i'm monita rajpal. here's the headlines. forces loyal to moammar gadhafi are putting up fierce resistance. meanwhile, the birth of a new government has to wait. the national transitional council has postponed the new cabinet. a massive car bomb exploded in karachi killing at least eight people and seriously damaging the home of a senior police officer. he survived but police say others officers are among those killed. the pakistani taliban has claimed responsibility for the attacks. the indian government deployed workers to an area where an earthquake happened. teams are having difficulty getting to the region. there were deaths in tibet and knee pal. former imf chief calls his encount story with a maid a

moral failure. the judge threw out the sexual assault case against him but he remained adamant that it did not include any attempt to rape. "world business today" starts right now. >> good morning from cnn london, i'm charles hodson. >> i'm manesha tank. the top stories this monday, september 19th. markets are gripped by greek contagion fears as tim geithner tells europe to do more to curb the crisis. >> dominique strauss-kahn said he made a moral error. could china be facing a banking crisis of its own?

we ask a construction bank. >> well, whether that's the case or not, investors have a lot to think about this monday and center stage. a meeting of the finance ministers friday failed to deliver any concrete solution to the greek debt crisis. with more on that in a moment. first a look at how the stock markets are faring and we are really seeing some dives there off by nearly 2%, the london ftse. getting on for 3% for the dak and cac 40. off by 1.6% is this eu finance minister's meeting and also another defeat for chancellor merkel in an election in a federal state in berlin in the capital which itself a federal state stinging review came after another weakening her merkel's authority as chancellor.

news from the swiss banking giant ubs. that lender has raised the tally of its loss on unauthorized trading to $2.3 billion. $300 billion more than it first reported. the shares are currently trading at just over ten swiss francs down 2 poi 3 of a percent since friday. i suppose that's kind of credible manesha. >> the news from that figure is definitely making people gloomy. i'll get to that otherwise the markets in asia falling this session by the close. investors disappointed on apparent failure to draw a line under greece's debt disaster and talk about that later in the show. the euro has fallen against other major currencies. the tokyo stock exchange was closed because of a public

holiday. we always get direction from there. the other indices finished. people aren't likes that. there are people paying close attention to what happened in terms of that risk failure and people looking at home prices in china and those for august and what it meant for the market. there are big fears again that are resurfacing about inflation in china and so much confusion about what's happening in the u.s. economy. figures out friday. as that goes on we see the volatility particularly in u.s. stocks. well, speaking of that, they did close higher on friday for the fifth day in a row. the nasdaq finishing up despite disappointing appointment for blackberrymak blackberrymaker research in motion. there they are, you could see moderate gains by the close of the session and ongoing

confusion point economy, what's going to be done about that and a lot of volatility around, charles. >> yeah, and that was then. let's have a look at what's happening now. in terms of the u.s. futures market those gains could be wiped out and more when wall street opens later but off by 1.2% for the dow and again 1.6% for the s&p 500 in line with the losses both in europe and of course with asia, manesha. >> this new week is getting underway and investors have eye on two key developments, the meeting of the federal reserve and president obama's deficit reduction proposal. ben bernanke is holding a highly anticipated policy meeting. that will be on tuesday and wednesday. investors are somewhat eager to learn whether the u.s. central bank will try to resuscitate the recovery and today president

obama will reveal how he will pay for his plan to cut the u.s. government's deficit. reports suggest that the measures will include entitlement cuts and tax increases. charles? >> well, this could be the do or die week for greece. officials from the european commission, the european central bank and imf are due to hold a conference call with top finance officials in greece hoping for reassurances that greece will meet the criteria for another trail of bailout cash. if not they face a grim set of options fraught with risk. we have more on this as the finance ministers meeting happens. they're going to meet and do something. we'll be much wiser in 24 hours and then what happens? tell me what happened ask. >> it's looking all too familiar. it was supposed to be an

