Tuesday newspaper round-up: Sellafield, ECB stimulus, Auto Trader...

A £9bn contract to clean up the Sellafield nuclear waste is to be torn up, the government is expected to announce, writes The Times. The early termination of the contract awarded to Nuclear Management Partners in 2008, an industrial consortium including Amec Foster Wheeler, comes as the work is taken back in-house.

Economists at RBS have said that the European Central Bank (ECB) will boost its balance sheet to €4.5tn, The Telegraph reports. The potential move, which is the most aggressive forecast issued so far and implies quantitative easing of at least €2.3tn, represents a “colossal monetary blitz to prevent deflation engulfing the Eurozone”, the paper said.

According to The Times, private-equity firm Apax has appointed Deutsche Bank and Bank of America Merrill Lynch to advise a potential float of Auto Trader, the UK’s largest website for second-hand car sales.

President Barack Obama has announced a new plan to increase US cyber security, writes the Financial Times. The announcement came as hackers claiming to be Islamist militants broke into the Pentagon’s social media accounts.

UK retailers suffered their worst December since 2008 as discounts hit takings, writes The Guardian. The value of total sales last month fell 0.4% on the previous year, according to data from the British Retail Consortium.

The boss of Fiat Chrysler Automobiles has warned that car makers need to consolidate given the huge costs needed to develop new vehicles, The Times says. “We are investing massive amounts of money on projects which, if unsuccessful, could endanger the future viability of this business,” said Sergio Marchionne.

Petrol prices in the UK have been cut again, with Tesco, Asda, Sainsbury’s and Morrisons promising to shave 2p a litre off the cost of fuel, The Guardian reports.

The yield on a five-year Japanese government bond reached zero for the first time in history, reports the Financial Times.