USA - What is the actual collateral backing this gargantuan market which is about 10 times greater than the world's combined GDP, because as the "derivative" name implies, all this exposure is backed on some dedicated, real assets, somewhere? Luckily, the IMF recently released a discussion note titled "Shadow Banking: Economics and Policy" where quietly hidden in one of the appendices it answers precisely this critical question. The bottom line: $600 trillion in gross notional derivatives backed by a tiny $600 billion in real assets: a whopping 0.1% margin requirement! Surely nothing can possibly go wrong with this amount of unprecedented 1000x systemic leverage?

GERMANY - German pensioners are being sent to care homes in Eastern Europe and Asia in what has been described as an ‘inhumane deportation’. Rising numbers of the elderly and sick are moved overseas for long-term care because of sky-high costs at home. Some private healthcare providers are even building homes overseas, while state insurers are also investigating whether they can care for their clients abroad. Experts describe a ‘time bomb’ of increasing numbers unable to afford the growing costs of retirement homes. ‘We simply cannot let those people, who built Germany up to be what it is, be deported,’ [political party] VdK’s president Ulrike Mascher told The Guardian. ‘It is inhumane.’

UK - Girls are still being brought up to believe that raising children is more important than their own ambitions, the president of the Girls' Schools Association has said. They should be told that they have freedom to make different choices if they want to, says Hilary French.

JAPAN - Within a day of Shinzo Abe's Liberal Democratic Party sweeping to power in elections this month, elite bureaucrats in Japan's central bank rushed to ready what amounted to a surrender offer. Abe had won a mandate for more forceful monetary easing, and Japanese taxpayers were frustrated with an economy slipping back into its third recession in five years. BOJ's policy-setting board are ready to take risks and test unorthodox and unproven measures that BOJ Governor Shirakawa had long resisted, such as an unlimited debt-fuelled monetary expansion, officials familiar with their thinking say.

USA - If you relied on Uncle Sam to have a happy holiday season, you’re not alone: in much of America, more people are receiving government assistance than actual paychecks. In 11 of the 50 states in the US, residents dependent on the government outnumber private sector workers.

USA - President Barack Obama and lawmakers are launching a last-chance round of budget talks days before a New Year's deadline to reach a deal or watch the economy go off a "fiscal cliff." [Mr] Obama and Vice President Joe Biden will meet congressional leaders from both parties at the White House on Friday at 3 pm EST (2000 GMT) to try to revive negotiations to avoid tax hikes and spending cuts - together worth $600 billion - that will begin to take effect on January 1. "This January 1 deadline is a little artificial. We can do everything retroactively. We have to get it right, not get it quickly," said Republican Representative Andy Harris.

USA - CNN host Piers Morgan has said he believes the Bible and the US Constitution are 'inherently flawed' and that the Bible needs an amendment changing its stance on same-sex marriage. The bold statements come days after the British journalist divided America with his strict stance on gun laws following the Sandy Hook massacre, even sparking e-petitions to deport him.

USA - Washington has issued a blistering attack on China for persistent breaches of world trade rules and abuse of industrial secrets, accusing Beijing of failing to abide by treaty obligations.

IRAN/STRAIT of HORMUZ - Iran will begin six days of naval drills in the Strait of Hormuz at the end of this week, an Iranian naval commander said on Tuesday, an exercise meant to showcase its military capabilities in what is a vital oil and gas shipping route. The "Velayat 91" drills will be held from Friday to Wednesday across an area of about 1 million square kilometres in the Strait of Hormuz, the Gulf of Oman and northern parts of the Indian Ocean, said Habibollah Sayyari, according to Iranian media. Iranian officials have often said that Iran could block the strait - through which 40 percent of the world's sea-borne oil exports pass - if it came under military attack over its disputed nuclear programme.

UK - Maria Miller, the Culture Secretary, has signalled that the Government might be prepared to use the Parliament Act to get its planned “equal marriage” legislation on to the statute book if it is rejected in the Lords. The Act, which has been used only seven times in the past century, is sometimes described as the “nuclear” option of parliamentary process to break stalemates between the Commons and the Lords. It asserts the superiority of the House of Commons by allowing Bills that cannot clear the Lords to become law, but is intended to be used only in exceptional circumstances.

USA - Three and a half years after the worst recession since the Great Depression, the earnings and employment gap between those in the under-35 population and their parents (generation X) and grandparents threatens to unravel the American dream of each generation doing better than the last. Only one-fifth of those who graduated college since 2006 expect greater success than their parents, a Rutgers survey found earlier this year. Little more than half were working full time. Just one in five said their job put them on a career path.

UK - At the moment it is a faint object, visible only in sophisticated telescopes as a point of light moving slowly against the background stars. It doesn't seem much – a frozen chunk of rock and ice – one of many moving in the depths of space. But this one is being tracked with eager anticipation by astronomers from around the world, and in a year everyone could know its name.

NICARAGUA - Nicaraguan authorities have ordered the evacuation of several hundred people living near San Cristobal volcano. Officials also declared an amber alert for five sq km ( two sq miles) around the volcano, which began spewing ash and gas on Tuesday. However, some 1,500 farmers are refusing to leave the area, the French news agency AFP reports. San Cristobal, Nicaragua's highest volcano, is located about 135 km north-west of Managua. It is considered the country's most active. It last erupted in September, killing some farm animals.

USA - Nicole Hawkins’ three daughters have matching glittery boots, but none has the same father. Each has uniquely colored ties in her hair, but none has a dad present in her life. As another single mother on Sumner Road decked her row-house stoop with Christmas lights and a plastic Santa, Ms Hawkins recalled that her middle child’s father has never spent a holiday or birthday with her.

SYRIA - On December 5, the first American, Dutch and German Patriot missiles landed in Turkey. Within hours, three Russian warships had put into Syria’s Tartus port – the Novocherkasskand Saratov landing craft and the MB-304 supply vessel. Aboard were 300 marines.