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European Central Bank President Mario Draghi says his strategy for battling Europe

The leaders of Germany and Italy sought to present a united front Wednesday in the fight to resolve the eurozone debt crisis and revive the ailing European economy.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel praised the efforts of Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti to cut government spending and make his nation’s economy more competitive.

"We have followed with great respect how quickly the measures are being implemented," said Merkel. "The work of the Italian government is being honored."

Monti said Italians support a "very hard series of measures," adding that Europe "doesn’t have to fear any more that Italy is a possible source of contagion."

Italy has been a big worry for global investors in recent months. The nation’s economy has been stagnant for a decade and its borrowing costs have ballooned, raising concerns about the government’s solvency.

Monti acknowledged that high interest rates could have been justified when market participants were uncertain about Italy’s economic policies. "But not anymore," he said, adding, "especially after representatives of those same markets have said they appreciated the efforts [Italy] made."

That assertion will be put to the test this week when the Italian government will offer €8.5 billion in bills Thursday and up to €4.75 billion in bonds Friday.

On Wednesday, yields on 10-year Italian bonds eased, but still held above the key 7% threshold.

Europe’s debt crisis: An end in sight? Not so fast

The meeting in Berlin between Merkel and Monti was the latest in a series of talks this week among top European Union leaders as they piece together a solution to the long-running government debt and banking problems in the eurozone.

Merkel met with International Monetary Fund director Christine Lagarde late Tuesday and French President Nicolas Sarkozy Monday. Lagarde will meet with Sarkozy later Wednesday in Paris.

Merkel and Sarkozy will travel to Rome for more talks with Monti on Jan 20. Then, the top leaders of all 27 members of the EU will gather in Brussels on Jan. 30 for their first summit of the year.

On Wednesday, Merkel and Monti discussed the situation in Greece, where Prime Minister Lucas Papademos is under pressure to push through reforms needed to secure additional bailout funds.

Merkel said the first step in resolving the debt crisis is to "create the preconditions" for a second bailout for Greece fast payday loan.

EU leaders agreed in October to provide a second €130 billion rescue package for Greece and announced a deal with private sector investors to voluntarily write down the value of Greek government bonds by 50% as part of a debt exchange.

But negotiations with the private sector have stalled and there is still disagreement among some policymakers over whether requiring Greece to enact more austerity as a condition of a second bailout will help or hurt the nation’s fragile economy.

"The talks with banks are being pushed so that the question of Greece can be solved rationally, so that we can then focus on structural reforms in the euro zone as a whole," said Merkel.

Europe: Still a huge pain in the neck for investors

Still, European leaders are optimistic that a proposed fiscal compact, designed to ensure that governments do not spend beyond their means and rack up unsustainable debts, will be signed by the end of the month.

"There is work to be done but there is a good chance that we can expect significant progress or a political conclusion already on Jan. 30," said Merkel.

The terms of the pact include, among other things, a balanced budget requirement with an "automatic correction mechanism," and a provision to make national budget policies subject to EU authority "ex ante," or before the fact.

The political leaders of the 17 eurozone nations, which share the embattled single euro currency, agreed in principle to abide by the pact following a summit on Dec. 9. But the agreement is still subject to parliamentary approval in some member states.

Merkel also suggested that Germany, the eurozone’s largest economy, could commit more capital to the European Stability Mechanism, which is expected to come into effect this year.

But Merkel was careful to say that Germany would contribute more capital to the fund only if necessary and other eurozone governments do the same.

The ESM would enhance or replace the eurozone’s current bailout fund, known as the European Financial Stability Facility. European leaders have said they will decide in March on a proposal to put more capital into the €500 billion ESM.

– CNN’s Diana Magnay contributed reporting from Berlin. 

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The King of Beers slipped another notch down the list of beer royalty in 2011.

Sales of Budweiser fell 4.6 percent last year, according to estimates by Beer Marketers Insights, to 17.7 million barrels, while Coors Light eked out a 0.8 gain to 18.2 million barrels. That means the Silver Bullet is now the nation’s second best-selling beer, after Bud Light.

