Business Briefing: The top stories you need to read

Good morning,

The Anglo Irish Bank saga nears an end as Tom Lyons reports that the special liquidators have less than 500 million euro of loans left to sell from the 23 billion euros they started with.

Win Butler, lead singer with Arcade Fire, has agreed to back a new charity coffee from Haiti having been persuaded by Kerryman Conor Murphy to back the venture.

Good news for Irish online start-up Buildingeye after it secured a deal with Palo Alto, capital of Silicon Valley, to provide the town with an online tool that allows people to find out what is going on in planning terms in their neighbourhoods.

Chris Johns warns that the EU is in a worse place than Japan ever was in terms of the stagnant growth and later today we'll be reporting on euro zone consumer confidence statistics and US home sales figures.

John Holden finds that the age barrier issue in the digital start-up sector is showing signs of breaking down while Lucy Kellaway dissects `new thinking` at AOL.

Finally, today is the deadline for our charity Christmas auction on signed original Martin Turner drawings from his book Turner's Taoisigh. They are signed by Taoiseach Enda Kenny, and four former taoisigh - Liam Cosgrave, John Bruton, Bertie Ahern and Brian Cowen - and funds raised will go to Dublin Simon and Concern Worldwide. Check out details on irishtimes.com/auction.

Conn O Midheach

Assistant Business Editor