daughters >> tomorrow, my prime time exclusive with michael jackson's brother, jermaine what he thinks really happened to michael and what he says about his brother's doctor, conrad murray. >> the first time i saw conrad murray was in the hospital. i understand that he was -- there was something with paris that he came into their lives before, but the first time i saw him was in the hospital and i just didn't have a good feeling. >> an extraordinary interview with jermaine jackson, a prime time exclusive that's tomorrow night. that's it for us tonight. hello, i'm monita rajpal at

cnn london. libya's interim leadership is giving civilians until thursday night to leave the gadhafi stronghold of bani walid. many have been streaming out of town. . a western diplomat tells cnn an official from oman is on his way to tehran to help the negotiatings in the case against two hikers sentenced for spying in iran. iran's judiciary says it is considering a request to set bail in the case. this seems to contradict previous statements by the hingers' attorney and iranian president mahmoud ahmadinejad. pakistani disaster officials say flooding has killed at least 2 3 people in southeast pakistan in recent weeks. the u.n. says 300,000 people have been forced from their homes and into temporary camps. officials say 80% of the cash

crops are damaged or destroyed in the province. british lawmakers are asking whether social media contributed to the extent and intensity of the riots that left london smoldering last month. representatives from facebook and twitter will answer questions in a parliamentary hearing on thursday. those are the headlines from cnn, the world news leader. i'm monita rajpal. "world business today" starts right now. hello and welcome to westbou "world business today," i'm andrew stevens in dalian. and i'm nina dos santos. these are the top stories on thursday, september 15th. >> ubs says an unthorauthorized trade has cost a $2 billion loss. >> investors get their appetite back as europe pulls together on the greek debt crisis.

and three years to the day, since lehman brothers imploded, we ask the imf how much has changed in the banking sector. let's get straight to the markets. investors have appeared to have voted with their wallets this morning, following wednesday's reissuances from france and greece that they will stand behind greece on its own problems. france and germany on the issues surrounding greece. the message from the german chancellor, angela merkel, the greek prime minister, papandreou and nick has sarkozy, following a conference call is that greece will not be forced out of the you'rio. that's lifted stock markets around the world. one stock that is taking a pounding that we should mention, listed on the zurich smi.

there's a stock in focus today, ubs. this is the swiss investment bank. they reported a loss of around $2 billion. it's blaming that on unauthorized trading. share prices down almost 6% on the back of that very news. traders will have theirize focused on two economic indicators, key ones. mainly the euro zone's con kumar price index, inflation figgs and latest employment figures. we had employment numbers out in the kingdom yesterday showing the amount of people across the uk who are out of work stands above 2.5 million. it will be interesting to see what the message for the euro zone is later on today. given the skittishness among investors right now as we speak, both of those two economic statistics, when they come out, could have more of an impact on the markets, more than usual because we are considerably worried about the situation vis-a-vis greece. let's go back to company

news and more on that $2 billion loss at swiss bank ubs. they've discovered a loss by unauthorized trading by a trader in its investment bank. the matter is still being investigated, it says. it may mean a third quarter loss in 2011. on the telephone live from london, good morning, ralph. >> good morning. >> what do you make of this news? it's a bolt out of the new for ubs, isn't it? we're talking about one of t the -- >> yes, it is. we've been on the phone all morning trying to find out more details. it's still sketchy. one of the traders made a mistake or went against the trading positions of ubs, an excessive amount of risk and didn't hedge against that risk. that's what resulted in this.

