REUTERS/Max Rossi
Pope Francis opens the Holy Door to mark opening of the Catholic Holy Year, or Jubilee, in St. Peter's basilica, at the Vatican, December 8, 2015.
Dow Chemical and DuPont are in advanced merger talks, the Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday, citing people familiar with the matter. The $120 billion (£79.8 billion) merger would be followed by a three-way breakup of the combined company, the sources told the Journal.
Shares in Asia are down after a global commodity rout. Japan's Nikkei is down 0.98% at time of writing (6.25 a.m. GMT/1.25 a.m. ET), Hong Kong's Hang Seng is down 0.53%, and the Shanghai Composite is down 0.13%. The FTSE350 mining index touched a 10-year low yesterday.
China's consumer inflation rate edged up in November, while factory gate price falls lingered at a 6-year low as the world's second-largest economy grapples with slowing growth. The consumer price index (CPI) - a main gauge of inflation - rose by 1.5% last month from a year ago, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said in a statement.
Alexei Kudrin, Russia's finance minister from 2000 to 2011, says that within the next few years, Russia's "reserve funds will be exhausted and they will have to raise taxes." Kudrin was speaking in London on Tuesday at a Moscow Exchange conference.
The news on Morgan Stanley's job cuts continues to roll in. The US bank is cutting 1,200 staff, including about 470 front-office staff in its fixed income and commodities business, according to a person familiar with the matter.
Walt Disney is doubling its stake in youth-focused digital media company Vice Media to $400 million (£266 million), a source familiar with the matter said. The deal will boost Disney's stake in Vice to about 10% and values the company at more than $4 billion (£2.66 billion), the source said.
Alistair Darling, the former Chancellor of the Exchequer, has been appointed to the board of US bank Morgan Stanley. The Telegraph reports that Darling, who served in the Labour government from 1997 to 2010 and was head of the Treasury during the financial crisis, will start his new role on January 1.
Yahoo has abandoned plans to spin-off its stake in Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba over tax concerns. The company will reportedly instead weigh whether to spin out or sell its core internet business.
Bank of America Merrill Lynch has released a series of videos predicting the big trends of 2016. Three of its big themes are "Global demographics", "Technology", and the "Fallout from the financial crisis."
Eight US states plus five countries across the globe want to ban new gasoline-powered vehicles by 2050, Car and Driver reports. That means, in 35 years, California, Rhode Island, New York, Connecticut, Maryland, and Massachusetts - plus Oregon and Vermont - will prohibit automakers from selling new gas or diesel-powered vehicles in their states.