informal meeting as we also had the other countries in the european union meeting, 27 finance ministers saying again they didn't manage to come to an agreement becoming powerless for greece. greece only has enough money to last through mid-october so it's only got one month left and economists generally agreed without any extra bailouts they won't be able to last past the month of october. they delayed a decision on releasing the next tranche of money. it amounts $11 billion and it will now be made in october. very disappointing for other countries that are in the eu and not necessarily in the eurozone let alone other eurozone members, as well. >> tell you what's fascinating with tim geithner, the u.s. secretary made the trip, second one-day trip in a week actually to bang heads together and the

americans are taking this seriously, aren't they, nina? >> they are and timothy geithner making all sorts of comments reminding the eurozone leaders that they should eliminate these catastrophic risks to the markets. he also talked of dismantling institutions within the eurozone and that had to be knocked on the head and being echoed by one of his predecessors, the u.s. treasury secretary ten years ago, larry summers, an opinion in an editorial piece in "the financial times" reminding people of non-eurozone countries have a huge stake of what goes on and it's time to voice the fact that they have such a huge stake. he also echoed a number of interesting points, that the imf chief made in one of her statements earlier on and said maybe that the eurozone banks need their capitals shored up and we need to see an end to

political brinksmanship because it's not the fate of greek at stake. >> i got the copy here on it. you can't see of it. for those watching in whack and white that's the euro crashing and burning and so clearly tough stuff and larry summers is saying we've been polite long enough. the american gloves are coming off. >> they are indeed and we'll look out for that at midday. >> thank you very much, nina dos santos joining me live. manes manesha. >> i'm sure we could spend a whole show talking about the program. with the fault still an option, we've had the conference call and so far as the conference call goes, can we expect any new

promises on austerity measures? >> it's not clear what's going to happen. what we do knee is that the greek finance minister will speak to greece and try to find out how they're going to implement the measures and convince them greece is able to implement them so the next tranche of the loan can be released eventually. what they're going to do is look at specifics at this point. greece has made certain promises it has not been able to keep. now its lenders are saying we're not going to put any more money in unless we see how you're going to do it. they're tough and tight. the time schedule now is very tight. but greece has absolutely no leeway at this point but to go ahead and try to implement them so we don't expect something specific as such in terms of new measures. we don't see what we necessarily see, new measures today but what

we will get is a list of what they'll do until now. >> okay, elinda, thank you very much for that. we look for more news coming out of that as it happens. the imf's former chief has taken to the airwaves to give his version of the events that took place in a new york hotel room in may. we'll have a live report, charles. >> indeed. why he said he showed moral weakness. that's his phrase.

let's take a look at how the markets are faring. gold -- start with gold, gold moving up this session and we saw it come way down last week off those highs but pushing back up with all the uncertainty going on. meanwhile, let's check on the price of crude, crude moving down this session again more uncertainty in the stock market, a lot of volatility around oil pulling back.

that's nymex crude contract. welcome back from cnn hong kong and from london this is "world business today." >> for former imf chief dominique strauss-kahn he appeared on television saying his inappropriate relationship with a maid in a new york hotel was a moral weakness. but he again denied he sexually assaulted her. our cnn international correspondent jim bittermann is in paris with more on strauss-kahn's television interview. was it a convincing performance, jim? >> reporter: well, i think, charles, one of the things we saw in the papers this morning was a lot of talk about how studied and practiced it seemed to be because, in fact, the interviewer was a friend of his wife, the interview on tv and his wife used to be colleagues so, in fact, the questions were hard hitting i guess but maybe they could have been followed up a little better. in any case people said it seemed very studied and

practiced. here's what we heard out of the streets of paris this morning. >> to give so much air time after what this man did. he said nothing happened then he admitted something did. i find him disgusting and the truth is, i would have voted for him before all of this happened as i'm from the left. >> i think the best thing he could do yesterday even if he's not guilty excuse me madam, excuse me for what happened even it's not very, very not guilty. i think one would -- would be only one word, excuse me, excuse me. >> translator: everyone was waiting for this but we were disappointed but we were waiting for an apology.

i did appreciate his view on politics. >> reporter: so not everyone convinced there. i guess you could sum advise it by saying he was contrite but combative. in one way was on the facts of the case and repeatedly said that the chambermaid in new york had invented her side of the story, that his side of the story was substantiated by the prosecutor. here's what he had to say about that. >> translator: you need to read carefully the report of the prosecutor. what does it say? it says nafissatou diallo lied about everything, not only about her past but the fact and the report says she gave so many different versions the prosecutor could not believe it any longer. he said in almost interview we had with her she lied. it was surreal. that is the word he used. the charges were dropped because there are no more accusations. if there had been the slightest accusations remaining then there would have been a trial.

