>> more from mitt romney tomorrow night. also i've got n coulter on the show, which i must say i'm rather looking forward to. ann coulter no, holds barred, tomorrow night. and next monday don't forget, republican presidential primary debate here on cnn live beginning at 8:00 p.m. eastern. that's all for tonight. eur meet today to try to decide how to compensate officials. yemen's president has burns on 40% of his body and a

collapsed lung. ali abdullah saleh is recuperating after an attack on his compound. one of the president's shrapnel wounds is seven centimeters deep. the syrian government says it will send the army into jisr al shughour, the move comes after three days of violence. syrian state tv says 120 syrian troops were killed by armed gangs. the opposition claims the troops were killed as they tried to defect. "world business today" starts right now. from cnn london, i'm charles hodson. one small step for cloud computing, one giant leap for apple as it touts its new central data hub and one-stop

cyncing, but critics warn it could promote music piracy. peru's president promises to spread the wealth. investors, following fears of a slowdown, trading across much of europe and asia has taken a cautiously upward curve, clearly a sense that the market is a tiny bit oversold for now. perhaps not quite the wall of green that you see over there, but plenty of markets are beating the monday blues. let's have a look at what we're looking at in terms of european stocks. surprisingly steady open. nothing too spectacular in terms of gains. london ftse up about 0.25%.

xetra dax up doing well, up about 0.4%. zurich smi, off by round about a 0.15%. a bit of strength returning to the dollar there. 1.4637 against the euro. 1.64 for the british. asian marketing are reacting to news in their own countries. our asia business analyst has a breakdown of what happened in that region. several of them came back from holidays, didn't they? >> they did the markets stayed close to the flat line today, reacting to their own domestic

news and growth concerns. at the close of trade, some were up, some slightly down. first over to japan and the nikkei rose about two-thirds of a percent to 9443. this is the first time it saw some gains thanks s ts to util and auto shares. tepco jumped about 4.35%. toyota shares revved up to close at about 2.2% or so the carmaker said it would increase production of its hybrid cars. the hang seng closed down about 0.2% to 22,912 thanks to weakness in banking as well as energy plays. hsbc holdings weighed heavily. they were downgraded to neutral but credit suisse, they were cut from outperform.

they fell nearly 1% in trade. hsbc is now currently fairly valued. coal investors sold their stocks after beijing said it wanted more imports to keep those domestic prices in the mainland down. speaking of the mainland, let's bring up the shanghai composite, up about two-thirds of a percent to 26744. harbin pharmaceutical was hit after news claimed that it had done major environmental damage up in harbin, the northern part of china usaustralia closed a hr lower to 4566. mining shares at rio tint to were marginally down, but virgin australia and singapore's

carrier are in a deal. staying in australia, i want to talk about the key interest rate in the news. the central bank came out with the decision earlier today. the benchmark rate is at 4.75% it will stay there. the reserve bank of australia says this figure is appropriate for current economic conditions. australia is expecting inflation 2% and 3% for this year. as for growth, it's expecting 2.5% rising to 4.25% this year. comparing this number to other countries, it's the highest in the developed world. its neighbor is about 2.5%. >> thank you very much. joining us live from hong kong. let's turn to wall street. stock there's stuck in the red for the fourth session in a row on monday. lack of direction and general n

unease about strength of recovery. at the close, the nasdaq and s&p 500 each lost nearly 1%. is it the future of digital storage or just a step up in digit digital syncing or a ploy to get us to buy more apple paraphernalia. icloud will simply float, it's claimed from one device to the other. dan simon was at the launch and tells us why steve jobs hopes this develop element have a silver lining for apple. >> the icloud unveiling from steve jobs is geared towards people who have multiple devi s devices. if you have an iphone, you probably have an apple computer and an ipad, managing

