| The U.S. and Iraq continue to volley warnings and threats at each other, the world's fugitive of the hour Carlos Ghosn is expected to let rip as he fronts the media in Lebanon, and investors encouraged by the trade talks are snapping up Chinese assets. Here are some of the things people in the markets are talking about today. Iran said it is evaluating 13 possible ways to inflict a "historic nightmare" on the U.S. for killing a powerful Iranian general, whose burial was postponed after dozens of mourners died in a stampede. Iranian officials have previously said that U.S. forces in the region will be targets, and the Iranian parliament on Tuesday designated the Pentagon and affiliated companies as terrorists. The U.S. issued a warning to shipping in the Middle East over the possibility of Iranian action against U.S. maritime interests, the Associated Press reported, citing a statement. In Brussels, the foreign ministers of France, Germany and the U.K. are holding an emergency meeting to discuss their options to try and defuse tensions. After more than a year away from the cameras and microphones, Carlos Ghosn is set to face the media again, this time not as a legendary auto executive, but as the world's most famous fugitive. While reams have been written about the former chief executive officer of Nissan Motor Co. and Renault SA since his arrest in Tokyo in November 2018, he hasn't spoken publicly beyond a handful of interviews, a hastily recorded video message and court testimony. Come Wednesday, that will change, with Ghosn set to hold a tell-all news conference in Beirut, the city he fled to after his shock escape by private plane from Japan just over a week ago. The former CEO has already hinted he'll identify those he considers responsible for his downfall, including government officials. Investors are snapping up Chinese financial assets, putting aside concerns over tension in the Middle East and instead focusing on progress in trade talks with the U.S., as well as signs that the world's second-largest economy may be stabilizing. Improving confidence helped stoke a 0.5% rally in the yuan Tuesday, pushing it to its strongest level since early August. The currency punched past the key 6.95-per-dollar level, and traded on the strong side of its 200-day moving average for the first time since May. The CSI 300 Index of stocks closed at an almost two-year high as volume jumped. The return of risk appetite in China comes amid growing optimism that Beijing and Washington may sign an initial deal on trade as soon as next week. Asian equity futures were mixed after U.S. stocks fell amid the Iran tensions. The dollar rose across the board, with the Australian dollar losing more than 1% as investors assess the impact on the economy from the ravaging bushfires. Oil continued its retreat from multi-month highs. Gold advanced. Smoke from deadly bush fires that have devastated Australia has now spread halfway across the world, darkening skies in Argentina and beyond. A U.S. weather satellite captured the smoke crossing South America and spreading out over Buenos Aires before it drifted into the Atlantic Ocean -- some 7,328 miles (11,793 kilometers) east of Sydney, Australia -- according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. What We've Been Reading This is what's caught our eye over the past 24 hours. And finally, here's what Tracy's interested in this morning A new working paper uses China's Stock Connect to show the pluses and minuses of companies plugging themselves into global capital markets for the first time. As a reminder, Connect created a link between the Hong Kong, Shanghai and Shenzhen stock exchanges that allowed foreigners to invest in Chinese firms (while still allowing China to generally maintain its broader capital controls). The downside to doing this, according to the paper, is that those listed companies become far more vulnerable to moves in U.S. monetary policy.  That's something worth considering in the context of China's own monetary policy independence and the world's general vulnerability to moves in U.S. interest rates and the dollar. The upside, however, is that companies listed on Connect generally have lower funding costs and higher returns on equity than the companies that aren't listed. In other words, the downsides of being more linked to U.S. funding costs might be offset by a sort of natural hedge of a bigger available pool of capital. You can follow Bloomberg's Tracy Alloway at @tracyalloway. The best in-depth reporting from Asia Pacific and beyond, delivered to your inbox every Friday. Sign up here for The Reading List, a new weekly email coming soon. | 
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