ultimately 2 billion, while it is a very, very large number, ubs has in fact recovered sufficiently since the crisis to make sure that this isn't going to severely hurt the company as a whole. >> how much of a problem is rogue trading in some of these biggest banks? one would have thought companies like ubs, for instance, that are based in switzerland, a notoriously safe place for wealthy people to put their money would have better checks and balances in place to prevent something of this scale happening, ralph? >> surprisingly, this happens on a fairly regular basis, probably on a weekly basis. however, by no means do we ever have this kind of number. the problem comes down to time. verification of traders' activities requires somebody else to look at the actions before they're actually initiated. in a market where you measure times in fractions of a second, in most cases that's not an option. we put a tremendous amount of

trust in these traders but they are ordered to hedge against their trades. and in this case, we think he simply didn't do that. >> okay. ralph silva will be joining us later on in the show. we'll have more coverage of the ongoing situation at ubs as we get more information about it. andrew? interesting insight into the world of trading, that realtime trading where you get those sort of trades, as ralph was saying, more unusual than you might think. here in asia, pretty good numbers around the region. let's start with tokyo, the nikkei up by 1.8%. no coincidence those numbers came on the back of improving manufacturing confidence. that was up for a fiven consecutive month in september and does show you how manufacturers are getting back on their feet following that march tsunami. a lost people saying it would take longer than it has for japan's manufacturing sector to

recover from that. it does not seem to be the case. in australia, the benchmark not far behind, the numbers we saw on the nikkei. up by more than 1.5%. here in hong kong, it was up more modest, a gain, and in shanghai, just down the road from here where we are, the index slipping back by a 0.20%. nina. u.s. markets look set for a slightly higher open when they begin trading on thursday. the early indications in the premarket action show us we could see some of the markets starting out the day to the tune of about 0.25% higher to 0.5% higher. it has a number of hours to go before the u.s. markets get trading and some of the news surrounding some of the world's biggest investment banks like, for instance, ubs' statement today, also the ongoing concerns about the euro zone could potentially affect these markets. going to a break. we'll be back in a second.

welcome back, live from dalian in northeastern china and london. you're watch be "world business today." >> the greek debt saga is building up to another climactic moment. in their conference call on wednesday, the french, german and greek leaders committed to keeping greece on its feet and also inside the euro. that sets the stage for a euro zone's finance ministry meeting on friday. the u.s. treasury secretary, tim geithner will be attending. that's a sign that washington is increasingly concerned over europe's apparent failure to deal with its debt crisis. own wednesday the ec chief jose manuel barroso -- apart

from that clear message, what came out of the european policymakers discussions on wednesday and most specifically, what came out of the conference call between angela merkel, nicolas sarkozy and papandreou? el elinda, is it enough and are we getting assurances from papandreou that merkel and sarkozy want to keep greece inside the euro zone? >> it sounds like they've got enough out of papandreou where they were always planning to come up with a statement saying they will support gross. they said very clearly they want greece in the euro zone, that the euro zone has to stick together to make this happen. this is largely speaking what this teleconference, these phone calls were about yesterday. they were very much about endorsing greece, saying europe has to work together to pull

through. mr. papandreou also reassured his european partners that greece will do it's best, that it will stick to all the grems, all the pledges that it has made. this is what the government spokesperson said after the meeting yesterday. and also what we got from both the french and german side. it seems that all sides have come out of this quite reassured that something positive is going to happen which also seems to be the message they wanted to send to the market at this point. that europe wanted to send to the markets at this point, that it will work together to get greece out of this crisis. >> elinad, the reality is greece could be fashion a dangerous dilemma here. it may well default at some point. the credit default swap markets, the cost of ensuring greek debt is pricing in a near 100% chance of it defaulting and there's no frame work for that happening or

indeed it being expelled from the euro zone. >> well, greece is definitely in a difficult position at this point, which the prime minister has been try to stress, saying you know, all that greece has to do -- it can only stick to the agreement, otherwise it may well default. this is what he's doing to try and do. right now to push any of the measures through, he needs to have very strong support. the measures of the greek people will have to face in order to meet their requirements, are very tough. the unions have been protesting for a long time. we've had new taxes announced just this weekend and we're looking at massive cuts in the civil sector, privatizations. it's a rough time for greece. at the moment there doesn't seem to be a clear plan "b." if this seems to be the one way that all the european leaders seem to be pushing ahead. >> jose manuel barroso has been

