USA - Ford Motor Co's cancellation of plans to build a $1.6 billion auto manufacturing plant in San Luis Potosi has sounded alarms across Mexico. Even as the country is being rocked by rowdy nationwide protests against a January 1 gasoline price hike, the Ford news led the front pages of Mexico's most influential newspapers Wednesday, and they tied the development directly to President-elect Donald Trump. "Trump leaves Mexico without 3,600 jobs," read the headline on El Universal. "Ford's braking jolts the peso," said Reforma, referring to the Mexican currency's nearly 1 percent slump following the news.

Two weeks before inauguration, the scuttling of the planned Ford factory and Trump's pressure on General Motors should be a "much-needed wake-up call," said Mexico analyst Alejandro Hope. "This should put us on notice that when he says that he wants to renegotiate NAFTA, he means it," Hope said.

GERMANY - German Chancellor Angela Merkel will be steering clear of the World Economic Forum at Davos later this month. The summit coincides with Donald Trump's presidential inauguration, which is expected to dominate discussion. For the second year running, German Chancellor Angela Merkel won't be among the political figureheads and global business CEOs attending this year's World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos.

EUROPE - Europe is failing as a team player and is on the brink of war as rising nationalism sweeps the continent, a former chancellor advisor has warned. Horst Teltschik said the bureaucratic European Union (EU) is struggling in the face of a catastrophic euro crisis that continues to “gain tract” and a sensational Brexit vote, which prompted an “erosion” of its powers. 

GERMANY - The first reprint of Adolf Hitler's "Mein Kampf" in Germany since World War II has proved a surprise bestseller, heading for its sixth print run, its publisher said Tuesday. The Institute of Contemporary History of Munich (IfZ) said around 85,000 copies of the new annotated version of the Nazi leader's anti-Semitic manifesto had flown off the shelves since its release last January.

UK - Property prices have climbed to dangerous levels in several advanced economies, raising the risk of massive price falls if markets overheat, according to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). Catherine Mann, the OECD’s chief economist, said the think-tank was monitoring “vulnerabilities in asset markets” closely amid predictions of higher inflation and the prospect of diverging monetary policies next year. Ms Mann said a “number of countries”, including Canada and Sweden, had “very high” commercial and residential property prices that were “not consistent with a stable real estate market”. The EU’s financial risk watchdog recently warned that eight countries, including the UK, had property markets that risked overheating in the environment of low interest rates.

CHINA - “This is reality – all of China’s grains, vegetables and fruits are irrigated with untreated industrial wastewater. The Yellow River, which is considered unusable, supports major food producing areas in the northeast provinces.” Many Chinese farmers won’t even eat the food they produce, if you can believe that. That’s because it’s clear that China’s water pollution issues are so pronounced that it threatens the country’s entire food supply.

FIGI - A massive 7.2 earthquake struck off the coast of Nadi, Fiji, at 11:53am on Wednesday, local time. A tsunami threat was subsequently issued for all coasts within 300km of the earthquake's epicenter. "Government agencies responsible for threatened coastal areas should take action to inform and instruct any coastal populations at risk in accordance with their own evaluation," a warning from the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center read. "Persons located in threatened coastal areas should stay alert for information and follow instructions from national and local authorities."

USA - President-elect Donald Trump plans to repeal a raft of President Barack Obama's executive actions in his first day in office, Trump's incoming White House press secretary said Sunday.

EUROPE- Europe could suffer another catastrophic banking catastrophe on a par with the 2008 financial crisis, a top analyst has warned. European banks are still maintaining a large level of bad loans which has continued to hinder the banking system and could spark a new financial meltdown, according to Howard Goldring, managing director of Delmore Asset Management. The financial world is currently closely examining the banks in Italy, in particular the oldest lender in the world, Monte dei Paschi di Siena (MPS), which was recently forced to opt for state intervention, as it tries to recapitalise and its strategy could be used as a template for other struggling Italian banks. However, Mr Goldring also points to the fact that other European banks are in a similar position regarding bad debt, which could trigger another financial meltdown.

