passenger service and i took care of those passengers. one of the unfortunate things to this very day is that when i go out on a day when there are no clouds, when i go out on a beautiful day, i look up and i go, that sky is september 11th blue. and that's what was taken away from me. i've never yet been able to look at t sky and not said, september 11th blue because that's the way it was that day. hello, i'm monita rajpal in

london. saudi gadhafi, moammar gadhafi's son and eight official libyans officials were allowed entrance on sunday. field marshall mohammed hussein was scheduled to appear on sunday but his testimony was postponed until september 24th because he says he's dealing with last week's riots. mubarak is accused of ordering protesters shot during last winter's uprising. ♪ o say can you see the u.s. continues to mark ten years since the 9/11 terrorist attacks on new york and washington. solemn ceremonies were held sunday at ground zero, the pentagon and shanksville, pennsylvania, honoring the nearly 3,000 people killed. while there were no attempted attacks on sunday,

fighter jets were scrambled to escort two commercial airliners to their u.s. destinations. passengers on each flight were reported to be acting suspiciously but authorities determined they posed no threats. no arrests were made. those are the headlines from cnn, the world's business leader. i'm monita rajpal. "world business today" starts right now. good morning from cnn london, i'm nina dos santos. >> a very good afternoon from cnn hong kong, i'm andrew stevens. you're watching "world business today." the top stories this monday, september 12th, banking stocks in europe plunged as warning bells ring about a possible greek default. >> g8 leaders write a $38 billion check to help shore up arab spring nations. >> and pimco's ceo, mohammed el-erian says the u.s. risks

recession if it doesn't press ahead with the billion dollar jobs plan. if investors didn't feel like getting out of bed to face another week, it would be understandable. divisions among european officials have opened up over how to contain it. the german government is also taking measures that look like preparations for a greek default. now, worries over the potential economic fallout hit stock markets around the world last week and the pain shows no signs of ending here in asia and also in europe this monday, nina. >> yes. speaking of europe, andrew, let's have a look at how the european markets are doing right now. we're about an hour into the trading session and it's a sea of red. some of the markets down, like zurich to the tune of 5% as we speak. heavy losses from germany, also to france. cac 40, that one down about 4.8%. investors have their eye firmly fixed on banking stocks

following steep losses on friday with the major lenders with exposures to greece. a number listed in paris. that's one of the reasons this market is doing quite so badly this morning. there's more gloom in the banking sector, particularly here in the united kingdom. the ftse down 2.6% at the moment. lenders in britain are facing an annual bill of as much as $9.5 billion to comply with new rules and regulations designed to try and -- their high street retail operations from their investment banking activities. that is affecting share prices across the banking industry. we have the likes ever societe generale. in britain, one of the banks that could be affected by this report of this new banking regulation report that perhaps could be coming into effect by 2019 is hsbc, that company stock down to the tune of 6.6% in just the first hour of trading. andrew?

>> okay. ni nina, asia pacific markets opening in a clear sell-off mode as well following the big losses in europe on friday. let's go to our asia business analyst, rami inocencio. >> markets red across the board. banks in particular were slammed, which brought the numbers down. the nikkei fell oust the gate and closed down 2.3%, this is nearly its lowest close in 2 1/2 years, since april 2009. exporters, too, including nissan, sony, panasonic, those slul ed 3% to 4%. the hang seng had a similar picture. they closed down about 2.4%. that hurt shipping, oil and banking stocks. the index closed down more than 4%. losses accelerating in the last two hours as you can see here. on the choi these mainland, the

shanghai composite was closed for the midautumn festive holiday. imports hit a record high for august. the forecast was for a 21% jump right here. instead, china clocked in much more. that was actually a 30% jump. this number here implies strong and growing domestic demand even though the rest of the world appears to be slowing down. finally, back to those markets. in australia, the asx 200 closed down 3%. in fact, west pact was one of the big bank losers across the region. mitsubishi fell 3%, icbc, the biggest bank by market value fell nearly 4.8% and hsbc, the world ae world's third largest bank is

down 3.7%. >> ramy, thanks very much for that, ramy inocencio. nina? >> andrew, u.s. stocks headed for significant declines when they start trading later on today. this is where the futures market stand in the premarket action. the nasdaq down to the tune of 1.5%. getting off lightly. take a look at the broader index, the s&p 500 down nearly 2% as we speak in terms of the futures. andrew? >> okay. as we mentioned before, tensions are running high in europe over the debt crisis. on friday, this man, the european central bank chief economist decided it was all too much. he resigned. he had been a critic of the bond program designed to support heavily indebted nations such as italy, spain and portugal and the most troubled one in all of the euro zone, gross. greece remains at the heart of the difficulties.

