hostages and freeing jessica buchanan and poul thisted. emergency officials are looking in a brazil collapsed building. they don t know why the adjacent high rises crumbled. one person heard a cracking sound before they fell. french police tell cnn they ve arrested the founder of the breast implant company. our affiliate france 2 tv said this man was arrested around the same time. p.i.p. became the focus of an international health scare over the implants. those are the top stories from cnn, the world s news leader. i m zain verjee and world business today starts now. hello, and a very warm welcome to world business today. we re in hong kong. i m nina dos santos at cnn london. i m john at the world economic forum in davos, switzerland. on the markets today they take the rough with the smooth as america s central bank holds steady on interest rates. this signals a long road towards recovery. in europe angelo merkel says there s only so much germany can do to s
numbers that we were hoping to see and hopefully will continue. so new jobless claims plunged to 352,000 last week. that s a huge drop. down by 50,000. this demonstrates there are fewer layoffs. however, jobless claims can be a little volatile. for example, we saw claims jump a few weeks ago because of the temporary holiday workers that were laid off. and also the prior week was revised a little bit higher, not much. just by about 3,000. it did go above 400,000. we need to stay below that in order to associate that with actual job creation. today s report is good news. we need to see it continue in the long term. all right. felecia, thanks so much. let s get to politics now. we begin in iowa. yes, iowa. just when you thought it was a done deal. well, the des moines register is reporting the iowa caucuses were a virtual tie, that rick santorum actually ended up with a 34 vote advantage and that romney did not win. so now we re being told that in about 15 minutes we re goin
details. we wrap it up here. starting point. i m going to hop on a plane and get to south carolina. we hand it over to cnn newsroom. i ll see you back here tomorrow i ll see you back here tomorrow morning. captions by vitac www.vitac.com good morning, everyone. we start this hour with that doomed cruise ship off italy and fading hope to find anymore survivors. people are still missing in those frigid waters. two americans. at least 11 people have been killed. rescue operations are on hold again because it s too risky for divers as the cruise ship moves in the water. meanwhile, the ship s captain is under house arrest. he could be looking at man slaurt ter and abandoning ship charges after the cost at that c costa concordia hit a rock. barbie is joining us live from rome. barbie, any idea when the rescue operations might start up again? barbie, are you with us? reporter: oh, i can hear you now. yes. great. tell us, do you have any idea when these rescue crews c
thursday. egyptian authorities say they re investigating whether the groups are getting illegal foreign funding. u.s. state department official says egypt must stop what it calls harassment. time has run out this year for india s proposed anti-corruption law. parliament s upper house failed to vote on the plan to create a watchdog agency before the winter season expired wednesday. as samoans go to sleep over the next few hours it will still be thursday night there. when they wake up, it ll be saturday. the pacific island nation is skipping right over friday because officials have decided to change time zones. the move will put them on the same schedule asamoah s biggest trading partner s. those are the top stories. i m zain verjee. world business today starts now. good morning from cnn london. i m charles hodson. i m andrew stevens from hong kong. welcome to world business today. the top story this friday, december 30, the final wbt of the year. penultimate. any
stood by his call for more negotiations. let s extend the payroll tax credit for a year. all we re asking for is to get the senate members over here to work with us to resolve our differences so we can do what everybody wants to do. less than two weeks before the iowa caucuses republican ron paul, now the new leader of the pack. in a new poll 28% say paul is their man compared to 25% who back newt gingrich. paul is holding a town meeting. that is happening in iowa this hour. more on the surge in the state later, our political ticker. turkish police detain dozens of people in an alleged ter or plot. many of them, journalists. journalists held this demonstration in istanbul. it was just hours after the police roundup. now they say free press is under attack, but the government says those detained were suspected members of the press and propaganda wing of a banned separatist group. some american troops who just returned home from iraq have just learned now that they may