It’s the first time in almost two decades that Anheuser-Busch (now Anheuser-Busch InBev) couldn’t claim the country’s two top brews, and it comes amid a long decline for the company’s flagship lager. Bud’s 4.6 percent decline actually marks its best performance in some time – sales fell nearly 10 percent in 2009 – and ABI has said one of its top priorities is to boost sales of the brand, both in the U no fax payday loans.S. and overseas.

Both ABI and Miller Coors saw overall shipments fall last year – 2.9 percent and 3 percent, respectively – amid a tough sales climate for the beer industry. ABI sold less beer in 2010 than it did in 2000, Beer Marketers estimates. But its income on those sales nearly doubled.

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A Saudi oil official said that whether Japan or other countries continue to buy Iranian oil was an “internal matter,” reflecting the unease in many nations after the latest U.S. sanctions on Tehran and Iran’s threats to choke off the Strait of Hormuz in response.

The comments by the Oil Ministry official were reported on Monday by the Saudi daily Al-Watan a day after Japanese Foreign Minister Koichiro Gemba met with senior Saudi officials in the kingdom’s capital, Riyadh.

The newspaper said that Japanese officials asked Saudi Arabia, the world’s largest oil exporter, to make up for the potential loss of Iranian oil for Japan. The Asian nation is now even more heavily dependent on oil and natural gas imports after last year’s tsunami forced the shutdown of nuclear reactors.

The latest U.S. sanctions target Iran’s central bank and are aimed at hindering Tehran’s ability to receive payment for its oil exports.

Al-Watan quoted the senior Saudi official as saying that “the issue of buying or not buying oil from Iran is an internal matter to be decided by these countries.” The official was not identified.

Still, Saudi officials have said that Gulf oil producers are ready to step in and offset any loss of Iranian oil in the market, though it remains unclear if the necessary pipelines that would reroute the oil away from the strait are all fully operational. One pipeline with a capacity of about 1.5 million barrels per day being built by the UAE has yet to be completed.

China, a major Iran oil importer, has resisted the sanctions effort. The Asian powerhouse’s deputy foreign minister, Cui Tiankai, said Monday that China’s trade relations with Iran have nothing to do with Tehran’s nuclear program and that sanctions alone cannot resolve the dispute.

The West maintains that Iran is enriching uranium with an eye on developing a weapon, an allegation Tehran denies. Iran says its program is for purely peaceful purposes.

The official Saudi Press Agency said Gemba’s meeting with Saudi Oil Minister Ali Al-Naimi and other top officials “dealt with the current situation in the international oil market and the importance of its stability Online payday loans.”

Iran has repeatedly raised the specter of closing the Strait of Hormuz, through which about a sixth of the world’s oil flows, if the U.S. and its allies impose measures targeting its oil exports.

Many analysts and officials have played down the comments as bluster by the Islamic Republic, noting that such a move would hit Iran hard given that it receives over 80 percent of its government revenue from oil sales.

But on Sunday, an Iranian newspaper quoted a senior Revolutionary Guard commander as saying that the country’s leadership had decided to close off the strait if its oil exports were targeted. The remark marked an escalation of earlier warnings that Tehran could easily close the waterway if it so desired.

The threats have rattled global oil markets, with the U.S. benchmark crude futures contract for February delivery hovering at slightly under $102 per barrel in electronic trading in Asia while its North Sea counterpart, Brent, was trading at above $113 per barrel in London.

Japan has been supportive of the U.S. and its allies’ efforts to pressure Iran over its controversial nuclear program. But Asian buyers of Iranian crude, in particular Japan and South Korea, are worried about the impact of the sanctions both on international crude prices and their economies.

Gemba, who is on an eight-day Mideast tour that began Thursday, later traveled to Qatar where they discussed the effect of santions on the oil market. He is slated to travel to the United Arab Emirates for meetings there on Tuesday.

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St. Louis should be in a better position to weather the latest round of airline consolidations — and a bankruptcy filing by another major carrier — than some other U.S. cities, aviation officials say.

Delta Air Lines halted its daily nonstop service between St. Louis and Washington’s Reagan-National Airport last week. But the Atlanta-based carrier expects to add a fifth flight later this year to New York’s La Guardia Airport, where it is beefing up its presence.