joining us now is a senior trader at etx capital in london. minoj, first of all, when you see the share prices on the big european, particularly the french banks acting like they have been over the past couple of days, what is that telling you about the expectations in the market as far as a greek default is concerned? >> well, the expectations of the default start to increase, especially when you start to see some of these massive french banks that the share price is going lower and lower and the increasing possibility of a credit rating downgrade. it's not particular lit french banks because although they have a large amount of greek debt, this is also the other european banks that do have exposure there. it's the contagion effect across europe. you can find other major nations, banking system could also come under pressure. we're seeing that to some extent because the money markets seem to be going back to 2008 and

freezing up again and credit seems to be coming tighter and tighter to get hold of. it's having a massive knock-on effect across europe. it's having a huge effect on the banking system and likewise, it's having a massive impact in the uk has well. >> just before we move on to the uk, if there is a greek default and this does seem to be heading into political circles as well after what we've been hearing from germany in recent days, if there is a greek default, what would the impact be on some of those most exposed banks, the french banks, the german banks and even some of the uk banks? >> it's difficult to quantify exactly what effect it would have. but markets tend to have a tendency to price in the very worst case scenario. you can picture in the short term, certainly, those banks would suffer from extreme sell-offs. we could see asset prices going back to levels of round about 2008 where they became increasingly depressed and there

were in oversell territory and they bounce back once everything is resolved. the french banks have a large amount of exposure to greek sovereign debt. and until the issues have been resolved, it's likely those share prices, those banks will come under extreme pressure. >> now, on the uk side, we just had the vickers report out looking at the uk banks and -- retail operations by 2019. this report has been long awaited. did you see any surprises in this or was it pretty much as expected? >> it was pretty much as expected. but i think there is a positive in that the vickers report did extend the talk about deadline, the deadline we were looking at was 2015. they've extended out to 2019 which gives the banks more leeway in order to recapitalize and restructure their investment operations from the retail division as well. it particularly affects barclays

and rbs because they have big investment banking sides. they'll have to capitalize those sides of the business as well as the retail banking business. under normal market conditions you'd probably be looking to invest in these banks. it does draw a line under the current issues. given the way the mark set at the moment and could continue over the next few weeks or so, it's probably a secretarier that you're probably avoiding. >> there's nothing normal going on in the banker sector at the moment. manoj with atx capital, thank you. nina? andrew, it could be a very ugly day for another bank and for employees of bank of america. reports say that this company's planning to ax about a sixth of its total work force in the united states. let me show you exactly how much that amounts to, no less than 0,000 jobs at this company. a spokesman for the bank wouldn't immediately confirm the reports in "the wall street journal" and the "los angeles

times." those reports say that b of a has announced that it will be closing about 10% of its branches in the next few hours. brian monaghan is expected to speak at an investor conference that kicks off at 9:00 a.m. in new york this monday. we'll take a short break. when we come back, we want to stick with greece because it is such a key topic for financial markets around the world. as we know, greece is on the ropes financially but many greeks are on the barricades as the government still sticks to its guns in the fight over austerity. we'll take a look at its latest, some would say, desperate attempt to avoid a default. just ahead. with zyrtec® i can love the air®.

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given the turmoil we're seeing in the market and the reputation gold has taken lately. most investors seem to be taking cover in ten-year bonds. german, british and the u.s. bonds getting a boost today as gold falls out of favor. welcome back. you're watching "world business today." >> let's get back to greece which is sharply in focus as the markets look for signs of an imminent default. it seems exactly what the greek government is hoping to avoid as it struggles to keep rescue funds coming in from foreign lenders and fights to keep a lid on widespread unrest at home. in an effort to fill a budget gap, the greek government has announced a new property tax on sunday. it also said that it would be withholding a month's pay from all elected central and local government officials. those measures followed violent clashes between pless and protesters and protests on the streets of the capital, athens at week end.

