The database suffers under high load of many client connections.
We are trying to reduce the load by disabling services temporarily. Buddylist and others may be affected.
Update 11:00: still optimizing components. The situation improves gradually, but will nevertheless take time.
Update 13:00: Operation resumed, but some services disabled. Buddylist status updates, points for the weekend (big sorry), Toplist, and some less visible components. Most important: chat works and people can meet each other. The world is back online.