All eyes on North Korea

The chase by Marty Cej:

2011 was not a banner year for dictators, despots and political strongmen. Kim Jong Il, the second-generation North Korean dictator has died, shoving the region into a period of uncertainty of unknown depth and time. The heir apparent is the 28-year-old son, Kim Jong Un, who has been educated in Switzerland and elsewhere and has been named a four-star general though he has no military experience. South Korean stocks slumped overnight and the country's military has gone on high alert. Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda's cabinet held a security meeting after the announcement. China sent its sincerest condolences. The dictator leaves behind an economy that is less than 3 percent the size of South Korea's and has relied on economic handouts since the 1990s when some 2 million people died from famine. Both are important measures of a despot's regime: economic catastrophe and body count. We're pursuing insight and analysis into what this new measure of instability could mean to a crucial economic region.

Eldorado Gold has agreed to buy European Goldfields in stock and cash in a deal valued at about $2.5 billion, giving Eldorado a foothold in the Aegean. Calls are out to the principals and we're looking at how the European Goldfields properties mesh with Eldorado's existing projects in China and South America.

Sino-Forest has defaulted on two sets of bond payments and will create a restructuring committee in the hopes of receiving waivers on additional payments to bondholders as it struggles to make it through another week. Our challenge today is to better understand the process of what Sino-Forest is trying to do and to talk about what recourse bondholders might have. We have contacted the company and are pursuing bond owners. We are also digging for analysts and lawyers who can tell us what the next steps are for investors.

U.S. Republicans in the House of Representatives have rejected a two-month extension of tax breaks for 160 million workers that was overwhelmingly approved by the Senate over the weekend. House Speaker John Boehner has demanded a new round of bargaining with the Democratic-controlled Senate to extend the tax break through 2012. Democrats are accusing him of reneging on a deal brokered by Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell and his Democratic counterpart Harry Reid.

The two arrived at the modest two-month extension on Friday after failing to break a deadlock over how to pay for the tax break for a full year. The debate will be difficult to settle with less than two weeks left before the tax break expires. And so it goes.