talking about euro bonds as a potential solution to this. presumably the greeks would be in favor of that? or on the streets of athens, are people just fed up? >> people -- overall, yes, they are in favor. greece is in favor. and most people here are in favor of this whole idea of euro bonds. but what they don't understand and not quite sure what's going to happen is how greece is going to manage to implement all the measures that it has to get through. these are tough measures for people undergone salary cuts, pension cuts. it's going to be very difficult for the average greek family to really survive. austerity is very tough and people are saying they can't really face any more of this. what they want is immediate day-to-day measures for their own survival rather than long-term solutions at this point. and that they haven't really

seen. elinda labropouyiou joining us for that. andrew? this is a day which will go down in infamy, because it was a day three years ago exactly that lehman brothers declared bankruptcy. we all know what happens next. first of all it was a huge shock that the u.s. government let lehmans go under. that was followed by the complete and utter loss of confidence, virtual freezing of the credit markets. which resulted eventually in effects on the real economy. we saw recessions in many parts of the world all stemming from that subprime crisis of which lehmans became a symbol in many ways and that bankruptcy certainly became a key date in the whole unfolding saga. so three years on, i sat down with the deputy managing

director of the international monetary fund, zhu min. here's here in dalian, at the world economic forum. i asked him whether the banks are now in better shape than they were three years ago. >> the whole banking system today is better than the year 2008. >> how much better, though? >> it varies. it's very difficult to say. the u.s. banking, as you know, the sovereign risks pertain together banking sectors. but in the emerging market, we see the releveraging in the past 18 month, it caused some major concerns. >> are you saying that emerging economies are in danger of having their own banking crisis? >> i wouldn't say in this moment's emerging market in

danger because they have a potential banking crisis. got news is they have a strong gdp growth rate and much stronger than before. their physical condition is still quite okay but they got to be very careful for this releveraging on the banking secretary zblert financial crisis of 2008 is being replaced, at least in europe, by the debt crisis of 2011. what do policymakers need to do to solve this problem? >> it's not easy to have, you know, a policy move in a region with different countries have a unified currency but not a unified fiscal policy. they will have to recognize reality. in fact, i think the european community walking very hard to try to move further but obviously with different reasons. it's not easy. >> do you think when you look at what's happening in europe now, that it can survive without a

default from greece, portugal, ireland, even? >> there's a way out. it's very clear. >> what is the way out? >> the way out is to stick with the program, stick with the program, then the second issue is to maintain the safe and healthy banking systems. >> what does the imf say to the victims if you like? the people in greece who are losing their jobs, the people in spain, in portugal who are losing their livelihoods? >> we have to understand it's not an easy thing. the governments also understand it's not an easy thing. we both agree this is a necessary step to move forward. we understand that we need to enhons communications. we need to tell the people this is for the long-term, sustainable futures for themself and for the whole world. >> zhu min in dalian.

interesting what zhu was talking about saying the fact that europe has to stay the course, nina, to push through this debt kris i. speaking of the banks as well. it's interesting, the head of the imf today is trying to damp down reports that there's been an internal document circulating within the imf which looks to capital requirements for the banks, the banks in europe. it turns out they may be underfunded by something like 270 odd billion u.s. dollars. this is all -- we can't get firm sources on this at the moment. christine lagarde, ms. lagarde is saying that number is being quoted in a misleading way. we can't confirm exactly what that number is referring to at the moment. certainly the imf is trying to tamp down that piece of news which is rolling around the markets at the moment, nina. >> you can imagine the banking sector very much front and center stage after news of that

$2 billion loss at ubs and give whan you said, that doesn't help the situation either, does it, andrew. more on that after we come back. we will also be speaking to jennifer delgado who will have your business travelers forecast. stay with us. [ male announcer ] you never know when, but thieves can steal your identity. turning your life upside down in a matter of seconds. hi. hi. you know i can save you 15% today if you open up a charge card account with us. you just read my mind. [ male announcer ] just one little piece of information and they can open bogus accounts, stealing your credit, your money, and ruining your reputation.