>> reporter: so, charles, on the facts of the case, dominique strauss-kahn remains camped in his position that he did nothing wrong. charles? >> yeah, it's interesting. i mean the person would conducted the interview is a friend of dominique strauss-kahn's wife and do you think she softballed him. did she ask about the signs of violence on the woman who alleges that she was dominique strauss-kahn's victim? she was bruised. >> reporter: well, in fact, that was one of the things that came up, and he said that that was not true, that that was the initial hospital report that was her side of the story. it was not what the doctors in the hospital had to say about the case, so he did defend himself on that particular issue and i don't think that she necessarily soft-balled the question but could have been the conclusion that perhaps he knew in advance pretty much what was going to be asked and it did

seem to me just as one observer that, in fact, he seemed to be pretty well prepared how to answer. there were some pretty effective pauses and some looks down and whatnot and some lines that may have been practiced a little bit in advance, charles? >> okay. jim bittermann joining us there live from paris. many thanks to you. now, another tropical storm is heading straight for japan and a killer earthquake strikes south asia. the details from ivan cabrera just ahead.

so let's get a look at how the currency markets are faring. the euro, pound and yen all gaining against the u.s. dollar but things are looking stable particularly on the dollar/yen cross rate. a very warm welcome back. you are watching "world business today." we're live here on cnn. welsh as we speak tens of thousands of anti-nuclear protesters are gathering in tokyo. organizers say 50,000 met to demand the closure of all nuclear power plants in japan. more than 85,000 people are still unable to return to their homes because of unsafe radiation levels around the fukushima daiichi nuclear plant. the plant's operators tepco is still struggling to stabilize the facility. meanwhile, the german engineering giant has announced it's closing its nuclear

business. they were responsible for building all seven of their plants. they will completely abandon them by 2022 in favor of green energy. manesha? >> charles, we'll still with japan to some extent and look at the weather situation. tropical storm headed for the country again and we've been reporting a number of different storms going that way in the last few week, haven't we, ivan? tell us where this is going. >> you're right. good to see you, manesha. talas was the last one we were tracking. that was a borderline typhoon right in that threshold there and it wasn't a potent storm as far as winds but it did cause quite a calamity across the western part of japan so we must respect tropical storms even though they don't become

typhoons each and every time. this will likely stay below typhoon status. not all that well organized. it's going to encounter more shear that will disrupt it and cooler sea surface temperatures and all won't be good for intensification which is fantastic but it will arrive with torrential downpours going on for 48 hours. the rains will be well ahead of the system, two bull's-eyes as far as the heavy rainfall. that's my main concern for japan. if you're watching from tokyo, it is going to strike you through the middle part of wednesday. that is going to be the landfall. not a typhoon but still a respectable tropical storm. we could have some damaging winds along the coast there certainly with 83 kilometer per hour winds and that is nour local time frame about wednesday afternoon and then it races off to the north and east and

quickly loses steam. then we have to look about this. we normally talk about the ring of fire where the pacific ring of fire where we have most of the earthquakes, this has nothing to do with it. this is the indian plate moving north. eurasian plate at the south. that's where you get the himalayas and earthquakes. unfortunately across the borders of nepal we had dozens dead because of this 6.9 that hit yesterday. a potent earthquake here, unusual tore this region, in fact, the last one, manesha that hit this same region was a 6.1. that was back in 1980 so a lot of folks impacted here. the structures here just cannot sustain an earthquake of this magnitude. they're pore liability here so that is why we've had such destruction there. we'll keep you posted as far as the aftershocks that will continue certainly for the next several days. charles? >> okay, ivan cabrera, many

thanks to you. 6000 qantas passengers will be affected. thousands will stop hours for fo work. they'll delay others. the workers union called the strike after it failed to reach a wage agreement with the airline, manesha. >> switching off the lights at a chinese solar energy plant. what got workers so angry that they protested outside the company for three straight days. that's up next. took some wild risks when i was young. but i was still taking a risk with my cholesterol. anyone with high cholesterol may be at increased risk of heart attack. diet and exercise weren't enough for me. i stopped kidding myself. i've been eating healthier, exercising more, and now i'm also taking lipitor. if you've been kidding yourself about high cholesterol, stop. along with diet, lipitor has been shown