information from one device to the next requires one of these, a syncing cable. apple wants to change that with the icloud. >> we will move the device into the cloud. all these new devices have communications built into them, they can all talk to the cloud whenever they want. so now if i get something on my iphone, it is sent up to the cloud immediately. let's say i take some pictures with it those pictures are in the cloud, they are now pushed down to my devices completely automatically. >> reporter: icloud will work with e-mail, contacts and your calendar but also work with music and photos. say you take a picture with your iphone that will be sent up to the cloud and sent to all your devices, or if you download a long from itunes, that same song is now available on all your

devices. no need for a cable or manual syncing, and all of this will be free and available sometime this fall. dan simon, cnn, san francisco. as dan was saying, icloud lets you store all sorts of data on a digital hub. 5 gigabytes, to be precise. much of that data will be automatically found to other apple devices, but not all of it music dances to its own tune, if you'd like. buy your music on itunes, itunes in the cloud will sync to other devices but buy it from somewhere else, and apple will charge you $25 a year. they will give you a music quality upgrade and then you are free to start syncing.

continue ver music critics say it may lead to piracy. steve jobs physical health has weighed heavily on apple shares. he has rarely been seen in public in this year 2011. whether it was his personal appearance or the content of his presentation that investors reacted to, either way their response was negative. apple share prices fell more than 1.5% on the nasdaq on monday. another downward turn in a seesawing journey over the past six months. a volatile stock price movement there. now, if all of this cloud content is clouding your vision, fear not. we'll have a full explanation of what the cloud is and what it means for you and your business later in the show. here are the other top business stories. german officials say tests on sprouts from the farm they suspect being the source of the e. coli outbreak have shown no evidence of the deadly

bacterium. but authorities say that doesn't mean their earlier suspicions are wrong. they say they didn't expect tainted sprouts to still be at the farm and insist the supply chain constitutes a direct clink between the outbreak and the sprout farm. ministers from the european union will meet on tuesday to hammer out financial aid for farmers hurt by the outbreak. spain's deputy prime minister threatened legal action against germany for wrongly identifying spanish cucumbers as the source of the e co. coli bacteria. a group called lulz stole a file from sony's network. last month they got data on more than 100 million users. the german chancellor andrea

merkel will join u.s. president barack obama for a state dinner on tuesday. mr. obama will award mrs. merkel the presidential medal of freedom. back home the chancellor's popularity is plummeting thanks to her reviewal to back libyan air strikes, the european debt crisis and germany's reversal on nuclear power. opec is in the frame as the major oil producing nations prepare to meet on wednesday. with unrest in libya effecting oil supplies, there could be conflict. all of that in a moment.

live from cnn london, this is "world business today." the price of crude dropped to below $100 a barrel on monday.

these are the 12 current members of the organization of petroleum exporting countries, opec. they're spread across south america, the middle east and africa. the best thing is they'll increase oil production targets, that's been sending the price of crude lower. as the economic outlook is not terribly bright at the moment, certainly as reflected in those u.s. labor market figures last friday, analysts are not expecting a return to the highs we saw in late april. so that opec meeting hardly likely to be an easy one. there's another prawn on the barbie, that's libya's civil war. it's complicating an agreement on quotas and opec ministers may find themselves supporting sides in a military conflict for the first time since the gulf war 21 years ago. >> reporter: the meeting of a dozen opec countries may have more plot twists than a prime time tv drama. key question marks hover over

proceedings that cover libya, iran and an output that matches today's reality. libya's output has plummeted. libya's oil minister defected last week and this may leave the cartel divided on whom to support during the civil war. >> the political structure is in a state of war. once you are in a state of war in a country like this, the cohesion is not there. >> iran's president sacked his oil minister and plans to manager that portfolio himself. with the onset of the arab uprisings, 2011 is shaping up to be the first year oil averages $100 a barrel or more. back in 2008, when oil peaked at $147 a barrel, they came close. but the banking crisis led to a second half price collapse. even though opec took more than