The latest round of airline mergers — which include the pairings of Southwest Airlines and AirTran and United Airlines and Continental — have communities bracing for lost competition and skimpier schedules.

But Lambert-St. Louis International Airport already took the brunt of its lost flights in the decade that followed American Airline’s acquisition of Trans World Airlines in 2001. Prior to that acquisition, TWA was the dominant carrier at Lambert.

Today, Lambert’s flight schedule is spread over 13 air carriers, said Airport Director Rhonda Hamm-Niebruegge. Southwest Airlines now offers more daily flights — 84 — than any other airline serving Lambert.

“It just happened to us first, which was hard,” Hamm-Niebruegge said. “It did give us time to see the value of diversification and going out and trying to broaden your base.”

In recent months, Southwest Airlines has merged with fellow low-cost carrier AirTran Airways. St. Louis is one of 33 markets served by both airlines. In July, AirTran moved to a gate and ticket space inside Lambert’s Terminal 2, near Southwest.

Southwest spokeswoman Laurel Moffat said the airline is working on obtaining Federal Aviation Administration approval to operate as a single carrier. Southwest expects to receive the single-operation certificate by the end of the first quarter.

But the process of absorbing AirTran into the Southwest brand is expected to take several years, she said. AirTran serves Atlanta and Orlando from St. Louis. Southwest already has picked up AirTran’s service between Milwaukee and Lambert.

The AirTran merger with Southwest will cause “a lot of problems” elsewhere — including AirTran’s hub in Atlanta — but none is expected in St. Louis, said airline analyst Michael Boyd my credit score. Same is true for the United-Continental merger.

“Honestly, you have fewer brand choices,” he said. “But we’ve looked at this. There aren’t any great changes in terms of access for St. Louis.”

Last month, Delta Air Lines and US Airways concluded a swap of slots at Reagan-National Airport and La Guardia Airport, respectively.

The move nixed one Delta flight between St. Louis and Reagan. But Delta expects to add a flight to La Guardia this spring, giving it five direct flights between Lambert-St. Louis and that destination.

Delta completed its merger with Northwest Airlines in 2008.

United and Continental completed their merger in October 2010 and are still integrating their operations. A spokesman said the company is working toward adopting a single United brand identity late this quarter. So far, no changes have been announced in St. Louis.

Hamm-Niebruegge said the destinations currently served by United and Continental flights don’t compete.

United has daily flights to Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport, Denver, San Francisco and Washington’s Dulles Airport out of Lambert. Continental flies to Cleveland, Houston and Newark.

Hamm-Niebruegge said nothing has changed with American Airlines’ local plans either.

AMR Corp., American’s parent company, filed for bankruptcy protection in November and made immediate assurances that there would be no immediate changes to the flight schedules in St. Louis.

Overall, St. Louis is “in a steady state right now,” said aviation consultant Darryl Jenkins, chairman of the American Aviation Institute.

The only thing that would upset the status quo would be a jolt to the area economy — good or bad, Jenkins said. Dramatic improvements to the region’s economic condition could mean more flights. Conversely, a loss of employers would mean fewer planes.

“I think for the foreseeable future, St. Louis will probably keep the city pairs it has and keep those frequencies,” Jenkins said.

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The European Commission has criticized Belgium’s 2012 budget as too optimistic, indicating that the country has to adopt more austerity measures or risk sanctions.

The country’s finance minister quickly reacted to the Commission’s intervention, saying Friday that the government was determined to meet its fiscal targets this year.

Belgium has promised to cut its budget deficit to 2.8 percent of economic output this year, from around 3.6 percent in 2011. But the Commission, the European Union’s executive, believes the Belgian government won’t be able meet this target unless tax revenues or spending cuts are increased.

The Commission’s criticism of the budget is a particularly sensitive issue in Belgium, where political parties needed more than one and a half years to set up a government, which was finally sworn in in December.

Prime Minister Elio Di Rupo had to balance the demands of the country’s strong Dutch-speaking community, which has been demanding more financial autonomy, and the French-speaking region, which is weaker economically.

But Belgium has one of the highest debt loads in the eurozone and analysts fear that it risks being dragged into the currency union’s debt crisis. Under EU rules, Belgium has to bring its deficit below 3 percent of GDP and spell out how it plans to reduce it debt to below 60 percent of GDP over the long-term, from about 100 percent currently.