they haven't been enough to head off industrial action this monday as taxi drivers and rubbish collectors go on strike against the government's insistence on austerity. even as all that turmoil continues to engulf this country, george papandreou is about to keep this in check. let's go to athens for more on that. this situation just seems to be going from worse to worse every single day. do you get the feeling in athens where you are that people are eventually pricing in perhaps a default or departure from the europe eventually. >> there's certainly a lot of concern in athens as you mentioned before. we've just had additional measures. the measures were there because there was a shortfall in order

for greece to meet the requirements, 2 billion shortfall for greece to meet its requirements towards creditors. that's an additional thing that just came up. we've heard measures announced at different stages. this is something that's concerning people here a lot. they're worrying that we don't know what's coming next. the government says it can make ends meet but can it really? the new shortfalls. we just heard that the recession will be higher than we expected, reaching 5.3%. so it's just a case of numbers not really adding up. and that's something that's bringing people to the street. it's creating a lot of insecurity here in athens. >> it must be quite difficult for the greek politicians at the moment, elinda. every time they come out with new tightening measures, the economy contracts just that little bit more and it becomes more difficult for them to pay back what they need to pay in the short term, let alone the

long term. >> well, that's right. and that's what we've been seeing for a long time now. this is not new. and so new estimates have to be made. new negotiations, if you like, as you saw, we just had a second bailout plan arranged in the summer. of course that gives a lot of reason for concerns to politicians as well. but the prime minister, as we saw him speak over the weekend, said that, you know, his government is really determined to follow this course and to make sure that greece does stay within the euro zone. and all the actions of the government so far are showing exactly that. the government is not backing down in terms of the measures that it has said it will take. it has said no matter what the political cost, it will go ahead with them. and this is something that we expect to see partly because greece does not have very much leeway at this point. >> elinda, many thanks for that.

andrew? nina, japan's new prime minister is moving quickly to replace one of his ministers after embarrassing comments quickly ended his already short cabinet tenure. straight ahead, just what money can buy the g8 in the middle east. we'll take a look at that. john defterios will be joining us with more. stay with us.

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of crude oil at the moment. this is where the nymex crude for october delivery is standing at the moment, down nearly $2 on the barrel at a price of $85.25. this is "world business today," welcome back. japan's prime minister is waste nothing time naming a replacement for his economy trade and industry minister who quit this weekend in disgrace. he served a little more than one week on the job. he resigned amidst a firestorm of criticism for remarks he made during a visit to japan's crippled fukushima daiichi nuclear plant. he referred to the evacuated communities around the plant as, quote, towns of death. he apologized as he announced his resignation. >> today i met prime minister noda. he's just accepted my proposal of the resignation from his

post. i'm sorry he made people feel a sense of mistrust. i'm very sorry. >> cnn learned that the former government spokesman, yukio edano will take over for nado. the democracy movement in the middle east has been given a major financial boost. g8 and arab governments are now writing out a $38 billion check to help arab countries rebuild their political systems and create new jobs across the region. that's almost double what they originally pledge. now, that move is also helping shore up investor confidence in the region. john defterios is at cnn abu dhabi. this is obviously a considerable amount of money. is there a fear here that if

these emerging democracies didn't get any funding like this that things could take a turn for the worse in the arab spring? >> i think that's a fair comment, andrew. there's been quite a bit of appreciate your building in the last week to ten days, especially those from tunisia and egypt. this was nearly double the amount promised by the g8 and arab countries and international institutions at the end of may in deville. some interesting points to add, in terms of insight. this is preventative medicine as well. it adds jordan and morocco. money for those going through political and economic reforms. of the roughly $38 billion on the table, a quarter from the golf arab states and half of the sum being provided by nine institutions. the quite interesting, the collective firm, the ebrd, the

imf, the world bank and the opec fund, taking the oil money and putting into the region for stability. the final point here, this is completely tied to political and economic reforms. they'll be writing checks i should say over the next three years but it is completely linked to hurdles along the way for political and economic reforms as they go through and also as elections take place. >> it's interesting you mention elections. because there's a lot of uncertainty, of course, around elections. these more than certainly recent history. so i wonder if in these times of uncertainty that money will be able to replace lost money which is not going in because investors aren't confident? >> you know, there's two sides to this. the public money you're referring to, we have two interim governments in place in tunisia and egypt. it's fair to say in both those countries we've had a private sector investment strike.

i sat down with the egyptian finance minister, the interim minister. he said this is not a surprise that investors at least right now, are station on the sidelines. >> the upridesing, changing political situation, not only in egypt but the whole region, the only safe position is --. of course we need immensely the financial support. it is helpful. it is important. but on the other hand we understand. >> they understand the situation right now that investors in the private sector were staying on the sidelines. it is a painful transition, andrew. these are the numbers for the first half of 2011. at the top line, a negative 3% growth rate in the first half of 2011. fiscal year 2012 according to the international monetary funned from july to june 2012 they're hoping for growth of

