urgent” requests for an explanation why the United States barred its military chief from traveling to the U.S., as anger simmers in the world’s largest Muslim-majority country over the diplomatic incident.  A right-wing extremist member of a group that still believes in Adolf Hitler’s World War Two-era German “Reich” was convicted of murdering a police officer last year and sentenced to life in prison, German media reports. Tanzania’s President John Magufuli said he has appointed Florens Luoga, a taxation expert, as the country’s new central bank governor. Residents of Liberia’s most notorious slum have one common desire: an end to their daily struggle with dire poverty. RTV: Chinese dissidents said they're being forced to take "vacations" under government supervision during the week of the Communist Party congress.     Commentary: Middle Europe turns its back on the EU Sunday’s election in Austria and this weekend’s expected results in Czech elections show that central Europe is becoming increasingly hostile to European integration and foreign immigration, writes columnist John Lloyd.