MIDDLE EAST - The Times of Israel reports: Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas on Saturday told Fatah party officials that 2017 would be “the year of the independent Palestinian state.” At a torch-lighting ceremony marking the 52nd anniversary of Fatah’s founding, Abbas hailed the recent UN anti-settlement resolution as a diplomatic victory. “The settlements are illegal, and in recent days, we were given an unprecedented decision regarding this issue,” he told members of his party at the ceremony, held at the grave of former PLO leader Yasser Arafat in Ramallah, Channel 10 news reported.

USA - China now has more miles of high speed rail track than the rest of the world combined. And even at 200mph, the trains run so smooth, that you can balance a coin on its edge. Meanwhile, we spent trillions of dollars on endless overseas wars, while our own infrastructure went into decline.

USA - George Soros has warned voters have turned away from mainstream political parties as “many people felt that the elites have stolen their democracy”, in an alarming forecast for the European Union in 2017. The 86-year-old Hungarian-American said Brussels is “on the verge of breakdown” and could even fall under the influence of Vladimir Putin. Writing in a blog, the highly influential businessman warned: “Open societies are in crisis, and various forms of closed societies – from fascist dictatorships to mafia states – are on the rise. How could this happen? The only explanation I can find is that elected leaders failed to meet voters’ legitimate expectations and aspirations and that this failure led electorates to become disenchanted with the prevailing versions of democracy and capitalism. Quite simply, many people felt that the elites had stolen their democracy.”

ITALY - A shock report from Nature Communications has revealed that the Campi Flegrei volcano in Naples is reaching levels designated by 'critical degassing pressure' meaning vast volumes of gas are building below the surface. The report, released last month, suggests the movement of gases is at such speed that serious consequences including rock failure and even the explosion of the volcano may be on the cards. "We propose that magma could be approaching the CDP at Campi Flegrei, a volcano in the metropolitan area of Naples, one of the most densely inhabited areas in the world, and where accelerating deformation and heating are currently being observed," the eight scientists said in the report. Since the 1950s there have been signs that the volcano is reawakening but in 2005 there was an extreme uplift in activity which has accelerated in recent months.

UK - THE BBC was today branded the "EU Broadcasting Corporation" after it emerged it has pocketed millions of pounds of undeclared European Union cash over the last three years. Questions are raging over how the BBC can maintain the impartiality of its Brexit coverage at the same time as pocketing jaw-dropping sums of cash from Eurocrats in Brussels. The Beeb has raked in more than £300,000 worth of EU grants since the referendum alone, with the money being paid out for "research projects" carried out by BBC staff. Critics today blasted the astonishing payments and accused the public broadcaster of being "greedy" for EU cash despite receiving billions a year from UK taxpayers. The BBC insisted the cash has "no influence" on the editorial content of its news programmes. The row blew up after it emerged that Brussels has agreed to hand £352,750 to the taxpayer-funded broadcaster for its role in a research project.

GERMANY - ANGELA Merkel was branded “mad” and “off her rocker” today after giving a bizarre New Year’s Eve speech telling Germans to fight the bombs and guns of Islamic State with love and compassion. The embattled Chancellor, who is surrounded by armed guards around the clock and travels everywhere in a bullet-proof car, said terrified citizens should meet the ISIS terror threat with “openness”.  Her remarks come less than two weeks after a failed asylum seeker drove an articulated truck into families at a Christmas market in Berlin, killing 12 and seriously injuring dozens more. The shocking tragedy, which followed a spate of jihadi terror attacks earlier this year, has heaped yet more pressure on Mrs Merkel’s hated open door migration policy. But in her annual New Year’s Eve address the under-fire leader was unrepentant, insisting that ordinary Germans should continue to attend public events despite the risk to their own lives.