Should Paypal Split from eBay & 3 More Stories You Can't Miss Today

ICAHN'S NEXT TARGET – After Apple, activist investor Carl Icahn now has eBay on the brains. The billionaire bought a 0.82 percent stake in the e-commerce company, which also includes the mobile payment business Paypal, purchased in 2002 for $1.5 billion. "We've done a lot of work on eBay and we believe without question it's a no-brainer that PayPal should be spun off," he told Bloomberg's Trish Regan. "(eBay) hasn't done as well as it should have ... there's no reason they should be together at this point." Though it's been a while since the online auction company – ancient by Internet standards – has done anything to excite the tech world, it is still a profitable business. Marketplaces (eBay) is still the bigger part of the business, but Payments (Paypal) is the one with momentum. "First, eBay accelerates PayPal's success. Second, eBay data makes PayPal smarter. And third, eBay funds PayPal's growth," CEO John Donahoe responded, according to Reuters. So no, thank you. He might find an ally in Apple CEO Tim Cook, who too has had to rebuff Icahn's advances.

THE WORLD'S UPSIDE DOWN – Economic data seems counterintuitive today: Europe's smiling, China's frowning. If you look closer, it makes sense. Europe is confirming its recovery, with eurozone activity at a 31-month high, according to preliminary PMI figures. But let's not forget that, and that's really all that matters. Meanwhile, Chinese manufacturing activity showed a surprise contraction in January, with a PMI at 49.6 (anything below 50 is bad). That's a 6-month low, but let's not panic just yet: the Lunar New Year is soon upon us and Chinese workers have already started traveling home.

WORLD WAR III? – Nouriel Roubini, the economist nicknamed "Dr. Doom" for his regular gloomy predictions for the world economy – and who was partly proved right by the 2008 financial crisis – is back with more bad news. At Davos last night, Roubini compared 2014 with 1914, arguing the word is in a similar state of unrest as before the start of WWI.

Of course, the war wouldn't be in Europe nowadays – Roubini's looking East to the growing tensions between China and Japan. As CNBC International points out, he did not pull the analogy out of thin air: Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe made similar remarks in Davos as his country and China are in conflict over islands in the East China Sea. As Europe prepares to commemorate the sad anniversary, stories comparing the two '14s abound – beware the analogies. When I was a teenager, everyone was convinced 1998 would be a repeat of 1968 – there were even songs written about it. But I have yet to build a barricade.

I SEE YOU, NOW I DON'T – These are real barricades. In Ukraine, opponents to the government of Viktor Yanukovych continue to protest and at least three people have been killed in clashes with the police. Protesters, journalists and others standing near the demonstration received an Orwellian text: "Dear subscriber, you are registered as a participant in a mass disturbance." Telecom providers have denied their involvement and the text was unsigned. The message, however, is loud and clear. Meanwhile in China, 500 million Internet users couldn't get online because of a glitch in the Great Firewall.

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