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today." >> let's take a quick check on the weather picture for all you business travelers out there. meteorologist jennifer delgado has your forecast. good morning to you. >> good morning to you, too. weather conditions are going to be deteriorating through bermuda because we're tracking a tropical storm and that storm right now located about 595 kilometers away from bermuda, roughly 325 miles. it's going to be moving to the north as we go through today. you can see weather conditions, as i said, will be deteriorating. more of that rain works in. that's from tropical storm maria. right now we have warn innings place. it looks like we could potentially see this become a hurricane. there is a hurricane watch in place for bermuda. the winds at 105 kilometers. it looks like becoming a potential category 1 as it pulls away from the island. we'll be dealing with strong winds and, of course, rough currents as we go through the remainder of your thursday. we'll be watching that to see if it potentially develops into a

stronger storm system. right now, looking across europe, parts of europe, lots of sunshine out there for today from the west, you can see over towards the east and down towards the south. here is our problem spot. another low pulling through and that is going to be bringing very windy conditions as we go through today as well as saturday. it's also going to bring scattered storms and it will cool temperatures off a bit as we head into the weekend. for today, temperatures generally in the 20s and 30s. you can see 90s down towards the south and mid-80s. for parts of the uk, temperatures in the mid to upper teens. finally, want to update you. we are watching for more information. we have reports of an earthquake coming out of japan, a .2, roughly a shell earthquake and one coming out of new zealand. nina, we're waiting to get more information from the usgs but right now we are watching that. >> thank you very much.

there has been a quake in japan. we'll bring you more about that later on in the show. we'll take a quick break but "world business today" continues. open an e-trade account and open doors, seize opportunities, take action with some of the most powerful yet easy-to-use trading tools on the planet all built to help you maximize the potential of every dollar you invest. successful investing isn't done by throwing ideas against the wall and hoping. it's done by lowering your costs and raising your expectations by using unbiased research and powerful screeners to build a diversified portfolio with stocks, bonds, mutual funds, and every etf sold. and we'll help you every step of the way. with 5-star research and free education covering everything from the basics to advanced investing strategies. start now and we'll give you up to $500 and let you trade free for 60 days. visit our website, call us, open an account. e-trade. investing unleashed.

live from the world economic for numb dalian, i'm andrew stephens. >> i'm nina dos santos at cnn london. welcome back to the show, you're watching "world business today." let's take a look at how the european markets are trading at the moment. we're about 90 minutes into the trading session. these markets all trading higher for a second day in a row, despite heavy losses earlier on in the week, they're doing a

good job of making up for those losses. the dax up in excess of 2% at the moment. one reason why the zurich smi is the laggard among those indices, is because we've had pretty significant news out of one of the biggest banks in switzerland today, ubs. it's taking a beating at the moment. the swiss investment bank said recently that unauthorized trading caused a loss of around $2 billion for the firm. ubs' shares are sharply down on the back of that news subas you can expect. investors will be watching two key economic numbers out. the consumer price index, inflation figgs and the latest employment figures coming just after the united kingdom saw its unolympian figures released just yesterday showing the rate of people without a job has gone up yet again. it's now about 2.5 million. people across the british isles. both of these numbers for the

euro zone could have greater than normal effect, because of the jitters and how the euro zone leaders will deal with them, andrew. >> the good news here, not a lot of jitters seen in the asian markets today. a much stronger day than yesterday, nina. the direction was all pretty much up. australia had a pretty good day. it was japan that was the strongest. the nikkei in tokyo up by 1.8%. that came on the back of yet another improvement in manufacturing confidence. that's with up for the fifth consecutive month, for the move september, which is good news for the japan manufacturing sector, which is, of course, such a vital part of the economy. i mentioned australia, the benchmark there, not far behind, up by more than 1.a%. index in shanghai slipping back by about 0.5%. it was up yesterday when all the