4 million barrels a day. in 2009, they averaged 61.76 and rose steadily last year to finish just below $80 a barrel. considering all the unrest in the middle east, the chief executive at one of the top oil giants says opec has done a good job of managing chaos. >> 10, 15 years ago you would have announced that there is a risk of something happening on the suez canal, there's a risk, the price of oil would have been multiplied by four. >> reporter: with prices at the century mark and rising unemployment in the u.s., opec is under pressure to increase its production ceiling, officially at 24.8 million barrels a day. actual output is at 26.3 million barrels a day which does not include iraq which zest mated to produce more than 2.5 million barrels a day and is still

rebuilding after the war. >> it should go up with the quota, by not as much as foreign western countries want because we don't know where the u.s. recovery will go, and we still have a sluggish economy in japan due to the earthquake. >> reporter: that is the simple solution, but with the current dynamics, that may not be easy to deliver. cnn, london. of course we'll bring you all the news from that opec meeting in svienna on "world business today" wednesday. still to come today, big losses on peru's main stock exchange following the country's presidential runoff. as peru takes a political turn to the left, its mining sector is feeling the pressure.

welcome back to "world business today." investors are reacting negatively to peru's presidential runoff election. stock prices plunged and trading had to be temporarily suspended. shares lost more than 12.5%, an eighth of their value. state media report that's the worst drop in the history of the exchange. it was unnerving for those who are invested in it to watch peru's market sink hour by hour on monday. rafael romo takes us through that and tells us what some

think should be done to protect peru from an economic tailspin. >> reporter: the peruvian markets reacted swiftly the morning after the election, hours after owe lant llanta hum claimed victory in front of supporters, the markets plunged. the general index of the lima stock exchange dropped 8.7% in the first ten minutes of trading. after a brief shutdown, the market continued to plummet and trading was suspended for the day after the index dropped by nearly 13%. said one financial analyst this activity in the market is link to the electoral process. trust seems to be the issue. this issue had been foreseen. in an interview with cnn affiliate america tv, the former finance minister, who also ran for president this year, said the markets would react

negatively if humala won the election. >> translator: everything has been peaceful and without violence. i want to call on everybody to remain calm. tomorrow there will be a temptation to sell everything. >> reporter: he called on humala to name a finance minister as quickly as possible. humala's campaign manager blamed the plunge on political rivals throughout the campaign. >> translator: this negative campaign had a motive to make the economic proposals of our party appear to be against free markets, and that has never been the case. >> reporter: in an interview, humala denied rumors that he plans to nationalize businesses. >> translator: no we talk about nationalizing as a political concept, not as economic one. >> reporter: for months the candidacy of humala has made

some investors uneasy. in a recent interview with cnn, humala denied his goal was a revolution in peru, saying he believes the venezuelan model does not apply in his country. rafael romo, cnn, atlanta. concern about peru's change of leadership is being felt in the mining sector. mining shares were not immune to the market plunge. one example, grupo mexico, metals mining company with operations in peru, lost more than 7%. it's not really weather but we'll talk about clouds. apple showcased its new online service icloud on monday. did you know there are different types of clouds? those electronic ones. we'll see how they work and where all the information they store actually goes. that's part of our week-long series of special reports on cloud computing. also ahead, anti-corruption protests in india. we'll look at a system in which

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welcome back. this is "world business today." let's check in again with what's going on in europe in terms of the stock markets which now are just open 90 minutes into the trading day. looking at gains about a quarter of a percent for the london ftse. par rasis cac up about a third percent. i'm not sure the numbers are updating, but that's the general picture. in asia, utilities and automakers led the way on the nikkei. tepco, the tokyo electric power company which we have been hear being recently, that saw a bit of bargain hunting. shares by nearly 4%, that after a nosedive of 27% or 28% on monday. on tuesday, sony was the big name faring badly with more hacking woes at the entertainment giant sending its shares down 1.5%. the asx index in australia rose in late trading but finished down after the reserve bank kept interest rates on hold. elsewhere, a mixed picture. nikkei up two-thirds, same for the shanghai composite. tiptoeing down for sydney. well, let's take you back inside the cloud. it's a big deal this week thanks to apple announcing its icloud which we told you about earlier. the icloud will let users access just about anything from documents to music from any apple device. think of clouds as data storage bins up there in the sky, but they are somewhere here on earth, and like real clouds there are many different types. max foster sorts it out for us. this is not a case of one cloud fits all. there are several clouds force all different needs. personal clouds, services only

