people say the local government took their land, sold it to developers and kept the money. residents say food and supplies are running low and they fear police might storm the village. u.s. military officials now admit its u.n.-man droned was looking for suspected nuclear sites in iran. one official says it was on a cia mission, tehran put the aircraft on display after it was brought down recently on iranian soil. prolific writer and social critic christopher hitchens has died. he often skewed the elite in his writings. his 17 books took aim at everything from the cancer that ravaged his body to waterboarding to religion. christopher hitchens was 62 years old. those are the top stories from cnn, the world news leader. i'm of did does have. "world business today" starts now. it's 9:00 a.m. here in london. good morning, i'm nina dos santos. and it's 5:00 p.m. in hong kong, i'm manisha tank. this is "world business today," the top stories on friday, the 16th of december. japan welcomes this news that the fukushima daiichi nuclear plant has been declared stable. raising billions of dollars in the virtual world. the company behind farmville. and 'tis the season to go shopping but perhaps someone should tell the great british public. without further adieu, let's get straight to the markets in europe. this is how been they've trading in just an hour's time. we're still holding into positive territory. we saw substantial gains for these markets in excess of 1%. in yesterday's possession and in the first hour of trading they seem to be holding 0 to that positive momentum, supported in particular by encouraging jobs and manufacturing data coming out of of the united states. those numbers out on thursday showed we saw u.s. jobless claims at a three-year low. it's not helped by the fact that fitch ratings, one of the more influential ratings agencies has decided to downgrade a whole raft of banks, some of biggest banks on the stock exchanges. for instance, one listed here on the cac 40, we have vcredit sui well. also protests in places like poland and sweden that don't even use the euro and another euro member, ireland, are also let's say putting a spinner in the works of last week's euro deal, manisha. >> we've had the major indices ending trading higher this friday. that means after four days of losses we finally have a day of gains. if you actually looked at trading volume, here are the indexes to show you what happened, volume was pretty low. it is, of course, just ahead of the holiday season. and that means a lot of people are moving around but nobody really wants to take a punt on what happened with all of that continued uncertainty in europe. we have seen support, like you were saying from the positive numbers out of the u.s., both on manufacturing and also when it came to the jobless number. now that weekly jobless number can be erratic but it was a number that was much better than people were expect. very encouraging news from the u.s. economy. many here in asia will hope to see more than that, particularly exporters, which we see the likes of in japan. not as good as some of the other major indexes in asia. we still had some of the exporters under pressure, toyota, for example. a mixed picture for people in tokyo, mitsubishi closed lower. olympus had a pretty terrible week, nina. a lot of the markets are moving on the back of that u.s. data, let's take a look at how session ended on wall street. stock markets closed higher on thursday, following positive jobs and manufacturing data but the gains were muted as investors were made nervous about the european debt crisis. the dow jones industrial average finished almost 0.5% higher, nasdaq crept up by 0.1% and the broader s&p 500 index rose by 0.3%. let's take a look at how that prepares us for the trading picture today. u.s. futures at the moment are on track for a mostly positive open when trading begins in about four to five hours from now. the u.s. will also release its monthly inflation data during the session and that will be eagerly watched by many economists but as you can see for the moment we're holding on to the positive gains with the likes of the s&p up to the tune of 0.66%. >> for the moment that's how it looks. keep on tracking those numbers for you. japanese authorities say they've made significant progress in containing the country's nuclear crisis. you're looking at live pictures of the japanese prime minister, noda. he's giving a news conference in tokyo and we are expecting him to announce a potential cold shutdown at the fukushima daiichi nuclear power plan the. cnn's paula hancocks has been covering this story since it began. she's been monitoring these developments from seoul. paula, what does this mean, exactly? >> reporter: manisha, the japanese prime minister has already announced that the fukushima power plant has in fact achieved a cold shutdown. he announced that just a couple hours ago within a government task force. right now he's talking to the nation and giving the japanese people news. a cold shutdown means that the temperature within the reactors, those crippled reactors after the march 11th earthquake and tsunami are below boiling point, below 100 degrees centigrade, which is over a certain period of time. what we've heard from the prime minister is that the fukushima power plan the now is in a stable condition and that the situation has been brought under control. also saying that the radiation exposure at the periphery of the plant is at low levels and will remain at low levels even if there is another accident or another natural disaster. it is a milestone but many critics, many experts, do say that we shouldn't get too carried away by this. there are still years and decades of work to be done. there's also the criticism from some experts that the terminology, a cold shutdown, might suggest that the situation is better than it actually is. cold shutdown usually is when you're talking about an operation that is stable, you're talking about nuclear fuel rods that are stable and, of course, that certainly isn't the condition of the fuel rods in four of the reactors at the nuclear power plant. there's also a discussion of how these fuel rods will even be removed in the future. that will be the next job for tepco workers but, of course, they haven't been able to get anywhere near them at this point to be able to see firsthand how bad the situation is. it is a milestone, many people calling it a symbolic milestone. cnn spoke to the tepco president just a couple days ago. he did acknowledge there was a lot more work to be done. he also