“It is normal that the Commission is asking us questions,” Belgian Finance Minister Steven Vanackere told reporters outside the government offices. “The budget was set up at the end of the year at high speed. It was not the normal way to do things.”

He stressed that the government would strive to get its deficit below the 3 percent limit this year. “Belgium has not plans to skirt its responsibilities,” Vanackere said. “We want to _ also for ourselves and not for Europe _ make sure that the deficit gets under the 3 percent payday loans.”

The EU’s Economic Affairs Commissioner Olli Rehn last fall threatened to hit Belgium _ along with Malta and Cyprus countries _ with sanctions under the bloc’s new, stricter budget rules. Two non-euro countries _ Hungary and Poland _ were also suspected of overspending, but they would not face financial penalties.

A spokesman for the Commission said Friday that Rehn’s office was seeking clarification from the governments of all five countries to assess whether their estimates for both revenue and expenditure estimates were “credible.” No decision on sanction had been taken yet, he said, but added that it could come very soon.

The EU’s executive has been taking a much more active role in policing member states’ budgets after lackluster enforcement of the bloc’s budget rules allowed countries like Greece or Italy run up high debts.

Under the new sanctions regime, a country that is not doing enough to reduce its deficit and debt will have to pay an interest-bearing deposit of 0.2 percent of GDP, which could eventually be turned into a fine. The new rules also make it harder for countries to block sanctions against their partners.

Julien Manceaux, an economist at ING in Brussels, said the intervention from the Commission did not come as a surprise, adding that the Belgian government is already set to re-examine this year’s budget in February.

“The Belgian deficit is among the lowest in the eurozone anyway so it is certainly not a reason to panic,” he said. “But it is for sure that markets will keep an eye on the decisions that will be taken again in 2012 to stabilize debt trajectory.”

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Raf Casert and Mark D. Carlson contributed to this article.

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Stocks barely budged Wednesday, and investors held on to their gains from a strong opening to the year. It wasn’t much, but after the lurching, up-and-down weeks of 2011, investors were grateful for the winning streak.

Strong December sales helped the stocks of automakers and specialty stores. Banks, health care companies, and utilities fell slightly. Netflix surged after its first good news in months.

But nothing else moved much. The Dow Jones industrial average edged up 21.04 points, or 0.2 percent, to close at 12,418.42. The Dow opened the year with a 180-point gain Tuesday, which brought it to the highest level since July.

“At least thus far in 2012 we haven’t followed the path of 2011, where if it’s a good day, there’s a bad day right away,” said Ryan Detrick, senior technical analyst with Schaeffer’s Investment Research.

The Standard & Poor’s 500 index and Nasdaq also had big gains Tuesday but only moved a fraction of a point a day later. The S&P inched up 0.24 to close at 1,277.30. The Nasdaq fell 0.36 to 2,648.36.

“It’s healthy to see that after a big rally,” said Randy Warren, chief investment officer for Warren Financial Service. “People need to sit back and think about it.”

Retailing industry stocks rose 0.8 percent as a group after post-Christmas sales came in 5.3 percent better than a year ago. Bed Bath & Beyond Inc. rose 1.8 percent, and Ross Stores Inc., which sells discounted clothes, rose 0.7 percent.

Big-box stores fell, though. Analysts have been concerned that some stores raised holiday sales with deep discounts that will hurt profits. Wal-Mart Stores Inc. fell 1.1 percent, making it the second-biggest decliner among the Dow’s 30 stocks. Target Corp. fell 2.2 percent and Kohl’s Corp. fell 1.4 percent.

Automakers delivered a strong end to 2011, helped carmaker stocks. Analysts had been expecting December to be a strong sales month for cars on the theory that more confidence in the economy would unlock pent-up demand. Ford Motor Co. rose 1.5 percent and General Motors Co. rose 0.5 percent after those two companies and Chrysler reported strong increases in December and full-year sales low fee payday loans.

Visa Inc. fell 1.8 percent and MasterCard Inc. fell 3.3 percent. Janney analysts downgraded both to “neutral” from “buy” and predicted that Americans will keep cutting their personal debt.

