WORLD

At least 22 fishermen are feared to be killed after a South Korean trawler sank suddenly in the waters off Antarctica on Monday. Reports suggest that the incident took place after the ship, No. 1 InSung, collided with an iceberg. The ship sank even before it could send a SOS message, approximately 30 minutes into the accident, and officials state that the men onboard had no chance of getting into their protective gear.

The Sri Lankan government has decided to get rid of the Tamil version of its national anthem, local media reports say. The country anthem will only be sung in the majority Sinhala language at all Government events, while the Tamil version will not be played. In a move that could anger the Tamilians worldwide, President Mahinda Rajapaksa's cabinet has reportedly approved the decree last week. Tamil leaders have threatened to boycott the anthem all together.

The outage suffered by Amazon.com's European websites was due to a hardware failure but not due to hacking attacks, according to the company. The websites Amazon.co.uk, amazon.de, amazon.fr and amazon.es were down for almost half an hour late on Sunday night. Hackers have not made any claims of the attack so far.

The new federal estate taxes proposed for the State of California will result in a much higher budget deficit in the state, according to a report by Moody's Investor Services.

Economists are more positive about economic growth in 2011 in the United States, according to a survey by the Wall Street Journal.

USD/CHF is currently testing the 50-day SMA at 0.9784 and targeting the 1.0064-81 region (R1) immediately on the upside. If the uptrend continues, 1.0331-1.0434 region (R2) will form next key resistance level for the pair.

There are many things weakening the single currency. Concerns over a lack of consensus on euro-area bonds, dollar-positive data from the US, fears about China being forced to cool down its economy and now, an ascending channel clearly shaping up on the 60-minute EUR/USD chart.

Caretaker Prime Minister Hashim Thaci's Democratic Party of Kosovo (PDK) is leading in Kosovo's Sunday polls, reports suggest. The results are expected to be declared in the late hours of Sunday. The country is holding its first election since unilaterally declaring independence in 2007 from Serbia.

The Alaska Senate race is finally over, perhaps.

The Obama administration is seeking to give its allies and U.S. exporters a boost, proposing new rules that will ease trade in items that could prove to be security risks if they fell into the wrong hands.

The recent debate about the ethics of releasing the American cables by Wikileaks has spawned a new debate by freedom of speech on the internet. The internet has been a god-send for dissidents and freedom fighters to get across their message, without resorting to underground presses and more.

The Swedish police announced that the bomb blasts in the capital, Stockholm, were acts of 'terrorism'. At a press conference on Sunday morning, the Swedish Security Police (Säpo) said it had taken over the investigations of case which appeared to be a suicide bomber attack.

The electric vehicle battery powered cars will start being competitive with gas-powered ones in about five years, the U.S. energy secretary Steven Chu, said at the annual U.N. climate talks.

China's inflation for November surged to a 28-month high, rising 5.1 percent year-on-year. Moreover, the inflation was driven by China's problem areas.

US fraudster Bernard Madoff's son has been found dead at his Manhattan apartment in New York, according to US media reports. Police suspect that forty six-year-old Mark Madoff, could have committed suicide.

Iraq's top Kurdish leader Massud Barzani, on Saturday, has called for the 'right to self-determination' of the northern Iraqi region. The move could reinforce the demand for total independence to Kurdistan, which has already been accorded autonomy.

The Vatican refused to help investigators looking into the child sex abuse by Catholic priests in Ireland, US diplomats told Washington. Leaked diplomatic cables maintained that Vatican refused its officials to testify before the commission.

Delegates at the UN climate change conference in Cancun have agreed on a deal to curb climate change and fund developing countries on Saturday. Bolivia however, raised objections to the proposals drawn up the host Mexico. The draft comes as respite as the last summit in Copenhagen failed to agree on the best way to cut emissions.

Reeling under the effects of global recession, while about 2 million jobless Americans still unaware of their future job opportunities will see an end to their unemployment benefits this month, Indian job market has shown signs of recovery during September, October and November 2010 with a surge in hiring by 12 percent over the same period in 2009.

Precious metals fell across the board in the week to December 10 as a cooling China weighed on demand hopes but the yellow metal remained better alternative in the group amid lingering worries over the euro-zone debt and dollar's ability to play safe-haven.

Corruption has been on the rise over the last three years, according to the 2010 Global Corruption Barometer.

Dictatorships are faster and more efficient than democracies, which can be bogged down by long-drawn out debates among deeply polarized political parties who can't seem to agree on anything.

An Irish delegation led by former prime minister John Bruton has travelled to the Middle East, gauging the interest of Arab investors, including sovereign wealth funds, in buying some troubled Irish banks, as the Dublin government seeks foreign investors for financial investment.

Declaring, “This game is not yet over!” Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D-NY, was joined by her Congressional colleague, Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-NY, a few dozen first responders and about 50 supporters today in Lower Manhattan to demand that Congress pass the health and compensation act for the people who got sick working at Ground Zero in the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

The federal budget deficit widened to $150.4-billion in November, the highest such figure ever recorded for the month, and up about 20 percent from the $120.3-billion deficit in November 2009, according to the U.S. Treasury Department.

Norway's Nobel committee held its Peace Prize awards ceremony on Friday without the award's recipient, human rights activist Liu Xiaobo.

The potential expiration of the Build America Bond (BAB) program at the end of this year may have a negative near-term impact on the prices of the overall municipal bond market.

The situation in the U.S. capital this weekend is fluid.

U.S. drug giant Pfizer (NYSE: PFE) hired investigators to dig up dirt on Nigeria’s former attorney general in order to stop an investigation over a controversial drug trial the company conducted which led to the deaths of eleven children, according to cables released by WikiLeaks.