you can access. imagine having a briefcase with your important files in it. the only difference is all your files are in cyberspace. now, a public cloud, that's open to everyone. these are sites like flickr, which share your photos or youtube for video. companies like amazon, google, apple, they are moving into the cloud business when it comes to music in particular. they want to you choose them to buy and store your favorite songs. you can access your music from any computer and some mobile devices. that brings us over to the cloud devices themselves. lots of phonemakers are creating apps so you can access files while on the road. even some radios and tvs are coming equipped with internet connections and letting you access the clouds for all types of content. companies like netflix are letting customers stream movies and shows directly to their tvs. the film is saved on a server, you are free to watch them when

you want. another type of cloud is a business project cloud. these are programs that allow members of a team all to work in the same project from different computers. so, someone in mexico can work on the same project as someone from paris. all in real time. the latest cloud we're seeing are computer clouds. some companies are trying to radically change how we computer altogether. forget installing a large program on your laptop and replacing it with web-based applications. imagine dropping microsoft word for google docs online that would make computers cheaper, faster and lighter, putting consumers on cloud nine. >> max foster there. so with all this information going back and forth and cyberspace, there's a greater need for speed. can the internet keep up?

we look at that tomorrow as our special series "inside the cloud" continues. we can find out more about that now with our guest, secretary-general of the international telecommunication union, and a member of its broadband commission. good morning. thanks for joining us. what's your reaction to cloud computing? you are excited or do you see dangers or challenges? >> it is creating a whole new paradigm, new opportunities for the world. i believe this cloud computing now, people in the developing world will be able to use -- have access to information with very low cost increments. >> you say that, but, of course, we talk a lot about the digital divide. you're saying this will narrow the digital divide. but it seems to me, and i'm not an expert, that it's hard to see how that will happen. a lot of these devices are quite expensive ones, particularly apple devices. those are quite expensive.

i can't see the average person in your home country will find that particularly accessible financially. >> you know, we are trainedo meet development goals in health, education. the best way to meet those goals will be to have access to information. and the best way to access information today will be through broadband. broadband will give the best opportunity for access to cloud -- >> what i'm on about is pricing. are we making it such that the whole infrastructure is so expensive it's hard for people in developing countries to access because they can't afford it? >> not only do we need to make sure we have low cost increments, but also the cost of access to information should be low. today, in the high end of the countries, having the highest income in the world, access to broadband is less than 1% of the

monthly average revenue. in the lower band of the 28 lcd countries on the latest data, the cost of broadband is over 100% of monthly income. the good news is that the cost of access has been going down for about 42% over the past 12 months alone. >> you're part of the broadband commission, this is your bread and butter, as it were. 42% over the past 12 months. is that sustainable or do you think we'll reach a point where that rate of decrease of the cost will plateau out? >> we are -- we believe that we've -- the new strategies that the broadband commission is advocating, we believe that if every country puts broadband high on the national agenda, there will be a lot of economic scales and a lot of demand for broadband. >> all right so it needs to be high on national agendas.

what is your message to the large i.t. companies? to the microsofts, to the apples, but also to the hardware manufacturers? what do you think you need them to listen to? >> i would like them to knows there over 2 billion people today that have access to broadband, that there is more than 5 billion people who will need access to it. therefore they need to think about that part of the population. 5.3 billion mobile users today, but another 2 billion using internet. and we need to break the digital divide. >> thank you very much indeed for joining me here in london, secretary-general of the international telecommunications union. to the problem of india's black money. we'll have a look at how the government hopes to go after unreported, untaxed wealth that story straight ahead. welcom

