Shortly after Russia disclosed on Sunday that a top Russian military commander, Lieutenant General Valery Asapov - who was serving as one of Russia’s "military advisers" in Syria - was fatally wounded by an exploding shell in a mortar attack by ISIS terrorists, on Monday the Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said that the “two-faced policy” of the United States was to blame for the death of the Russian General in Syria.
by Ron Paul
The descent of US/North Korea “crisis” to the level of schoolyard taunts should be remembered as one of the most bizarre, dangerous, and disgraceful chapters in US foreign policy history.
A week after then-category 4 Hurricane Maria made landfall in densely populated eastern Puerto Rico, electricity remains offline across most of the island, while supplies of staples like gas, food and water are dwindling. Shelters on the island are reportedly running low on food, and the government managers of the emergency response effort are scrambling to evacuate 70,000 people from a river valley that’s in danger of being completely submerged after a nearby dam failed.
Beyond the plethora of central bank speakers, market focus will concentrate on Eurozone inflation and US data releases, including durable goods, home sales, and the personal income and spending report on Friday. We also get China PMIs, Japanese CPI and industrial production, the RBNZ meeting and Brexit negotiations (4th). Additionally, there will be monetary policy meetings in Mexico, Colombia, Czech Republic, Thailand and Egypt.
European stocks rose as the euro tumbled following Germany’s election result which was dubbed a "Nightmare Victory" for Merkel and could lead to potentially complicated coalition talks and perhaps even another early election. U.S. equity-index futures point to a lower open, while Asian equities slide after a plunge in Chinese property developer names over worries of new real estate curbs as well as tech stocks following more iPhone delivery concerns. S&P500 futures are steady, down slightly by just over -0.1%, after closing little changed on Friday.