David Chaston details the key news overnight in 90 seconds at 9 am in association with Bank of New Zealand, including news that Col. Gaddafi is finally dead, killed by fighters in his home town of Sirte.
Rebuilding Libya from the ground up will be a huge challenge, and it seems doubtful many countries will put their hand up to help. Oil prices fell in overnight trading.
There is a growing fatigue in the West for new international assistance these days despite the urgency of the need.
In fact, first-world Europe is having real trouble getting itself sorted. The much-anticipated EU summit this weekend is in disarray.
The big decisions are unlikely to emerge from it. In fact, there are reports the Europeans are preparing a second summit on October 26 or possibly earlier.
Basically, the German plan doesn't have French support, and the French plan doesn't have German support.
However, while the political mess plays out, bond auctions in both France and Spain went off solidly.
And across the Atlantic, the string of good news continued with the latest Philly Fed survey of business activity coming in much better than expected.
The news is not so positive in China, with evidence of quickly slowing growth mounting. Iron ore imports are down sharply. That will affect Australia, and soon afterward us. Our exchange rate with Australia is weakening in response and that will help stabilise our export advantage into our trans-Tasman neighbour.
The Chinese are taking some big decisions, however. China will now allow local governments to issue bonds directly to help them begin repaying more than $1 trillion worth of loans, which could help ease fears such bank debt could hobble the world's No. 2 economy.
Because most of that bank debt is held by state-owned banks, this will be a massive transfer of liabilities from the Cinese government to local and international bond investors.
The world is about to see a huge new spurt in bond markets, and that could raise global interest rates.
(Updated with oil price falls)
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