other markets were done. nina? andrew, let's move along and talk about the how the u.s. markets look set to open up later on today. the futures indicate we could see some of these markets opening up positively but only by about 0.25%. we should point out that the futures looked just a little bit rosier last time we looked, about 25 minutes ago. some of them were even indicating a 0.5% rise at the open. of course, there's a number of hours to go and anything could happen before wall street starts trading later on today. from uncertainty on wall street, move to the effects of debt crisis on main street. social unrest is becoming a way of life, life at the epicenter of europe's debt debacle is set against a different set of strikes every single day. taxi drivers are the latest group to be revolting. elinda labropoulou spoke to some of them on the induststree

the greek capital. >> we will protest. everybody has to go on strike. we need a general strike in greece. they always say, that's all we have done, we'll take no more measures but every two or three months they get more and more and more measures. this has to stop. this has to end. >> i think they're figt the wrong people. that's what they're doing. they're not fighting where they should be fighting. they're not looking to get money from where they should be getting money. they're looking down on the middle class, the lower class societies. i don't think that's correct. that's why we're here today, to fight for our families. that's what people have to understand. we're not here fighting the government. we're fighting for our homes. i'm hoping our government will give in. i'm hoping that they will understand that this is far

beyond striking. we are fighting for our lives. >> certainly i would have thought the group government would have been much more intelligent and brave to face the difficulties. all the countries that they have been under pressure, especially while they have been on the edge of bankruptcy, they didn't take financial decisions but they took political decisions. >> this government, they want to sell everything. it's a fight with no end. get it back from the government. it's another reason there will be unemployed people, plus they already exist. >> do you want to see greece leave the euro? >> no. i don't want that. but this is not my job. that is politics.

and he wants his job. >> and despite the apparent support from the leaders of the euro zone's two biggest economies, a greek default, it seems, is still a near certainty but that may be no cause for alarm. this is why i'm going to explain it. if greece stages what's called a selective default, the impact will be limited largely to the banks that have loaned money to the country and its own financial institutions. under selective default agreement which is actually reached on july 21st of this year, private banks agree to roll over their loans to greece for an extend period of time. a selected default, like, for instance, is probably the best-case scenario for investors and the world economy because it's controlled, limited and in fact already expected. then there's a broader winding up of the greek debt, one that the euro zone countries and the markets still can't anticipate. it would be described as you can see, an orderly default.

it would smend shock waives through the markets but won't be a complete economic train wreck. however, if greece does decide to pull the plug on its debt without warning and on a big enough scale we could be looking at this, a disorderly default. the fallout from that could be as bad as the fallout we saw following the collapse of lehman brothers back in 2008. of course, we all know where that led to plenty of faces like this right across the world's trading floors. the greek debt crisis is a hot top nick business circles at the moment. if you'd like to check out more coverage on this issue, visit cnn's business website at cnn.com/biz360. you'll find my very own blog on that site. i'd love to hear the thoughts on that issue. i hope you'll find it enlightening. andrew? >> nina, we've been talking a lot about the euro zone crisis. we've also been talking about how some emerging economies, not only china has helped in some

ways, it's stepped in to buy bonds of some of the stressed economies there. there could be a solution, not just china bus but there could be bond buying coming from the broader emerging economies. by those i specifically mean the bric countries. he's been looking at this issue, he joins us now with the latest. what sort of punch can these bric countries pack when it comes to buying bonds, diego? >> andrew, it's -- there's a lot of questions here. what kind of punch can they pack? for example, brazil has 350 billion dollars in reserves, russia 530, india 320. meanwhile china has almost 1,000 times more reserves with 3.2 trillion. so here, clearly, the big name is china. and brazil, especially brazil, has been very conservative with

its reserve portfolio. it has kept to a very, very stable, predictable assets and central bankers have called to stability for those funds. andrew? >> and politically, is this an issue? is it something that would be acceptable for the governments of these countries? >> well, that is the big question, because so far, the brics countries have been unable to accommodate larger deals. for example, in the case of the imf, they did not agree on an emerging markets candidate, despite all agreeing that someone else other than a european had to be at the helm of that institution. andrew? >> okay, diego lajhe, thanks for that. you're watching "world business today." we'll take a short break. be back in just a moment.