acknowledged this cleanup is costing a lot of money. he doesn't know how the company will look in the future. >> translator: right now we are facing a big deficit and our biggest task is to rectify the situation. of course, we are considering several options as solutions and we're making sure we pick the most rachelleal of them. nationalizing the country is one of them. we do not deny consider nationalization. it will be after we debated what is the best solution. >> reporter: so a significant announcement for tepco, which is in charge of the nuclear plant, a significant announcement for the government as well. but for those fukushima residents who still are not allowed home, it doesn't actually make that much difference. there's still about 80,000 residents who have been forced to move away from the area because the area is unsafe. they still don't know when they'll be allowed home. those closest to the power plan the don't know if they'll ever be able to move home. 34,000 of them are still in temporary housing and there is an awful lot of anger still within the japanese public that they believe they weren't told the truth early enough and they weren't kept up to date with just how dangerous the situation was. manisha? >> paula, thanks for bringing us up to date and putting it in context for us. you've been tracking this story from the very beginning. thank you. now, let's talk about a meltdown of a very different sort, the share price meltdown we've seen for research in motion. rim stock slumped by 7% on thursday, following a disappointing setting results for the last quarter. they reported earnings. that represents a 70% drop from the $911 million that this same firm earned in the same quarter of last year. it warned that its next generation of smartphones would launch six months later than originally planned. rim's two chief executives, have been responding by slashing their annual pay packets to just $1 each. they've also pledged a comprehensive review of the company's operations. research in motion shares have now lost almost three-quarter of their entire value so far this year. investors will also be watching shares in the gamemaker zynga. they make words with friends and other games which are mostly played on facebook. zynga reportedly priced its initial public offering at $10 a share. that values the firm at $7 billion and is hoping to sell about 100 million shares in that debut. that would make zynga the largest internet ipo since started trading back in 2004. quite incredible. the products zynga sells online in games like farmville exist only in the virtual world but they do generate real world profits. >> i'm christina warren and i'm the entertainment editor at mashable.com. i write about social media and i'm interested in this world. i have none other than the mark zuckerberg action figure, limited edition. i was not the person i'd be addicted to farmville. i made fun of it. it's an easy thing to make fun of. i had to review the ipad app and i got sucked in. farmville was one of the globally successful facebook game. these are buildings that i created. it's almost like you are playing with a doll house and you build your world. the more you come back, the more money you make to raise animals and crops. i can exchange real money for virtual money to buy these goods more quickly. if there's any company that's printing money, it is zynga. >> i paid money for virtual goods that have absolutely no bearing on my real life. i can't reconcile that. that's their business model. this is cityville hometown, zynga's most popular game. has 53 million active daily users. it is much more task and goal oriented. that means that the game is easier for people to pick up and go because it has more clear objectives. you have a post office, a bike shop. the more you build your city, the bigger it gets, the more people you have. you can build towns and businesses. this is words with friends, also known as the game that got alec baldwin kicked off an of an airplane. the flight attendant tells him shut off the phone, they get into a tiff. it was a gift. it kind of opened up and said, hey, everybody is addicted to this. everyone can find a way to get pulled into this vortex of games. i think that's why zynga has been as successful. apple's game of the year is tiny tower. if i were zynga, tiny towers would keep me up at night. it's addictive, it's fun. the competition is coming at them from all sides. zynga's biggest challenge will be being able to create new games that will have everyone talking. so game on. >> it's worth being addictioned to the show. we have more still to come on "world business today." where we'll head to germany where two men who say they're able to check the country's industrial production in realtime. let's have a quick check of the price of oil and have a look at where that nymex crude benchmark contract is trading. we're up 32 cents right now, $94.19. manufacturing looking decent and also those jobless numbers are giving people cause for cheer, after prices had slipped on concerns about the recession looming into the euro zone. staying with the commodities theme, let's take a look at gold. it's trading higher, bouncing back from its worst weekly loss since the month of september. positive economic data coming out of the united states, easing demand for dollars, which have been quite a safe haven and also gold is a safe haf as well. it's currently trading up 16.64 at $1592. welcome back. you're watching "world business today" live on cnn. in india, the central bank left interest rates unchanged and shifted its focus from keeping a lid on inflation to promoting growth as the country's economy shows signs of a slowdown. industrial's industrial output fell 5.1% in october from a year earlier and its growth rate fell to 6.9% last quarter. that's the slowest pace in more than two years. the benchmark lending rate was kept at 8.5%. it's a clear change in the bank's priorities after 13 interest rate rises in the past 21 months. nina? moving on to another one of those bric economies, in the meantime, russia's president told eu leaders at a brussels summit that his country is ready to help the euro zone out of its current debt crisis. dmitry medvedev says any investment must be managed through the international monetary fund. china and india, other bric nations, have said the same thing so far. with all the economic uncertainty you might wish you had a crystal ball. it's all done by monitoring road traffic. from this week's marketplace europe, juliet mann explains. >> reporter: the problem with searching for reliable