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. his influence is much wider than simply here in the czech republic. politicians, human rights organizations around the world credit him with really leading that sort of -- that idealistic human rights movement and bringing it into the real world of politics. he was that rare combination as being able to make idealism a reality. >> all right. atika, thank you very much. we will bring you more on the funeral of vaclav havel coming up on "world one" here on cnn. those are the top stories. i'm monita rajpal. "world business today" starts right now. hello and a happy festive friday for you from cnn london, i'm nina dos santos. >> and hello from cnn hong kong, i'm pauline chiou. this is "world business today." the top stories on this friday, december 23rd. less merriment for an economy this holiday season. we'll tell you what lawmakers are giving millions of american workers this year. and last-minute christmas shopping interrupted in new zealand. christchurch is shaken again by a series of earthquakes. first up, on the last trading day before the festive season kicks off, there's a little bit of christmas cheer on the world stock market. this is largely thanks to encouraging jobs data coming out of the united states and also rising consumer confidence there. this is the picture across europe. we have seen these markets starting out in significant positive territory. they are managing to hold on to that kind of positive momentum. these are the kind of things that are moving the markets where i am and largely they focus on what's beginning on on the other side of the atlantic and namely what went on in yesterday's trading session, in particular, news that u.s. jobless claims were down. also today we're expecting more economic statistics out in the form of, we have a series of reports in the united states showing perhaps that higher personal spending was seen over the last month and that durable goods orders and new home sales in november could be slightly better than expected. we've also got relief thanks to that payroll tax deal reached in washington, finally and that we're eventually getting to the enof what has been for these equity markets, frankly, a pretty horrible year. we have begans on the cac current, cac 40 in paris. these are up 0.8% despite the fact that we had news that the gdp was moved downward. nina, here in asia there were pretty solid gains on friday. the tokyo stock exchange was closed today for a holl do i for the emperor's birthday. elsewhere, green arrows across the board. the shanghai composite pulled off a gain for the first time this week. the s&p asx 200 in sydney was also in positive territory even though they had a shortened trading day before this long holiday weekend. the hang seng and the seoul kospi up by more than 1%. asia was responding to the better-than-expected u.s. jobs number that nina mentioned and hopes to are an american recovery. trading was pretty thin, thanks to seasonal effects going into the christmas holiday and the new year. there were solid gains among resources and financial stocks. biggest winner of the day was gloucester coal, which leaped more than 21% after its top shareholder gave the nod to its sale to china's yungcho coal itself. they gained 6%. hsb up 1.5% and ang banking group by a similar amount in sydney. nina? there's no denying that 2011 hasn't been the best of years for europe. it seems things got a little bit worse. moody's ratings agency has given slovenia a christmas present this country really could have done without. it downgraded the country's credit rating by one notch from aa-3 to a-1. moody's highlighted and particular concerns over the banking sector as well as limited growth opportunities in that country. all of this comes on back of another downgrade. we're talking about hungary's downgrade by standard & poors on wednesday. this particular ratings agency cut hungary to junk status or speculative grade, less than a month after moody's took the same decision for this country. perhaps understandably the man on the street is far from happy and in keeping with the theme for the year, hungarians are, it seems, once again protesting. head of the economics unit for hungary's lmp political party told us where the problems stem from. take a listen. >> i think it starts with the financially unsustainable measures which created a precarious situation with the budget. and i think one of the top causes is the new taxation system which created a deficit of around 500 billion. the government had unorthodox steps to create new budgetary incomes. >> one of the reasons why hungary is so much in focus of late is because we have a series of crucial votes going on in its parliament over the next two weeks to come. it's not just financial woes that are hitting eastern europe's most heavily indebted nations. they are being met by members of the opposition party, trying to persuade them not to vote on new controversial constitutional reforms proposed by this man. his man is victor orban, he's been a prime minister since april 201. as matthew chance reports with be there are changes that some see as an attack on democracy in hungary. >> reporter: it may have escaped much international attention but the nation of hungary appears on a dangerous path. critics accuse the ruling party there of undermining democracy, making constitutional changes more suited to an authoritarian regime than a member of the european union. >> this process started years ago when the current government got into power. they are systematically dismounting checks and balances and institutions. recently there was a bill introduced in the parliament to curb the independence of the central bank, that was most alarming. >> reporter: it's that concern in financial markets that brought the issue of hungary to the fore. the europe onunian union and th imf -- and while the concerns are spilling out on to the streets. the prime minister is accused of heightening his grip on power by installing loyal judges in the country's court and curbing media freedom. the government says it's merely following through on its selection promises to sweep away the old order. in a statement to cnn, a senior hungarian official blamed opposition parties for driving the