Italy’s Monte dei Paschi faces state bailout, France’s reshuffle and Russia’s forgotten anniversary

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No Roman Holiday for Italy. Political upheaval in the wake of Prime Minister Matteo Renzi‘s referendum defeat now threatens the €5bn recapitalisation plan for indebted lender Monte dei Paschi di Siena. Bankers are running out of private-sector solutions and have told the Italian lender to prepare for a state bailout.

After resigning on Monday, Mr Renzi was asked to stay on a few more days until parliament passes the country’s budget law. He is now under pressure from factions of his own centre-left Democratic party to resign from his post of party secretary. It is a far cry from the initial optimism surrounding his premiership, and there are fears that Italy could endanger the euro and risk a financial crisis. (FT, Vogue, WSJ)

In the news

French reshuffle Bernard Cazeneuve has been appointed prime minister of France following the resignation of Manuel Valls to compete for the Socialist party’s presidential nomination. A former interior minister, Mr Cazeneuve had a large role in confronting the wave of terror attacks in France. (Politico)

Abe’s Pearl Harbor boost Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe is expecting a boost in approval ratings after his historic trip to Pearl Harbor with Barack Obama later this month. If all goes according to plan, he is likely to call a snap election in January. (NAR)

Tech on terror Facebook, Google, Microsoft and Twitter are joining forces in an attempt to curb online terror and extremist content. The move follows criticism from Brussels that big US social media groups have not done enough to clamp down on hate speech. (FT)

Hair for sale In order to buy scarce basic necessities such as food and medicine, women from Venezuela have been crossing the border to Colombia in droves to sell their hair. Those whose locks are lustrous enough can make the equivalent of the monthly minimum wage. (Guardian)

Globalisation’s champion? The World Economic Forum is preparing to welcome Chinese President Xi Jinping to its annual meeting at Davos, a first for a Chinese leader. It is a sign of Beijing’s global ambitions in the wake of Donald Trump’s unexpected US election victory and the UK’s shock decision to withdraw from the EU. (FT)

It’s a big day for

South Korea’s corporate chiefs The heads of the country’s eight largest companies are appearing at a parliamentary inquiry in Seoul to answer questions about their relationship with the country’s leader, Park Geun-hye, who is under investigation for corruption. (FT)

The renminbi The Chinese currency became a talking point after a handful of web sites, including Google, generated erroneous quotes for the currency around Rmb7.48 per US dollar — a rate that would represent a one-off devaluation of more than 8 per cent. (FT)

Keep up with the important business, economic and political stories in the coming days with the FT’s WeekAhead.

Food for thought

Russia’s forgotten anniversary Fifty-one years ago protesters flooded into Moscow’s Pushkin Square to demonstrate against the trial of two well-known writers for statements made by their fictional characters. The demonstration marked the birth of legal and rights-based dissidence in Soviet Russia but today very few Russians have even heard of the protest. (Foreign Policy).

Where Trump gets his news He admits to getting military advice from “the shows”, is an obsessive consumer of cable news, and has skipped the majority of his intelligence briefings since being elected. BuzzFeed News analysed all the links Donald Trump tweeted — reviewing more than 26,000 in total — since he launched his presidential campaign to determine the president-elect’s media diet. Then it put the data into this straightforward infographic. (BuzzFeed)

Age of the ETF Exchange traded funds are taking over markets. There are huge advantages to investors who use them but ETFs have the ingredients to create a snowball effect when markets go south. Read the first part in a series on ETFs. (FT)

‘Just walk out’ Online retailer Amazon is looking to eliminate the checkout in real-world supermarkets with the opening of its first physical grocery store early next year. The Seattle-based company said stores would use the same technology as driverless cars to determine which products were placed in a bag. (FT)

The trouble with texting Predictive text is forcing us to confront some uncomfortable truths about our personalities. (Quartz)

Video of the day

What’s next for Italy? The country is in crisis. Here is what happens now. (FT)