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from cnn london, i'm charles hobson. >> and i'm manesha tank. welcome back to "world business today." >> let's check in on european stock markets and heavy selling is under way. we're 90 minutes or so into the trading day looking at losses of about 2%, just under that for the london ftse. 2.5% for the dax and paris cac 40 has been more but it doesn't make a difference at this point. zurich smi off by 1.5%. bank stocks very seriously affected and i think what we're looking at avery much the backwash interest from a market reaction by timothy geithner and a resolution to the debt crisis hasn't come to pass and angela

merkel has been weakened about i a defeat in a federal state election in fact in the capital in berlin and her coalition partners failed to take even 5% of the vote there. so big loss of authority for angela merkel and i think it's looking more and more like a political crisis in germany is exacerbating the deep financial crisis and, indeed, the crisis of confidence in the markets, manesha. >> yeah, you know, charles, there doesn't seem to be a lot of good news at all. no one has much to trade on and i think if we looked deeper maybe specific stocks would give us some good news. right here in asia we've been very preoccupied by what's happening in the u.s. and whether or not we're going to see a recovery in the u.s. and what's happening in the economy. many will pay attention to plans from president obama later on monday and also they're worried about the crisis regarding greece so investors very much reacting again to the same issues that europe is facing with this failure to come to

some kind of solution. a failure in leadership. the stock exchange in japan was closed, a public holiday there but otherwise if you look at the other leading indices numbers tell the whole story for you. you can see quite a strong reaction to this lack of good news and also the ubs newsreelly putting the pressure on the banking stocks in asia. many people asking questions about the risk scenario and how that was being followed. we know that the wider market and you had mentioned it earlier in switzerland is lower. but people have been watching that story unfold and they haven't liked it as they've managed to assess banking stocks here. china has been a big focus. people talking about inflation yet again, inflation another issue in india. look across the region. lots to be concerned about and not too much to be happy about, charles. >> indeed, well, it's our look at wall street now and lower open when trading begins monday off by 1.5 to nearly 2% for the

s&p 500 in terms of the u.s. futures but obviously we've got five hours still to go before that but it does seem like we're going to be seeing a lower open. well, investors certainly eager to find out whether the federal reserve will or won't introduce new u.s. stimulus measures. that could make a very big difference and that's part of the look ahead on wall street. >> the federal reserve looks ahead to the economy and questions are being answered before the senate. i'm karina huber at the new york stock exchange. the fed is hoping for positive news. since the fed's last meeting stocks have taken numerous hits in the wake of the european debt crisis and the senate judiciary committee holds a meeting to examine google's dominance online and whether it used

anti-competitive behavior to hurt rivals. facebook will launch a long rumored music service next week at its s8 conference. facebook is expected to partner with other sites to provide the content. turning to the economy, president obama will be unveiling his debt reduction plan on monday sending it to congre congress' bipartisan debt committee looking to cut the target set out by congress. we'll get a number of readings on the health of the housing market. at the new york stock exchange, i'm karina huber. >> now on to three days of protests, china has closed a solar panel plant in the east. the parent company is listed on the fork stock exchange and they've been accused of environmental pollution. ramy inocencio has more on this. >> it started last thursday when pore than 500 began gathering at the gates at one of their factories in the eastern

province of jinko. they believed jinko solar is to blame for a massive fish death. they broke into the company compound. all these actions have finally spurred the closure of that factory. and it seems it may have been a long time coming but local authorities say they had fined the company 75,000 u.s. dollars and it failed environmental tests since april but kept operations going until today, that. along with frustration there is anger being vented online. china's version of twitter some said this person who said "can the progress and result of the incident be released in time when the people have demand for the government, they should respond actively." another user said get out of

hiding, jinko and one other person said "jinko will pay a heavy price for this. it still won't last long and off that it is no surprise that actually that's what's happening with jinko. when protests began the parent company has fallen this much. 13% on the new york stock exchange so when u.s. marketing open later we will see how that reacts. manesha. >> thanks a lot, ramy, for all that. >> well, as europe struggles to tame debt fears and capital reserves held by the bankings we'll take a closer look at asia. that is next. a dab of concealer here... a flurry of powder there. what if there was a makeup that didn't just hide your breakouts... but actually made them go away. neutrogena skin clearing makeup.

