Wall Street Journal Top Online Stories: Mon 11/29/10

The Wall Street Journal lead headline online early Monday morning says "Vast Leak Discloses Diplomatic Secrets." The paper says in the most popular story the publication of a quarter-million secret diplomatic cables exposed years of U.S. foreign-policy maneuvering that could prove embarrassing to the U.S. and its allies, especially in the Islamic world.

The paper says the surge in lawsuits against people who aren't paying their bills is driven by a debt-buying industry that has boomed in the past three years amid a sea of souring loans.

It says China said mounting tensions on the Korean peninsula in the wake of a deadly North Korean artillery attack on the South are "worrying" and called for emergency consultations in Beijing.

The paper says Europe sealed a $90 billion bailout of Ireland and for the first time crafted a blueprint for rescues from 2013 on that could have private-sector creditors bearing some of the cost.

It says the popularity of the VIX index, which has become a widely watched barometer of investor fear since the financial crisis, is generating a host of spinoffs, copycats and derivatives.

And it says the popularity of the VIX index, which has become a widely watched barometer of investor fear since the financial crisis, is generating a host of spinoffs, copycats and derivatives.