officials say evidence shows a change in policy would not create a risk to the nation s blood supply. monaco s royal family is showing off their newest and tien anies edpipgs these are the first photos of royal twins. gabriella and jacques. little jacques is two minutes younger, but under monaco law, he s still next in line for the throne. well, the fbi says north korea is behind the cyberattack on sony. we will see exactly how it was done and why other companies could be vulnerable as well. and another record day on wall street as the dow closes over 18,000 for the first time. what s driving investor optimism. that s coming up.
experts say strong investor optimism can be a especially if the federal reserve decides this could be the start of another bubble and the central bank starts to raise record low interest rates. another concern, you, will you spend? consumer spending a huge driver of the economy and because most of us who get pa paycheck saw our taxes did go up last month, consumers might tap the brakes and surveys show the majority of americans plan to cut spending and doesn t help that gas prices are up 7% this year, which is a red light for spending, too. we get a read on your confidence this week. and of course, wall street will also be watching washington and the president s state of the union on tuesday. harris, back to you. brenda, thank you so much. we do want to go back now to the breaking news, the twister that has touched down in hatiesburg, mississippi, and hearing from our fox affiliate
went bankrupt. opposition activists said 62,000 people were killed in the country. this video posted on youtube appears to show members of the free syrian army in the back of a pickup truck engaged in a heavy gun fight with government forces in homs. cnn cannot independently confirm the authenticity of this video. special ensloi, kofi annan, called for an immediate end to the violence. he warned against external military intervention. iran s ambassador said his country is ready to re-engage with the nuclear watchdog agency. his comment comes as western powers say they are ready to resume talks on iran s nuclear program without preconditions, but the ambassador says iran will never give up its nuclear program. those are the headlines from cnn. i m juanita rajpal. world business today starts right now. good morning. from cnn london, i m charles hodson. and a very good afternoon from cnn hong kong. i m andrew stevens. welcome to world business today. the top stories
from the besieged arab red crescent. western diplomats say that iran is trying to clean up something at its military base. inspectors believe the site may have been used to test triggers for nuclear bombs. this is what a solar flair looks like up close. the flair erupted and was captured by scientists in this dramatic video by nasa. we should be feeling its effects today as radiation distorts the magnetic field possibly disrupting the gps signals. those are the headlines from cnn. i m juanita raj paul. world business today starts now. good morning from cnn london, i m nina dos santos. and a very good afternoon from cnn hong kong, i m andrew stevens. welcome to world business today. the top stories this thursday, a boom town in the midst of devastation. we ll tell you about a japanese city doing brisk business as its neighbors struggle to rebuild. the deadline for the greek debt swap is fast approaching. the signs so far are good as people sign up to push the dea
honors at his funeral today. we are joined live from prague with more on that, atika shubert. reporter: we are expecting heads of state, heads of government and personal friends of pavel to come today, many dissidents who were in prison with him when he was jailed by the communist regime here. we had an extraordinary sight here at the grounds of prague castle last night. we saw tens of thousands of people coming to pay their last respects to vaclav havel, putting flowers by his coffin. it was an extraordinary scene when people talked about how much he men the to them and how he represented freedom. and atika, in terms of the kind of legacy he leaves behind, what are people saying was his biggest impact? reporter: they say, of course, his biggest impact was simply leaving the velvet revolution here in the czech republic, that peaceful transition away from that authoritarian communist regime to democracy as he, of course, became the first president of the czech republic.