Welcome to your daily dose of international news, distilled and packaged with all the subtlety and coherence of a Tokyo subway conductor. Banzai!!!

1.MURDOCH! The Bancroft family has accepted Rupert Murdoch’s $5bn offer to buy the publisher of the Wall Street Journal, Dow Jones. Howling Mad Murdock: Not half as crazy as his Aussie, newspaper-buying namesake.

2.PAIN-FOREST! Brazil policymakers are beginning to admit the possibility that cutting down areas of the Amazon rainforest the size of New Jersey on a yearly basis might have be having an impact on climate change. What’s caused this sudden change of heart? A drought. In the rainforest. Politicians are marvels, aren’t they?!

3.HIT THE ROAD, SHINZO! Japanese PM Shinzo Abe is not called Jack. But if you sing the “hit the road” song, changing “Jack” to “Shinzo,” it has a nice ring to it. Although you have to say “Shinzo” really quickly, because it has two syllables. ANYWAY…Abe has resisted calls from 50% of his country’s electorate to resign, following a crushing defeat for his Liberal Democratic party in Sunday’s election. “I can’t run away at this point,” he tells the New York Times. He might as well have added: “And I can’t be not coming back no more no more no more no more, either.”

4.HEDGING YOUR BETS! Are you dating a hedge fund manager for his or her money? If so, now might be the time to put the Maserati in your name, and perhaps start having an affair with someone who doesn’t play Russian Roulette for a living with other people’s billions. Just to play it safe, you understand. When it comes to taking a lover to compliment a partner in “finance,” I always recommend neurologists. They’re reliable, work too many hours to be difficult, plus you always get a good seat on the plane. All together now: “Is there a doctor in the house?”

Good day!