1.8% if tourism comes back into place and foreign direct investment from the private sector, 2012-2013, they think if those factors are in place we could see growth of 4% in egypt. egypt had $50 billion, andrew, between 2005 and 2010 in terms of fdi, which was considered very, very good. if you compare it to turkey, a population roughly the same size, turkey brought in better than $80 billion in that time frame. turkey is considered a model of political transition, economic transition that could work in egypt if they find stability in constitutional reform. >> absolutely. fdi, foreign direct investments. john defterios joining us live from cnn abu dhabi. nina? >> u.s. president barack obama is set to send his jobs plan to congress. but even if it passes, would it

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from cnn london, i'm nina dos santos. >> and i'm andrew stevens at cnn hong kong. welcome back, you're watching "world business today." >> it's been a rocky start to the trading day and week here in europe. things don't appear to be improving after friday's deep losses. take a look at that, the cac 40 down in excess of 4%. as you can see also the uk markets down to the tune of 2%. not better either. what we have at the moment is concerns of greece heading for a default yet again, affecting the markets. a lot of this was prompted by

the decision of a member of the ecb, european central bank's, executive committee to stand down at the end of the year. that's one of the reasons people are so concerned, banking stocks very much the losers at the moment. let's have a look at how they're doing, because they're extending their earlier losses. it is the first hour of trading. this is how some of the continent's biggest lenders are performing. worries to their exposure to greece rattling the markets. that is affecting societe generale. even steeper losses for bnp paribas and deutsche bank down 9%. hsbc doing slightly better. but still in the red like a number of other uk banks. what we have at the moment is not too much to cheer about these uk banks as their price suffers as well. there's a specific reason for that. it's thanks to industry regulations that have been laid

out set out by vickers in the united kingdom. the changes mean that the lenders are actually to foot an annual bill of 9.5 billion today's reinforce their operations from investment banking activities that move is aimed at providing a more secure foundation for british banks after some of their weaknesses were exposed by the financial crisis. even though the changes will be costing the banks money, they have plenty of time to comply with them until 2019 which is actually a bit more forgiving a deadline that many expected when this vickers report was originally commissioned. andrew? >> we're talking about 2015, weren't they? an extra four years to get the uk banking house in order. banks are very much front and center in this part of the world as well is another big sell-off in asia, really following the markets from friday europe and the u.s. both sharply down on friday. that selling was picked up here as the first region to resume

trading for the new week. that was the result here today. the nikkei down by 2.3%. the exporters in japan taking a hit as the euro weakened against the yen. and the big carmakers, the big electronicsmakers all down between 3% and 4%. hong kong, big sell-off in hong kong as well. down 4.2%. the selling got quicker towards the end of the day, which is always a bad sign. shanghai, the markets closed today. but there were interesting economic numbers coming out from china referring to trade. and finally, the australian index as you see, down 3.7%. that was the big mining companies on fears about the strength of the glebl economy. nina, it's still very much, it's the euro story, the u.s. is sort of off the boiler somewhat at the moment. it's all about what's going to happen with the euro. is greece going to default?

will it end up outside of the euro zone? what does that mean for countries like portugal own other worrying economies. so many questions going on. investors going into bonds. that's their safe haven today. >> perhaps not greek bonds or portuguese or irish bonds, of course, andrew. >> yes. >> the issue just comes back and each time you think it's gone away it comes back again. it's amazing to think that two years on, those same questions you were asking remain unanswered. aside from watching the european debt crisis, investors on the other side of the atlantic will also be getting key readings from retail sales and inflation figures this week. here's a preview of what's on the agenda later today. >> it should be a quiet week on wall street. we're still expecting volatility as a lot of the focus remains on the turmoil in europe. i'm alison kosik at the new york stock exchange.

given that august is a key month for back-to-school shopping, the second most important sales event of the year after christmas. investors will be looking to see if consumers are ready and willing to spend when it matters. the report will include the period when hurricane irene caused havoc in many areas. that meant a boost in sales of emergency related supplies but a disruption of the normal back-to-school buying. monthly readings on producer and consumer prices come out this week. last month's cpi reading saw a rise of 0.5%, due in large part to the highest price of cotton. we'll also get a gauge of how shoppers are feeling about the economy going forward with a reading on consumer sentiment in september in addition to readings on import and export prices and industrial production and weekly jobless claims. tuesday, microsoft's bill conference kicks off where samsung will reportedly unveil a new tablet computer that runs on microsoft windows 8 operating system. it would be samsung's