economic data is knowing which direction to take. but some number crunchers say it's all going on here, not the information super highway but germany's highways. these two bond-based academics have it all mapped out, tracking truckers going places with container loads of goods. their index gives a snapshot of industrial production in europe's biggest economy now without waiting weeks or months for official data to be released. here's how it works. most heavy vehicles in germany have gps technology on board, linking them up to a satellite system designed to collect road tolls. >> the toll collector, they use it to bill people and get money for the state. it finances our roads and public activity. however, one can use this data usefully to help solving our early forecasting problems. that's why we are the first, we have proposed to use this for forecasting economic activity. >> what they get is a steer on realtime production rate as goods are shipped about. they consider river and rail transport, too, but found the roads play the biggest role. >> kilometer driven, trips made, you want to see crossing of borders inwards and outwards and then impeerically try to relate that with some kind of economic indicator of significance. >> official figures show german industrial production rose more than expected in october. that tallies with the index results. there are a few dents in the body work. the index can't separate who's exporting to germany from who's just passing through. but it does give policymakers a clue to what's happening to the economy now without looking in the rearview mirror. juliet mann, cnn. still to come here on "world business today," we've got first business economy, now social class. we'll look at kln's new offering. choose your flying partners through good old-fashioned facebook stalking. let's check on the currency markets for you now. the euro still down, 0.1% or so. it's still off the lows we saw earlier in the week. as forster leng a steste steste and the yen. a warm welcome back. you're watching "world business today." we're live here on cnn. the choice used to be simple, first class, business class or economy, window seat or aisle. now the dutch airline klm it seems is shaking things up a little bit. it's introducing what's going to be known as social class. from early next year, passengers will be able to check each other's facebook profiles before deciding who they want to sit next to. klm is offering customers the option to choose to display their personal information on its online seating plan. the tool is designed specifically for in-flight networking. >> interesting stuff. richard quest spoke to simon calder, editor at "the independent" and asked him what he thought of klm's new offering. >> i think it is outrageous. social media are great in terms of air transport, for example, in the united kingdom, in northern europe, a year ago you were reporting on the appalling snowstorms which closed so much. it was twitter, social media that were helping people understand what was going on. i will say, the fact that you're traveling by air you're meeting all kinds of people outside your comfort zone but i don't think the two should ever be put together. >> oh, come on, how nice you'll be able to know who you'll be sitting next to. >> there might be a bidding war if people get to hear that richard quest is traveling in seat 1-a. i think it is much more likely that you will find there's almost a predatory element, some kind of in-flight stalking or worse and probably more likely the idea that you will be stuck next to a crashing -- flying to amsterdam to santiago for 14 hours with somebody that insists on drmpging the plane dry. was sitting next to a pilot, not the pilot, a pilot. it was terrific. he talked me through the entire flight. >> the best person sitting next to you is a no show. thattive goods you much more room to stretch out and enjoy the flight. >> calder mentioned in-flight stalking. they insist it is not an in-flight dating service. we shall see. klm could see an uptick in bookings in the new year. nina, i'm sure it will provide us lots of story opportunities. >> i find it interesting that someone is defending that move. interesting move there from the dutch airline klm. 'tis the season of good will and still to come here on "world business today," we have a heartwarming tale from the u.s. state of nebraska. from cnn london, i'm nina dos santos. >> and i'm manisha tank in hong kong. a warm welcome back to "world business today." we're about 19 minutes into the trading session here in europe. let's take a look at how the markets are faring. at the moment we seem to be holding on to the positive momentum we saw yesterday but only just. already, as you can see, some of the euro zone markets feeling the bite of credit rating downgrades for some of the biggest french and german banks. >> here in asia as you can see, all the major markets ending the session higher. in the u.s., the leading indices all set for a higher open when trading gets started later on, following thursday's reversal of a three-day losing streak for these particular markets. let's take a roundup of all the action on wall street. here's alison kosik. stocks made a modest recovery thursday after positive u.s. economic data helped investors forget about europe at least for one day. the dow gain 46 points, closing up 11870. the nasdaq and s&p 500 ended with slight gains as well. 366,000 americans filed new claims for unemployment benefits last week. that's the lowest level since may of 2008. it suggests that jobs recovery may be gaining traction. fedex shares jumped 8%. the shipping giant reported quarterly earnings that beat wall street estimates. the company credited strong demand for a pair of its residential delivery services and growth in e-commerce led to a 17% increase in daily shipping volumes. michael coors dre-- kors dressed up the new york stock exchange. they raised close to $1 billion for the hong kong-based fashion company. kors posted sales increases for 20 straight quarters, a sign that demand for some luxury goods has held up, despite a tough economy. coming up friday, the government releases retail inflation numbers for november. analysts predict only a slight increase in prices. darden has already warned that the numbers could be disappointing. that's a wrap of the day on wall street. i'm alison kosik in new york. let's stick with this retail theme. it's meant to be the season for lots of spending but in the runup to christmas, the latest statistics could be something of a mood killer for retailers across