business today." the french finance minister christine lagard is the front-runner for the international monetary fund but that is not stopping her from continuing to campaign hard. today she heads to india to reiterate her pledge to give developing countries a greater say in imf decisions. indian leaders says they want someone from an emerging country and not another european to run the imf. speaking of india, here's a story about a vibrant but hidden sector of the indian economy. it's fueled by so-called black money. we look at the effort to pull it out of the shadows. >> reporter: an anti-corruption protest turns into chaos. police broke up a hunger strike

by one of india's most famous yoga gurus, barely hours after it began. his supporters were picked up and the guru ordered out of the indian capital. he began his protest in typical style on saturday. his campaign centered on a major issue -- black money or unreported, untaxed wealth in india. while officials have no firm estimate how much of it exists within and outside of the country, its size is believed to be too huge to ignore. >> black money in india, it is a very difficult thing to estimate. at maximum it can be a guesstimate. and as everybody knows, we call it the battle of economy. so the quantum of black money is as much as the white money. >> reporter: the guru is calling on the government to call black money a national asset and wants

illegal funds brought back into the national treasury. unaccounted wealth is a factor many indian businesses contend with. this real estate investor says a much bigger part of his transactions are outside of the authorities. taxes will be paid only on property rates set by the government which he says could be five times lower than the actual market prices. the rest of the money exchanges hands unofficially and both buyers and sellers seal the deals on mutual understanding, he says. an indian government committee is looking at ways to deal with illegal wealth and india signed pacts with at least 44 countries to track tax evasion and money laundering by indian residents living overseas, but the guru and his supporters remain unfazed, vowing their strike also continue.

america was stunned last month by the widespread tornado damage and heavy loss of life in joplin, missouri that brings us to today's big number, $7 billion. that's how high the losses could run in the southern and midwestern states hit by that deadly burst of tornadoes. the massive twister that hit joplin, itself, killed a record 138 people. 20 u.s. states suffered damage in last month's storms. let's bring in our jennifer delgado at the international weather center. i believe she is a native of missouri. it would seem the wildfires in arizona can now be added to that costly list of natural disasters over there at home in the united states for you. >> absolutely. we're talking about the flooding, the wildfires and the tornados it has been an incredible year for weather across the u.s. the total is $15 billion in damages. we're still dealing with the fire threat across the u.s. state of arizona.

it's really across the eastern part of arizona, moving over to areas like new mexico. we are talking about more than 90,000 hectares, actually burning. anywhere you are seeing orange, that indicates firing burning. this is the third largest wildfire in arizona history. more than 2,000 firefighters working to contain this fire. let's go to video and give you an idea of what it looks like across arizona. the third largest wildfire. and we have some of that video, hopefully we will be able to pull that up for you. you can see fires burning across the region like we've seen through parts of texas, new mexico, and the problem is we are still dealing with that fire danger as we go through today. as i take you back over, we are also dealing with a very low humidity value. we are also talking about strong winds. winds roughly 50 to 70 kilometers per hour. that's roughly 30 to 45 miles per hour. and we are dealing with severe

drought across parts of the plains. they where in orange, this is our fire threat. we are talking critical as we go through wednesday morning. really no significant rain in the forecast. as i show you on the satellite imagery, very quiet out there. actually pretty good, if we had thunderstorms those could fire up and cause the fire situation to be worse. as we talk about the fire danger, we are talking about the extreme heat across the u.s. it will continue today. anywhere in the orange, talking temperatures in the highs in the upper 30s. that shifts over towards the east. we have not forgot about europe. you have been dealing with some extreme weather as well. talking about heavy rainfall, flooding. i'll show you some of those images as we get back and look at weather around your area. stay with us.

welcome back. as i was saying, charles, yesterday they dealt with flooding across hamburg, airport. they had to evacuate some passengers there. so a different type of delay. temperatures today will be mighty warm. talking about highs again in the 30s. also seeing more showers and thundershowers popping up for areas like germany and central europe. charles, happen to see you today. hope to see more of you. >> delight to see you as well. jennifer delgado. from the curb to the airport gate, it promises privacy and no pat-downs. coming up, a look at airport security. and an auction that is going to thrill michael jackson fans as

this iconic jacket goes on sale. man: hey you dang woodchks, quit chucking myood! vo: geic fifinutesould save y fifteen percent or more on car insurance.