window-based tablet, though it makes window-based laptops. at the new york stock exchange, i'm alison kosik. it does look like it's going to be much of a start to the week. u.s. markets heading for some significant declines at the start of trade. you can see there, that's what the futures are doing a few hours before the market opens. the dow futures trading down 1.6%, the s&p, 1.5% as is the nasdaq. the selling continues by the looks of it, nina. >> selling continues and banks are very much in focus. the u.s. president barack obama plans a rose garden announcement in just a few hours from now. he's expected to say that he's sending his $447 billion jobs plan to congress on monday night. the president outlined the plan last week during a speech to congress. republicans say that they will consider it. but it's not yet clear how much, if any of it, congress will eventually approve. mohammed el-erian told cnn's

poppy harlow, he likes the plan though he says it doesn't go far enough. >> i very much welcome the fact that the administration finally gets it. it realizes that this is a crisis and that something gets done. it's also good to see them move away from what has been a piecemeal, ad hoc approach to something more comprehensive and holistic. the issues are two-fold. one is how are we going to pay for this. so there's going to be a lot of anticipation for the fiscal component of this package and second, you're absolutely right. can we get enough political unity behind any initiative? my sense is there's a real danger that washington may make the best, the enemy of the good. that should ab voided. >> absolutely that should ab voided. what do you think is the most necessary component of what was proposed and the most likely to really get through congress the way it stands now? >> so i think if you approach

this as a technocrat, an economist, you really don't want to give up on much. because if anything this is just a building block. more is going to be needed as we go forward. as a technocrat, i wouldn't give up on much. as a political scientist, there may be some need to give up on something but i would argue that there's enough in common in this package that hopefully we can get enough of a convergence to the center. that will be absolutely key. and i would just caution against giving up too much because i would have gone much, much deeper in terms of reforms than president obama went. >> you've said ahead of this plan we need something that will remove the structural impediments to growth. you say you'd go much further. what would you have done that we didn't see from the president? do you think he held back because he knows the politics of the situation. >> remember, poppy, we cited five areas where you needed to

lift structural impediments. americans know what they are. they feel it every single day. one is housing, two is the labor market, three is infrastructure, four is credit and five is medium term finances. here president obama tries to deal with four of the five issues but doesn't go deep enough in housing. so the 4% mortgage refinancing is a good step but more needs to be done. on credit, what is being put forward is relatively modest. and on the labor market, we need a major emphasis, poppy, i can't stress this enough, a major emphasis on not only helping the long-term unemployed, which is critical but also retrain and retooling. i see this as a very promising first step but an incomplete journey if you like. >> of course we should remember that the u.s. president barack obama's speech is likely to be

coinciding with news that bank of america could be cutting 0,000 jobs, according to reports. poppy harlow, you can find more reports from her and the whole cnn money team online. just go to cnnmoney.com. for more information on that and if you want to see that interview again, that's where you'll find it. andrew? >> let's get everybody up to date on the weather patterns. a new tropical storm could be bearing down on japan. ivan cabrera has been covering that for us. >> we have been talking about this storm here that is continuing to get better organized in the western pacific here. it's a tropical depression 18 at this point. it is going to be a tropical storm eventually as it continues to move off to the west. if you're watching this from japan, no worries from mainland japan. this is going to be a situation similar to one of the last few

storms that hit through islands. wor not expecting this to be a typhoon. if anything, it would be a low-wind typhoon. we're thinking 102 in 72 hours. thereafter it could go anywhere, head up to shanghai or perhaps head north into the yellow sea. first things first. we have to get through the next 72 hours. that will be for the islands in japan. also want to talk about the monsoon situation in southeastern pakistan. millions have now been affected. we have 13,000 camps that have been set up for 150,000 folks that have been left without homes. 650,000 homes have been partially or completely destroyed as a result of so much rain that has fallen so far in this monsoonal season. there's been a disaster here.