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welcome back to "world

business today." >> hong kong looking a little murky. report by hbc suggests loans aren't reaching levels we haven't seen since the crisis of 2007. the world economic conference, this man says the leverages, a combination of low interest rates andliy tity tity liquidit increased in the past few years. with this chart, it actually shows the level of asian bank lending excluding japan in relation to gdp over the past decade. so if we look a little bit more closely what you can see here is the levels that we have currently. there you go. and these are very, very close to the levels that we haven't

seen since 1997. let's just trace this back. here you go. that was the level we saw in 1997. you can see how close that s the increase in leveraging that led to pa peak took place right here, a period of six years, whereas the latest cycle has taken half of that time. much shorter. now, specifically we can look at china, a recent survey by a magazine there estimate that is chinese bank lending topped 500 billion in august. we spoke to the chairman of china construction bank and a asked if he was worried about the nonperforming loans on the books of chinese banks. >> of course, we worry very much. we are sensitive to any change in the markets, but so far so good. because maybe some cities have

some bubble in the housing price. i saw in recent figures even in the provinces, cities, housing prices continue rising so we know of a bank well and know the quality of those and we know the structure of the loans, so we're confident of that but if you ask about other banks, that's another story. it's how to say, but generally speak i speaking after this huge increase in the lending in, you know, the package in the past two or three years, i think the numbers from that ratio will be

maybe come back a little bit. >> there are banks now in the u.s. and in europe which are being called too big to fail and that has been a major problem for those economies, obviously. do you think the same problems exist in china, there are banks in china are too big to fail. >> i think we have done very well about that, that means you should be encouraged competition, that you should, you know, try to, you know, moral hazards, there should be, you know -- very important that for the systems, but china is quite different from teurope an the u.s. i think even for the small bank it's very difficult to fail. i mean to go to bankruptcy

because the government concerns economic stability very much and also because banking system, banking service, industries and developments challenge financial services in general have seen shots and the supply is not enough. not sufficient. >> what's the biggest problem, do you think facing banks at the moment? banks in china in general? >> maybe selective. people have not felt good, comfortable to put their money in the bank as a deposit. second, the housing market's price, if it goes too high that's a bubble, bubble maybe has a bit of -- that means a loss of some money which means you can't get back.

>> are you looking at overseas expansion now by many measures it will be a good time to expand. >> in terms of a price, yes. but the cheaper -- not means necessarily means good thing for you -- we don't know how to run u.s. bank -- other thing is we are better than u.s. bankers. >> the chairman of china construction bank there. now, taking home a piece of gold, the emmys are a hot commodity for anyone working in u.s. television. this year's winners and losers next.

we'll check on the price of precious metal so in demand. the gold price, we've pulled back off the earlier highs but still up more than 9$9.5, above 1,800. gold was down more than 4 1/2% during the course of the week. still so much uncertainty to deal with. a warm welcome back. live from cnn hong kong and london. this is "world business today." indeed it is. as we've been reporting european stock markets are gripped by new worries about the potential fallout from greece's debt crisis. quick look at where they stand right now and it's not a pretty sight, is it, off by more than 2% for the london ftse. again back up to nearly 3% the xetra dax, and paris cac off by

