BBC News - Kim Jong-il state funeral held in North Korea, Dec 26, 2011

"North Korea has begun two days of funeral services for late leader Kim Jong-il with a huge procession in the capital, Pyongyang.
Footage showed tens of thousands of soldiers with their heads bowed as a giant portrait of Mr Kim was carried slowly through the streets.
His successor and third son, Kim Jong-un, walked beside the hearse, images from state television showed.
Kim Jong-il died of a heart attack on 17 December, aged 69, state media said.
He has been lying in state for the past 10 days."

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INDIA Today - Congress hunts for numbers as Rajya Sabha set to debate Lokpal Bill, Dec 26, 2011

"Ahead of the debate on the Lokpal in the Rajya Sabha on Thursday, the Congress expressed confidence of getting the landmark legislation approved in the upper house.
Congress spokesman Raashid Alvi said on Wednesday that though the party did not have a majority in the Rajya Sabha, it was confident that the Bill will be passed.
"We are sure the Lokpal Bill will be passed. It is a Bill in the interest of the country. We and our allies will make all efforts to get the bill passed. I have confidence we will be successful," said Alvi."

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BBC News - Greece jails Abbot Ephraim in Mount Athos fraud case, Dec 26, 2011

"The abbot of the prestigious Vatopedi monastery on Mount Athos in Greece has been jailed pending trial for alleged fraud and embezzlement.
Abbot Ephraim, 56, is accused of arranging land swaps between Vatopedi and the state which are thought to have cost the government millions of euros.
The abbot, now being held in Korydallos prison in Athens, denies wrongdoing. His arrest has triggered protests."

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Travel Top 5: World's Best Low-Cost Airlines, Dec 28, 2011

"Travellers are flocking to low-cost airlines like never before, but they still want good service for their money. Those airlines that managed to do that the best were recognized earlier this year at the 2011 World Airline Awards."

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CBC News - Pop artist James Rizzi dies at 61 - Arts & Entertainment, Dec 28, 2011

"James Rizzi applied his playful, cartoon-like art style to unusual projects worldwide, from Volkswagen Beetles and Japanese train ads to cow sculptures in New York and the front page of a German newspaper.
His creations included images for German postage stamps and a tourist guide to New York published this year. He was the official artist for the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta, the Montreux Jazz Festival in Switzerland and soccer World Cup games in France."

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Cheetah, chimp star of Tarzan movies, dies at 80, Dec 28, 2011

: "heetah, the chimpanzee that purportedly appeared in Tarzan movies in the early 1930s, has died of kidney failure at the age of 80, WTSP TV reports.
The Suncoast Primate Sanctuary in Palm Harbor, Fla., says the community "has lost a dear friend and family member" with the death of Cheetah on Dec. 24.
Sanctuary outreach director Debbie Cobb tells The Tampa Tribune that the chimp was outgoing, loved finger-painting and liked to see people laugh."

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The Associated Press - Against odds, Lipitor became world's top seller, Dec 28, 2011

"TRENTON, N.J. (AP) — Lipitor, the best-selling drug in the history of pharmaceuticals, is the blockbuster that almost wasn't.
When it was in development, the cholesterol-lowering medicine was viewed as such an also-ran it almost didn't make it into patient testing.
By the time Lipitor went on sale in early 1997, it was the fifth drug in a class called statins that lower LDL or bad cholesterol. The class already included three blockbusters, drugs with sales of $1 billion a year or more. Normally, that would make it very tough for a latecomer to sway many doctors and patients to switch.
But a 1996 study showed Lipitor reduced bad cholesterol dramatically more than the other statins, from the very start of treatment and even more so over time. A striking graph of those results helped Lipitor sales representatives turn it into the world's best-selling drug ever, with more than $125 billion in sales over 14 1/2 years."

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