The biggest winner in the S&P 500 was Netflix Inc., up 11.4 percent. The company, which delivers movies and TV shows online and by mail, said customers had streamed more than 2 billion hours of video in the fourth quarter.

The yield on 10-year Treasury notes briefly popped above 2 percent, then fell to to 1.98 percent in the afternoon. Yields have been falling over the past year as investors have loaded up on low-risk investments. A rise in yields suggests that investors are more willing to take risks by parking money elsewhere in exchange for higher rewards.

The price of gold rose $12.20 to $1,612.70 per ounce. Oil rose 26 cents to $103.20.

European markets declined, and the euro fell back below $1.30, to $1.2945, within a penny of its lowest level in a year. Another increase in Italy’s borrowing costs renewed worries about Europe’s efforts to restore confidence in its debt-hobbled governments.

In other corporate news:

_ Acme Packet Inc., which makes phone equipment, plunged 19 percent after saying its quarterly profit and revenue would be well below analyst expectations.

_ Yahoo Inc. fell 3.1 percent after the company named Scott Thompson, president of eBay Inc.’s PayPal division, as CEO _ its fourth in five years. Yahoo has been without a permanent CEO since firing Carol Bartz in September. EBay fell 3.8 percent.

_ Fallen photography pioneer Eastman Kodak Co. fell 18 cents to 47 cents after The Wall Street Journal, quoting people familiar with the matter, reported it is preparing a bankruptcy filing in case its efforts to sell some of its patents fail. On Tuesday, Kodak said its stock could be removed from the New York Stock Exchange if it doesn’t rise above $1 in the next six months.

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Chinese and Indian manufacturing gauges rose in December, suggesting that Asia

European stock markets headed higher in early trading Monday, while South Korea’s benchmark Kospi closed flat following the New Year’s holiday weekend.

Britain’s FTSE 100 index rose 0.1 percent at 5,572.28. Germany’s DAX was 1.1 percent higher at 5,960.04. France’s CAC-40 rose 0.5 percent to 3,174.76.

South Korea’s Kospi index, which lost 11 percent of its value last year, closed nearly unchanged at 1,826.37. Most other Asian markets were closed for an extended New Year’s holiday.

South Korea’s tech sector move higher, with Samsung Electronics up 2.1 percent and LG Electronics gaining 2.3 percent. Steel giant POSCO slid 1.1 percent and Korea Electric Power shed 1.8 percent.

Taiwan’s TAIEX, which was also open for business Monday, fell 1.7 percent to 6,952.21. Foxconn Technology, the world’s biggest contract electronics manufacturer, which makes iPads and iPhones for Apple Inc., fell 0.9 percent. Personal computer maker Acer Inc. shed 2.3 percent.

Benchmarks in the Philippines and India rose while Indonesia fell.

The Asian-Pacific region’s major benchmarks, including Japan’s Nikkei 225 index, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index and Australia’s S&P ASX 200, were closed. Markets in the U.S. are also closed in observance of New Year’s Day.

Last year was one that traders would prefer to forget: most Asian equity indexes closed out 2011 deeply in the red unsecured personal loans. The Nikkei in Tokyo ended the year at 8,429.45 _ its lowest closing since 1982.

China’s benchmark Shanghai Composite Index, closed Monday, endured a 21 percent loss for the year as the impact of Beijing’s multibillion-dollar stimulus faded and the government tightened curbs on lending and investment to cool blistering economic growth.

Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index finished at 18,434.39 _ a precipitous slide of 19.7 percent from a year ago. Singapore’s Straits Times Index took a 17.5 percent dive when it closed at 2,646.35 on Friday.

Australia’s benchmark S&P ASX 200 ended the year at 4,140.4 _ 14.5 percent lower for 2011.

India’s benchmark Sensex index fell more than 22 percent in 2011, making it one of the worst performers globally. The rupee also lost about 14 percent this year and recently hit an all-time low, breaching 54 rupees to the dollar.

In hopes of reducing volatility and attracting foreign cash, India announced Sunday that it would allow individual foreign nationals to invest directly in its stock market starting Jan. 15. Currently, foreign investors are limited to indirect investments such as mutual funds.

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