speak no,see no ,hear no evil

TOKYO (Reuters) - The Nikkei share average rose to fresh five-year highs on Monday as retail stocks advanced on bright prospects for the industry after Seven & I Holdings Co. Ltd. said it planned to buy a department store group.


NEW YORK, Dec. 23 (UPI) -- Up to about a third of the $590 million U.N. fund spent for the Indian Ocean tsunami relief may have gone to pay for overhead.

Dec. 27 (Bloomberg) -- The dollar may rise in the last week of the year, capping its biggest annual gain against the euro since the currency was introduced in 1999, a Bloomberg survey shows.

Dec. 26 (Bloomberg) -- Amazon.com Inc., the world's biggest online retailer, said holiday sales worldwide set a record this year on demand for Apple Computer Inc.'s iPod music players, video games and jewelry.

Holiday spending rose 8.7% from last year, according to one early projection. The strongest gains came in home furnishings. Sales of consumer electronics were also strong, fueled by purchases of flat-panel TVs and digital cameras.(WSJ)

Japan's core consumer prices rose in November for only the second time in seven years, in a possible turning point for the economy. (WSJ)

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A Texas golf course, a Nevada tanning salon and an Illinois candy shop were among small businesses that may have improperly received U.S. subsidized loans intended for firms hurt by the September 11 attacks, an internal government watchdog has found.

Home sale fell 1.7% in November, while the inventory of homes for sale rose to a 19-year high as prices continued to climb. Initial jobless claims rose by 3,000 last week (WSJ)

MAR DEL PLATA, Argentina — Six Latin American governments had hoped to start 2006 with a free trade zone that would open the U.S. market to their fledgling industries….Proponents of the Central America Free Trade Agreement — CAFTA — fear the delay will mean painful business and trade losses in a region of widespread poverty. (FOX)

The United States government reportedly began coordinating with NATO its plans for a possible military attack against Iran. The German newspaper Der Tagesspiegel collected various reports from the German media indicating that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization are examining the prospects of such a strike. (Jerusalem Post)

“They have the plutonium,” he said. “We have to assume the North Koreans can and have made a few nuclear devices.” (Siegfried Hecker, former director of the US government’s top secret Los Alamos laboratory, TIMEONLINE)