we continue to see unfortunately that exact area getting hit again with more heavy rain over the next couple of days. tropical storm, then a hurricane, now an extra tropical storm. we're talking about katia, what was once a hurricane in the atlantic basin is an extra dr tropical system, has fronts and all. it is approaching the uk with gales. this comes on the heel that brought severe weather through, dumped hail in germany the size of about 8 centimeters and maria, a tropical storm in the atlantic. if you have interest across the leeward islands, that's about it. this one, andrew and nina will hook out to sea as we like the nice hook there. looking good with maria, not a significant threat right now to land. >> just very quickly, ivan. >> sure. >> that hurricane katia. >> yes. >> the remnants hitting the uk,

how unusual is that? >> not actually too unusual. when they hook around and do that loop they get picked up by the jet stream and turn extra tropical. that means essentially they're no longer a warm core cyclone to get their energy from the differences and temperature there. essentially they roll off. this thing was -- not this one but katia was moving at 70 to 80 kilometers per hour, moving to the northeast, moving that fast. we move faster than the other way around. nevertheless, gales are galz. that's what we expect today throughout the uk, especially across the north in those exposed western coasts there. andrew? >> okay. thanks very much for that explanation. nina. >> we're quite used to gales at this time of year, i can tell you that. >> okay. well, britain's prime minister

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welcome back. you're watching "world business today." >> david cameron is in moscow today, making his first visit since becoming the prime minister last year. he's hoping to build on trade links between the united kingdom and russia. matthew chance joins us live from cnn moscow to tell us what we can expect. matthew, business negotiations between these two countries have been fraught for some time now, particularly centering bp and its deals there. how much work will it take to restore them? >> well, it's going to take a lot of work to get them up to a friendly basis, essentially the relations have been strained, particularly since 2006 since

the killing of alexander litvinenko. andre lukavoi is in russia. they've been asking for extradition so he can face trial. it's turned into a major point of confrontation between london and moscow. certainly david cameron says he will raise this issue when he meets the two main leaders of russia, president medvedev and prime minister putin later on today. prime minister cameron also saying he wants the emphasis to be very much on forging better ties with russia, forging business lunks, a large delegation of british leaders from britain is accompanying david cameron. they'll be meeting their various counterparts in russia and the expectation is that there will be several hundred million dollars worth of deals that will be signed during this visit. and, of course, leading up to the visit, david cameron has said very clearly that he thinks

the two countries can make progress on various issues to boost their prosperity and their security. and so the british government as well as the russians i think as well, wanting to move beyond the sticking points that have stopped the relationship flourishing over the past several years, nina. >> matthew, i presume a lot of these deals will be focusing on the energy sector. that's primarily what russia has to offer and the united kingdom probably want. what about energy security and the issues that bp has faced, legal wrangling with tnkbp, legal wrangling over another deal. what about that? >> i think you're right, yes, it's the energy sector where british companies most want to do deals. obviously britain is a very energy hungry country. russia is the biggest energy producer in the world. it makes sense for those kinds of deals to go ahead. but there have been concerns, there have been a lot of

problems, of course recently we've seen with the joint venture that russia is involved -- sorry, that bp is involved in in russia. that's faced obstacles. bp's offices were raided just last month, as a matter of fact. that's been a concern to businesses. there is in general, a lot of concern has been expressed by british business leaders, british politicians as well about the rule of law in russia. is there a real concern that the rule of law is often not upheld in this country, that contracts, for instance, are subject to political bias, that they won't necessarily be held up in the courts in russia. that's something that i think is fundamentally problematic in the business relationship between britain and russia. many british companies simply do not have confidence that the rule of law in russia is strong enough for them to enter into big, lucrative business deals, nina. >> cnn's matthew chance from moscow. many thanks. andrew? nina, we're getting news

into us here at cnn that a lawyer for dominique strauss-kahn, the former imf managing director has confirmed the police have interviewed strauss-kahn over attempted rape allegations which have been laid by a french journalist, that alleged rape was alleged to have occurred several years ago. you remember mr. strauss-kahn is only back in france just a couple of weeks ago after charges of serious sexual assault against him by a hotel maid were dropped. he's still facing a civil suit in that case in new york. but the charges were dropped, the criminal charges were dropped. and now we're getting a confirmation from his lawyers in france that he has been interviewed over these rape allegation which is have been brought forward by the journalists tristan benoit. we'll give you an update as we get them here at cnn. you're watching "world business

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welcome back. you're watching "world business today" on cnn. let's bring you up to date with the sell-off on the world stock markets, particularly here in europe as you can see, the loss is pretty pronounced off the intraday lows. two things have investors worried. on the one hand it's default for greece and it's ramifications on the euro zone and another, the new banking reform which could

be implemented by 2019. that one leaving off retail banking divisions from commercial ones. that has these markets down as well. andrew. >> certainly have. futures in the u.s. are pointing down by 1.5%. it could be a pretty ugly day. for the moment, we're say so long. thanks for joining us here. i'm andrew stevens in hong kong. >> and i'm nina dos santos in lon didn't. you're watching cnn, the world's news leader.

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