country, quote, to the brink of economic and political collapse. when changes are complete, the statement says, there will be nothing to fear. hungarian democracy continues, is alive and kicking. it seems increasingly fragile and authoritarianism in the heart of europe may be on the rise. matthew chance, cnn, london. >> hungary has had some mixed economic fortunes for some time now. but it really is the suddenness of this that's caught many by surprise. if you want to read more about it, check out my blog at cnn.com/business. u.s. stock markets ended a quiet session on a high note on thursday. a stronger than expected reading on unemployment, those weekly jobless claims gave investor sentiment a nice little lift. here's how the numbers settled by the end of the session. the dow rose more than 0.5%, the nasdaq by more than 0.8% and the broader s&p 500 up by the same amount as the nasdaq. let's look at u.s. markets and friday's session. actually we'll move on to the next story. the u.s. markets may be given a boost by the news from washington. now, after weeks of a standoff, republican party legislators in the house of representatives have finally agreed to extent a payroll tax cut for 160 million working americans. here's some of the information here as we pull that up. lawmakers left it until the last minute to approve almost the exact same deal they rejected just a few days ago. now, as a result, this is what's going to happen. american workers won't have to fork over an extra $40 a month or so to the tax man. and around 6 million jobless americans won't lose their unemployment benefits. after his party's turnaround, house republican leader john boehner put a brave face on things. >> it may not have been politically the smartest thing in the world but let me tell you what, i think our members waged a good fight. we were able to come to an agreement. we were able to fix what came out of the senate. >> now, the cut had overwhelming support across both parties in the u.s. senate. now, its extension for another two months will buy some time for the senator and u.s. representatives to hammer out the details of how to fund this tax cut for the rest of 2012. now, president barack obama describes the extension as critical to america's economic recovery. he said, i congratulate members of congress for ending the partisan stalemate by reaching an agreement. this is the right thing to do to strengthen our families, grow our economy and create new jobs. this is real money that will make a real difference in people's lives. now, let's go back to the pretrading numbers on wall street. we wanted to take a look at u.s. futures. let's check out how they're looking ahead of friday's session. they are looking pretty good. actually these are the old numbers from earlier. we will get those numbers a little bit later. we'll get november's reading 0en personal income. here are the futures. there we go. the dow looks like it's set for a higher open by 0.5%. the nasdaq composite also by the same amount. it's uniform across the board. that's how it's looking for friday trading in a couple of hours, more than four hours from now before we head into the holiday seas. that should pain the a clearer picture of what americans are doing with their money during this holiday season. no doubt doing a lot of last-minute online shopping. nina? pauline, still to come on "world business today," just as new zealand was starting to feel settled again, more earthquakes rattled the northeastern coast there. we'll have a full update after this break. plus, spain's new austerity government and the tough year ahead. yeah. you know what else is nice is all the savings you can get on cruze and traverse over there. oh! that's my beard. [ chuckles ] it's amazing. ♪ [ male announcer ] this holiday, chevy's giving more. now very well qualified lessees can sign and drive a 2012 cruze ls for around $199 a month. ♪ nyquil tylenol: we are?ylenol. you know we're kinda like twins. nyquil (stuffy): yeah, we both relieve coughs, sneezing, aches, fevers. tylenol: and i relieve nasal congestion. nyquil (stuffy): overachiever. anncr vo: tylenol cold multi-symptom nighttime relieves nasal congestion... nyquil cold & flu doesn't. hello and welcome back. you're watching "world business today" live on cnn. a series of earthquakes rattled new zealand earlier on friday. two of the larger ones, a imaginemy tud 5.8 and a magnitude 5.9 quake struck just off the coast from christchurch. the city is recovering from that 6.3 quake that rocked its central business district back in february which tragedy killed more than 180 people. officials say at least 2 people were injured in this latest round and airport there was also evacuated. the new zealand dollar fell briefly against the u.s. dollar following the news of the quakes. but has since gained back its losses there. the country's stock market retreated from earlier gains to finish just slightly higher by the end of the session. let's go over to meteorologist ivan cabrera now. he's been monitoring these earthquakes for us at the world weather center. this happened in the middle of the day with people out and about. it was certainly very frightening for them. >> always frightening these things, no question about it. i guess in the middle of the night while you're sleeping could be worse as well. here's the thing, though. no significant injuries and no fatalities. let's get that news out of the way. that is certainly a fantastic thing to hear. nerves were rattled and buildings were as well. we've had some damage and certainly power outages here. three quakes happening within just a few hours. the first one a 5.8, the second one a 5.3 and the third one, 90 minutes later, a 5.9. the furthest one away 26 kilometers. interestingly all happening beneath the water here. this is offshore, no tsunami alerts or warnings. you need about a 7 for that to happen. these quakes that you see here, we have to take you back, we've been following this for a year, these quakes are aftershocks from the 7.1 that we had back in 2010, unbelievably. i'll show you the stats in a second here why that continues to happen. also the topography important, if these had happened under the more mountainous region down to the south, you wouldn't have as much damage. that 7.1 that