Off Leash update 26 October 2026 COMING UP THIS WEEK •China’s Fifth Plenum runs today through Thursday. This year’s fun theme is “full and rigorous party self-governance.” State media hinted that Xi Jinping will use the event to kick off a “tightening of discipline” within the Party as he consolidates his grip on power ahead of the next Party Congress, where he’s expected to secure a fourth term. •Israel’s hotly contested parliamentary election is tomorrow. Gadi Eisenkot is currently leading Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu in polls, but Bibi has a history of defying odds stacked against him. •Mexico City will hold its annual Day of the Dead Parade on Saturday. The festive tradition dates all the way back to…2015, when the opening scenes of Spectre – which featured James Bond chasing bad guys through a fictional parade – generated enough buzz that the government decided to do a real-life version (with fewer explosions). •Most Americans – except those in Hawaii and most of Arizona – will change their clocks to end Daylight Savings time on Sunday. COMMODITY AND COIN MARKET PRICES •Aluminum: $3,044/ton •Antimony (global avg.): $35,846/ton •Bitcoin: $80,336 •Cobalt: $34,620/ton •Copper: $14,323/ton •Ethereum: $2,327 •Gold: $4,014/toz •Lead: $1,908/ton •Natural Gas (Nymex): $2.53/MMbtu •WTI Crude Oil (Nymex): $100.83/barrel •Zinc: $3,744/ton BRAZIL •Brazil’s Superior Electoral Court proclaimed leftist incumbent president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (aka Lula) the winner of yesterday’s run-off election against populist senator Flávio Bolsonaro. •Lula did better than pollsters had expected him to – he got 51.8% of votes against Bolsonaro’s 48.2% – and better than he did in the first round – in which he won 45% to Bolsonaro’s 47%. •Bolsonaro attributed the shift in Lula’s favor to a judge’s last-minute decision to order polls to stay open for two more hours so voters stuck in snarled traffic and delayed by bad weather could register their vote. [The cash handouts and other incentives Lula has been doling out over the past three weeks likely helped woo voters to his side, too.] •Bolsonaro decried “foul play” and said the two-hour extension had “changed the rules in the middle of the game.” He’s refusing to concede and calling for the result to be annulled. VENEZUELA •Venezuela’s best-known opposition leader, Maria Corina Machado, returned to her country yesterday after nearly 11 months in exile. •Machado and her party immediately started laying the groundwork for a campaign to pressure the government into holding new elections – which she’s likely to run in – by July 2027. •The Trump administration had blocked Machado previous efforts to go back home – seemingly out of concern that her return could destabilize the interim government of the untested leader the U.S. installed in January, Delcy Rodriguez. •This time, the U.S. raised no objections to Machado’s return (nor did it assist her return in any way, U.S. officials maintain). The reversal may be a sign of a broader shift in U.S. policy on Venezuela. INDIA •Prime Minister Modi’s government moved quickly to squash student-led protests before they could get under way over the weekend, but it let the opposition Congress Party go ahead with a large demonstration. •The NYT analyzed the inconsistent approaches thus: “Modi is deliberately trying to make the ongoing demonstrations less about the youth movement that unleashed them, and more about his traditional opposition. Because that’s a fight he knows how to win.” SERBIA •Serbia’s longtime ruler, Aleksandar Vučić, was quick to concede defeat in yesterday’s general election and graciously congratulated the winning candidates. •That surprised some, because the winners represent the student-led protest movement that has been trying to topple Vučić’s government for two years. Their demonstrations likely weakened his government enough that he could see the writing on the wall from early vote counts.