2.75%. the zurich smi off by 1.5% and big theme of selling of banks, in the case of the zurich smi, i believe ubs was off by a modest 2/3 of a percent. joining me for pore on its impact on the markets is our market analyst, michael, never ending, isn't it? >> a bit like a soap opera. one minute we have them stepping in increase liquidity and further indecision at the meetings. no real outcome. and again take pride and goes back down the hill again. the ftse, the dax are still in the broad range we've seen so at

the moment we haven't moved out of it and until such time as we do i think we're going to get more of the same. >> okay, we say more of the same so, okay, you see quite a broad range there for the ftse and i suppose for the dow, as well. do you feel that we could get another big leg down from this -- from that particular range, though? >> i really think there is a distinct possibility. i really don't see any good outcomes from this sovereign debt crisis at the moment. i mean if you look at the greek debt pile, really i think default seems to be the only option and how is that to be managed? people talk about an orderly default by i really don't think -- it's a bit of an oxymoron. a built of a contradiction in terms so it's really a question of when greece defaults and how it's managed. >> okay. i won't tease you about the oxymoron of the orderly default but it does seem that it hinges

on that. a bad dough fault or a very bad default i think it's fair to say, isn't it? in a sense is some kind of default in the price already as far as markets -- greek defaults as far as markets are concerned. >> i think it is. two-year bond yields in greece and one year as opposed to a lesser extent ten-year as well so some semblance of a default but it's a matter of timing and this week's events will have a key part to play. over and above that, the g-20 meeting whether or not we get further measures of kicking the -- excuse me, further measures of kicking the can down the road or whether or not we see just more of the same. tomorrow i think there's some talk in the market that greece has a coupon -- not sure if that's true. >> major economic policy

announcement in the united states likely to shape the markets in the days ahead. >> i'm not convinced about that, charles. operation twist, it's been pretty well flagged for quite some time now. i think if it does any more than that will be a surprise and it's pretty much factored in and could gear up for a dollar rally. >> michael hewson, thank you very much indeed. >> thank you, charles. >> manesha? >> yeah, it's interesting, isn't it? there's been a lot of managing expectations going on by the fed, i would suppose. now, everybody loves to win an award and certainly there were smiles all around on sunday night in los angeles when the u.s. television industry handed out its annual emmy awards. some say winning an emmy helps a show because it sells advertising and elevates the show status but others say they have no measurable worth other than joy for the winners. we go to the show. >> good evening. >> reporter: one of the most talked about actors last season

wasn't nominated for an emmy but charlie sheen made a surprise appearance as a presenter. first he had a message for his former co-workers. >> from the bottom of my heart, i wish you nothing but the best for this upcoming season. >> "glee's" jayne lynch was nominated for supporting actress but lost out to modern family's julie bowen. >> welcome back to the modern family awards. >> outstanding comedy series. >> we are showing the world that there's absolutely nothing wrong with a loving, committed relationship between an old man and a hot young woman. >> mike & molly's melissa mccarthy was crowned also. >> wow, it's my first and best pageant ever. >> and the big bank theory jim parson's took home his second emmy for lead actor. mad men won outstanding series

for the fourth year in a row. >> i did not think that was going to happen. >> julianna margulies won for the good wife while friday night light's kyle chandler got his first win and kate winslet took home her first emmy for "mildred pierce." >> i didn't think we will would win anything. >> i'm rick vincent reporting. >> try telling the director that, kate. she had that vote of confidence. as many of you business can be a breezing affair but it isn't often that two billionaires disagree vehemently and fight about it publicly but these weren't your ordinary ones. both are russian billionaires taping a television debate about the global economy this weekend. when it got personal, that's when one of them threw two punches at the other. at least one of the blows connected. i think the camera attests to that and the victim said he was in shock. >> oh, live television. what a joy, manesha.

>> oh, i love it, charles but i'm in shock seeing those shots and, by the way, before we go anywhere if there was an emmy for the best news anchor in this show, i nominate you. there you go. that's my nomination. >> if you want to make -- >> thank you. >> if you want to make a comment or nominate charles as well for the empi for the best news anchor, do it on facebook enget in touch with the whole of our team, go to facebook.com/cnnwbt. we love to have a look at that page. that's it for this edition of "world business today." i'm manesha tank in hong kong. >> i'm charles hodson in london. you're watching cnn, the world's news leader where we don't punch each other. good-bye for now.

good morning to you. it is monday, september 19th this. is your "a.m. wake-up call."