welcome back to "world business today." singapore airlines and virgin australia signed a ticketing deal allowing each airline to sell seats on each other's flights. the deal will extend singapore airlines networks across the pacific as well as within australia. it's been well received by

investors. shares of virgin australia's parent company rose today. in contrast, qantas saw its share price slide more than 1%. and singapore airlines fell slightly ending down 0.10%. as you know, airline security has become dramatically tighter. and we could see more changes at the checkpoint so what can air travelers expect? andrew stevens gives us a look. >> reporter: welcome to the future, specifically the checkpoint of the future. this is what iata, the airline industry trade body is hoping will become common place a one-stop shop for security from the curb to the gate, as they say, with dignity. how does it work? let's ask ken dunlap. hello. >> welcome. >> thank you very much. you're head of security at iata.

walk us through this. >> i want to show you the revolution. >> okay. >> the first thing you need do is identify yourself to the system. >> passport in here. says it's normal. i'm a normal person. >> that's result of passenger pre-screening done by your government and a known traveler program that your government may choose to implement within your country. >> okay. i'm through this stage. >> we have a smart system. >> through the normal channel. okay. >> what do i do now. we're asking you to identify yourself one last time so you don't sneak into the tunnel you don't belong into. >> passport there. iris scan, this says everything is okay. i'm still good. >> you're fine and cleared to walk through the tunnel and receive your security scanning. >> walking through the tunnel. security scanning. an x-ray, metal detector. liquid detector. you should scanner, and explosive trace which has just gone red. they've traced explosives on me. i've got a sign here that says

alarm activated. what happened now? >> let me tell you what doesn't happen first. you will not have a security screener meet you and start patting down your person and perhaps violating your privacy or doing something would prefer not to have what we do instead we have an additional security lane where a security officer would come and meet you here and escort you to a second lane where you can continue to walk in the same fashion and receive additional and enhanced screening. >> let's assume i've gone through everything clean, i can now board my flight s that right. >> you can board your flight. >> and it's just a walking pace through the different scanners. >> we want you to keep your stride, not stop. we don't want you to know that you are being security screened. >> sounds fantastic. how realistic is it? when can we see anything like this? this is science fact and not science fiction. we think in about five to seven years, all the technology we need to build this will be available. what's really exciting about

this is most of the components that you see here can be taken to today's checkpoints and within two to three years we can reassemble checkpoints, reintegrate them so you can get almost the same experience, maybe a third of the people in front of you in line moved to different parts of security screening and you can have that fast and enjoyable travel experience. >> reporter: it's not going to be prohibitively expensive. >> we need to work on the cost, but we know what's expensive right now, it's our passengers who decided not to travel on our airlines, on flights under 500 kilometers. people are taking the bus and car because they don't like security screening. we want them back to enjoy the great experience called flight. >> reporter: ken, thank you very much. >> thank you. >> reporter: there you have it. basically a system which, if iata has it right, means passengers go from the curb to the gate in their language with dignity, without having to stop, without having to unpack, without having to strip without having to be worried about being

groped. andrew stevens, cnn, singapore. >> not a problem i face at my age. it's a thriller pop collectible worth a killer price tag. one of pop's most iconic outfits will go under the hammer in beverly hills later this month. i'm referring to the following -- ♪ >> you were scared, weren't you? >> i wasn't that scared. >> you might be frightened to learn if you want to get your hands on jacko's red and black jacket will you need at least $200,000 to your name and possibly twice that if bidding reaches the high end of expected range. so you might have to lose your shirt to get the jacket. it would be a valuable shirt. if you want to read more about that story, you can do so online. you can find that and the rest of the top business stories at cnnmoney.com. that's it for this edition of "world business today." "world one" is next.