Europe

The Irish government was on the verge of collapse as it faced a vote of no confidence in the deputy prime minister by a party whose votes are critical for Prime Minister Leo Varadkar to pass laws (the government is a minority administration).  As Reuters reported late on Thursday, the opposition Fianna Fail party threatened it would put a motion of no confidence in Deputy Prime Minister Frances Fitzgerald on Tuesday - a move sparked by Fitzgerald’s handling of a legal case involving a police whistleblower - and which would breach the "confidence and supply" agreement that allowed Taoiseach

Authored by Pepe Escobar via The Asia Times,

A pacified Syria is key to the economic integration of Eurasia through energy and transportation connections...

Vladimir Putin, Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Hassan Rouhani will hold a summit this Wednesday in Sochi to discuss Syria. Russia, Turkey and Iran are the three power players at the Astana negotiations – where multiple cease-fires, as hard to implement as they are, at least evolve, slowly but surely, towards the ultimate target – a political settlement.

Angela’s Merkel’s ability to restore her power in Germany should be decided in the next few days, as talks take place with Martin Schultz’s SPD.

In the meantime, Merkel’s ratings have unexpectedly “tanked” in the latest German polls. More than half of Germans believe she should not run for office in a poll conducted for t-online.com, as the Daily Express reports.

Anti-slavery protests continued across various world capitals this week, especially in countries across Africa, after earlier protests in France got violent when police used tear gas and other riot control tactics on a crowed of more than one thousand outside of the Libyan embassy in Paris. The protests are in response to last week's widespread reports of slave markets operating in various cities across Libya, and look to continue as according to Reuters a major rally is set to take place in London later this week. 

While the charade of sellside analysts releasing optimistic, and in the case of Barclays and Goldman "rationally exuberant"previews of the year ahead...