we had back in 2010 caused less damage and less essentially injuries, less deaths than the 6.3. the reason for that, we had this one at 40 kilometers west of christchurch. this was the killer quake here, february 2011. the aftershock of 6.3 happening right under the city. that's the one that leveled the city. and they've been recovering or trying to, certainly, ever since. we've been doing so with these aftershocks that have been significant. on friday we've had the 5.8 and 5.9. statistically, this is not too unusual here. an original quake of 7.1 you typically get thousands upon thousands of earthquakes. in fact, over 10,000 at this point as far as the 2.0 range. once you get to the higher threshold here, these are less common here and we should begin to get less frequent earthquakes that are in the 5.0, the 6.0 range which of course can cause significant damage. we'll keep you posted. i've already had a couple of 4.0s but i think at this point we are done, thankfully. hopefully for the rest of year. stay with us, "world business today" continues after the break. you're watching cnn. welcome back, from hong kong in london, you're watching "world business today" live on cnn. big day el gordo lottery winnings in spain, it's now down to business for country's new government. the prime minister here in the center of this image saw his cabinet being sworn in on thursday and that cabinet gathers for the first time today. of course, they're being tasked with making some really tough zigs about spain's financial future in the next term in government. he's promised the new year will be filled with plenty of austerity cuts aimed at slashing this country's budget deficit by some 16.5 billion euros in 2012. that amounts to nearly $22 billion. to help him, he's appointed a very economic-minded team here. let's have a look at some of the main protagonists at either end of the front row here on this screen. new finance minister is this man. he's a former lehman brothers executive, very well known in the financial markets. but we've also got another gentleman on the other enof the front row here. he's a finance professor and also an economist. he's charged with heading up the treasury. these two gentlemen, they will having to reassure the world's financial markets. for more on what all this means today, al goodman joins us live from cnn madrid. al, when can we expect to hear exactly what this new government is going to be doing, their policies? when can we hear it? >> reporter: hi, nina. not this day. what they're going to do this day as the cabinet is meeting now for first time is basically get the machinery of government and the players in place, the secondary ministers we just saw the cabinet. they need to appoint the deputy ministers and the key other officials like the chief of the budget office for prime minister, a whole series of posts, what one senior member of ruling conservative party told me, a man himself who may be named this day, they're fueling up the ship, deciding on the crew. they know basically where it's going to sail but haven't said just yet. that may come a week from this day and into the new year. nina? >> cutting about $22 billion off of the deficit in one year when on the other hand some people say they should be spending to try and bring the unemployment rate down. that's beginning to be a tough move for this government. >> reporter: it is. what he first, for instance, what he needs to do next friday is what is being predicted, he doesn't have a budget for 2012. he's go to pull over the budget, carry over the 2011 budget into 2012. he has said in parliament that he can't do his budget until he has the growth predictions which may not come until late january, early february. then he can start to make his cuts. he has said he's going to try to put money into job growth but again, all of this is just out there. he hasn't really said where the knife is going in. he's got some symbolic austerity. there are 12 ministries, down from 16 under the socialist government. so the number of ministries, some of them are folded into others, changing names, what does he save? he saves a few cabinet ministers salaries and their top aides that is a little bit of austerity but it also is a symbolic measure that right at home in the government itself, he's going to do serious cost cutting. nina? >> top new year's resolution for the new government, stop spending and bring in that deficit by about $22 billion. many thanks for that. still to come on westbound, licensed to thrill. santa claus needs a certificate to bring christmas cheer to children in germany. we're in berlin where ho, ho, ho means no, no, no if santa didn't have the right paperwork. we'll explain. stay with cnn. fish. fantastic. ♪ this holiday, chevy's giving more. now qualified buyers can get 0% apr for 72 months on a 2011 chevy silverado. or 0% apr financing for 60 months plus no monthly payments until spring. ♪ from cnn london, i'm nina dos santos. >> and i'm pauline chiou at cnn hong kong. welcome back to "world business today." we're about 19 minutes into the trading sessions here. it seems we're holding on to this positive momentum. here's where the leading indices stan at the moment. a number ever them are trading in the green. one of the things that's been moving these markets is reports we've had out over the last couple of days, coming from largest economy, the united states of america. u.s. jobless claims down for the last month, it's seen as a good sign that the u.s. economy is perhaps improving. we have key pivotal reports out later today. durable goods, factory ors and new home sales. those can be better than expected. if that's the case, the rally may last until the end of the year. there has been relief in the markets that we've seen the payroll tax deal being reached in washington and probably also relief that we're getting to the end of what's been frankly a pretty nasty year on the world equity markets. we have gains in the cac 40 in paris, despite the fact we know the french gdp for the third quarter of the year has been revised downward to 0.3% from an earlier reading of 0.4%. pauline? we were responding to that u.s. data you had just mentioned. there were gains across the board on friday. the tokyo stock exchange, however, was closed fo