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it's 20 to 5:00 in the afternoon in dalian at the world economic forum. you're looking at afternoon tea time. delegates have to keep their strength up for the issues affecting asia and the world. they've talked about how business is going to manage the increasingly scarce resources, water, energy, food. very, very interesting discussions going on there. welcome back. you're watching "world business today." now, within we talk about china and china manufacturing, a lot of people still associate it with cheap manufacturing. and cheap goods. but there's a new group of entrepreneurs in china that are trying to establish a quality tag, which is associated with the made in china brand. now, eunice has this story.

>> reporter: like in these stores, everything on these shelves is made in china. unlike other places, everything here is designed in china, too. that's the concept between bnc, brand new china. the shop was opened a year ago to sell and support new chinese labels in a country not quite yet known for its original quality designs. >> you know, we have a bad name for copying everything, right? and we do. i mean, the truth is we do. what we wanted to say is there are nice, young chinese who are really trying to be original, to be creative. >> reporter: being create sieve important for many businesses in china now feeling the pressure from lower cost competitors overseas. companies that once dominated certain industries are now

seeing their profits shrink and are adopting new technologies or up-market designs to survive. she's helping to train up some of china's budding designers, hoping to upgrade the country's image. this man plans to market his eco-inspired bags overseas. a lot of chinese elements and ideas from beijing will be incorporated into my products abroad, he says. but clothing designer yi chen is targeting his home market as customers here get wealthier. many top brands in the world are aiming for the chinese market, he says. i feel like why do we have to reach for something so far away and ignore this big cake right in front of us? ultimately chinese consumers could be the one to decide whether or not a local design succeeds or fails. "my outfit is designed and made in china," she says. chinese designers started

building up their brands late, she says, they have room to improve. they say the improvement will take time. >> basically what we're suffering from is the fact that the chinese are not known for their branding. >> reporter: though now they're investing in an image makeover. euni euni eunice uhn, cnn, beijing. china is still a manufacturer of very high-end products. most of the smartphones emanate from here. it is associated in many ways with sort of cheap stuff, cheap quality, the chinese tag. also there's a very, very big slice of manufacturing business which is much more at the high end. >> and it's an ever-changing world, andrew, we may well see a completely different scenario five years from now. made in china could be like made in italy.

the final u.s. government report on last year's massive oil spill and explosion in the gulf of mexico says that bp was ultimately responsible for the disaster. it also blames two other companies, transocean and halliburton for violating safety regulations at the drilling site. bp agrees that the incident was caused by, in its words, multiple parties. 11 people were killed and more than 750 million liters of oil were spilled into the gulf. three of the world's biggest tech firms face more questioning over the role of social media in the london riots. on thursday, twitter, facebook and the blackberrymaker research in motion will appear before a committee of british mps investigating the cause of the riots. many protesters used instant messaging to coordinate violence across london and several other british cities. the british government considering banning social media altogether during the riots but in the end it decided not to do so.

speaking of social media, facebook reportedly will now delay its ipo in the united states until the ends of 2012. the financial times says the ceo, mark zuckerberg wants to wait so the company can focus on developing new products for the site. when it happens, the ipo's expected to be one of the biggest in financial history. two people who might be watching the ipo of facebook rather closely are tyler and cameron. the identical twins became famous for suing the facebook founder, mark zuckerberg claiming he stole their original ideas. they received a settlement worth $65 million. it seems they can't let go of the controversy although. take a look at them in thissed afor wonderful pistachios. >> the commercial bdebuted a fe

days ago. facebook claimed their claims were false. go to facebook.com/cnnwbt. that's where you can find us. that's brilliant. okay. we're going to take a short break. when we come back, we are going to be talking to ralph silver again about what's going on at ubs. i just said that a single trader may have brought about a $2 billion loss on their books. we'll have more on that in just a moment.

