The 10 most important things in the world right now

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A woman pulls a cart carrying a child on a snow-covered street as heavy snowfall hit Urumqi, Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region, China, December 11, 2015. Picture taken December 11, 2015.

Good morning! Here's what you need to know on Monday.

1. France's far-right National Front, led by Marine Le Pen, failed to win any region in local elections on Sunday - despite topping last week's first round.

2. British Prime Minister David Cameron is prepared to drop a demand to curb welfare benefits for migrant workers as he attempts to renegotiate the terms of Britain's membership of the European Union.

3. CNN has announced the lineup for the fifth Republican debate, with some notable shakeups.

4. Asian stocks slipped on Monday after Wall Street sank amid plunging crude oil prices, keeping investors on edge ahead of an expected US rate rise by the Federal Reserve later in the week.

5. Alibaba Group Holding Ltd has agreed to pay HK$2.06 billion ($265.8 million) to acquire Hong Kong's flagship English-language newspaper the South China Morning Post (SCMP).

6. Over the weekend the global climate summit in Paris agreed a landmark accord, setting the course for an "historic" transformation of the world's fossil fuel-driven economy within decades in a bid to arrest global warming.

7. Ecuador and Sweden have signed a pact that would allow WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange to be questioned at Ecuador's embassy in London where he has been for more than three years, the Quito government said.

8. President Jacob Zuma appointed Pravin Gordhan as finance minister on Sunday, in a dramatic U-turn that gave South Africa its third finance chief in a week after a selling frenzy in the markets.

9. Russia is hoping to launch a futures market for its oil benchmark, the Urals blend. The motivation stems from the fact that Russia is forced to sell its oil at a discount to the widely traded Brent benchmark based in the North Sea.

10. Chinese economic growth is likely to slow from around 7% this year to 6.2% in 2016, dragged lower by a slowdown in the nation's vast property construction sector and excess capacity in the industrial and mining sectors, a UBS study has reported.

And finally ... The days of the jumbo jet may be coming to an end, with Boeing selling just 45 jumbos in the past eight years.