Specifically, HSBC (old name: HongKong and Shanghai Banking Corp) is a critical bank to watch.

Germany has a serious problem with an increasing relative non-west German mentality in its workforce. Both East Germans who had been beginning to be absorbed and now a large immigrant influx into the workforce are destined to decrease German productivity.
It was a serious political mistake to believe that an aging German workforce could be boosted by large numbers of poorly educated unmotivated people. At least East Germans spoke the same language and were much easier to absorb, the newer immigrants much less so.
A modern society, with increasing automation, does not need sheer numbers of people; it needs educated people.

https://wolfstreet.com/2020/01/02/us-dollar-as-global-reserve-currency-chinese-renminbi/

Almost unnoticed Britain is heading towards Brexit on January 31. Unbelievably the EU is still trying to pen the UK in until 2023. The EU fails to understand that the recent UK election was a second (de facto) referendum on leaving the EU, and if the EU continues to delay with a trade agreement, it is the EU (especially Germany) that will suffer more than the UK.
I am told from someone in London who should know, that backdoor informal negotiations have already started with Canada and Australia over trade agreements.
Australia, Canada and New Zealand were the biggest traders inside the Commonwealth, and it appears that Boris Johnson is anxious to re-vitalize this common language association.
Poland and Spain have both said they want to trade with Britain under WTO rules regardless of EU potential sanctions on them. i.e. if the EU does not wake up, it could rapidly disintegrate.

Scottie Resources drills 4.28 m of 73.32 g/t Au at Bow

2020-01-03 09:07 ET – News Release

Mr. Bradley Rourke reports

SCOTTIE RESOURCES INTERSECTS 73.32 G/T GOLD AND 71.01 G/T SILVER OVER 4.38 METRES ON BEND VEIN, BOW PROPERTY

Scottie Resources Corp.’s recent drilling continues to confirm and expand the Bend vein target on the Bow property. During September, the company completed 877.7 metres of diamond drilling on the Bend vein within the Bow Property, which is located just 2 km NE of the 100% owned, past-producing Scottie Gold Mine located in British Columbia, Canada’s Golden Triangle region.

Results from drill hole SR19-11 include 73.32 g/t gold and 71.01 g/t silver over 4.38 m core length, which includes 152.5 g/t gold and 143.56 g/t silver over 1.89 m. These results exemplify the high-grade gold and silver potential of the Bow property.

Potential for an arm-lock on EU policies is being created by Russia:
Despite the newly announced U.S. sanctions against the Nord Stream 2 project, Russia says it will build and launch next year the natural gas pipeline that has divided Europe for half a decade.

With Nord Stream 2, Russia’s President Vladimir Putin will have several major natural gas projects completed in the past few years, Bloomberg Opinion’s Europe columnist Leonid Bershidsky writes.

These projects will complete Putin’s plan to have Moscow not only continue holding a large share of gas supplies to Europe, but branch out Russian gas exports to the fastest growing gas import market, China, and seize a growing share of the global liquefied natural gas (LNG) market.

Nord Stream 2 is the latest project in Putin’s plan for energy and geopolitical dominance in the world. Russia already holds a third of Europe’s gas imports. Nord Stream 2, when completed—because Russia believes it will be completed next year despite the sanctions—is set to further solidify Moscow’s reach into the north European market bypassing Ukraine.
As North gas supply dwindles slowly despite attempts at exploration in deeper water, other than new discoveries in Arctic waters, little exploitable new gas has been found in the North Sea area; and new discoveries south of the North Sea have been closed off due to anti-fracking legislation.