welcome back. you're watching "world business today." >> as we've been reporting throughout the course of this very show, switzerland's largest bank, ubs has recorded a $2 billion trading loss. it blames unauthorized trading for that particular loss. ralph silva is the director of the silva research network. he joins us now in our london studio to figure out what could have caused this. first of all, the figure, ralph, it's enormous. >> it is. the amount that this one actually represents is completely unheard of. we've only had three or four other situations where we've had in the billions and that's what happened here. >> such, for instance, nick

leeson in the '90s. >> it could be one of three things. it's still early. the first one is what the industry calls fat fingers, put in an extra zero. >> or she. >> yes. instead of buying a million, he or she bought 10 million. the second one the industry calls stupidity. he took a position he or she shouldn't have taken it. the third one, which is the one we're all afraid of, this was strictly fraud. he was doing this to make sure somebody else would make money. we don't know which one of those three it was. >> we have absolutely no indication this could be the case. what about hedging positions as well? we spoke earlier on on the telephone at the star of the show on your way in, you were talking about how perhaps it was a question the not hedging a position that should have been hedged. >> ubs is clear. they want all their positions

hedged. their a credible bank and all the banks in that particular realm want that the to happen. sometimes traders forget. sometimes traders are in such a hurry that they forget to counter the position. sometimes the technology simply fails. the trader may assume that it would happen automatically and in fact it didn't happen. >> you would have thought in risk assessment there would be checks and balances if a position was something like $2 billion. >> you would assume that. >> it would be a slam dunk by the trading systems, right? >> it should have. the accounts could be in the billions. this is not a huge amount of money for a trader. >> for a prop trader. >> the issue here is time. if you want to validate every transacti transaction, you have to look over it. this is an industry that measures time in fractions of a second. if you put validation in, it takes too long and you don't make money. >> we should stress to viewers that the markets have been horrendously volatile,

unprecedently volatile, trillion dollar swings either way. this could have happened quite quickly. >> i'm sure it did happen quite quickly. the issue is when we have economic turmoil which we have had for the past few years, the number of incidents like thin crease. because some people are in fear of their own jobs or keeping their jobs, so they try to fix things after problems have occurred, because they don't want to tell anybody. that's really what probably has happened here. he may have made a mistake and spent the rest of the day trying to fix it and in essence, he got himself deeper and deeper into the hole. >> ralph silva joining us, trying to enlighten us. we have no more information than what ubs has given us. let's take a look at how the european stock market is doing, 90 minutes into the trading session today, the markets trading firmly higher. the zurich smi is the one up the least as you can see, about

0.66%. the other ones powering ahead, dax up in excess of 2%. hovering around 29% mark at the moment. andrew? >> pretty good numbers coming out of asia today, nina. the nikkei, the standout, up by 1.8%. strong manufacturing numbers. when i say strong, i mean positive, which also can be considered strong in this climate, particularly in japan. good manufacturing numbers out of japan. australia up by 1.5%, hong kong tlat, shanghai down just a fraction. all in all, a pretty strong day. >> one of the strongest properties in the world, the price of diamonds is also particularly robust. there's been a bit of a change of circumstance for the price of diamonds. their prices have dropped dramatically since the start of august. that's mainly thanks to the uncertainty we've seen of late

in the world's financial markets. the damage totals 20%. the diamond mine of firestone says in the past six weeks the gems have lost almost half of their value that they've added in this financial year alone. there are about 20,000 carats for sale after the demand has dropped. that's it for this edition of "world business today." i'm nina dos santos, cnn london. and i'm andrew stevens at dalian, the world economic forum conference. also known as summer davos. we leave you with pictures of the scenes here at the world economic forum. [ woman ] jogging stroller. you've been stuck in the garage

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