>> well, i know what happened and he knows what happened. >> herman cain has a lot of questions still to answer, and mr. cain you're welcome to come on this show to answer them. that's all for us tonight. to ce on this show to answer them. that's all for us tonight. i'm zane verg i at cnn in london. italian prime minister ber lus cone i will not resign over the handling of the economy. the prime minister faces a budget vote that could bring down the voft. unsustainable levels with ten-year bond yields nearing 7%. greece is waiting to hear who will become its new prime minister. an announcement is expected in the coming hours. one is the former bank of greece

governor, the new prime minister will have to call early elections and implementing the debt deal. michael jackson's doctor is scheduled to be sentenced november 29th now that he's been convicted of involuntary manslaughter. dr. murray showed no emotion when he was taken into custody. murray could be sentenced up to four years in prison. an asteroid bigger than four football fields wide will whiz by earth today. don't worry about it. astronomers don't expect it to hit us. it's the closest it's come to earth in 30 years. if you want to catch a dplims of it with a telescope, the best time is 9:00 p.m. gmt. "world business today" starts now.

good morning from cnn london. i'm charles hodson. this is "world business today." our top stories on tuesday, november 8th. electronics maker olympus admits to hiding investment losses. greece is close to naming a new prime minister. have investors lost confidence. >> editor in chief says it's not just about hem lines anymore. the future of europe, four words that have investors across the world watching the stock markets minute by minute. attention is turned to italy war the prime minister is fighting for viefl as he struggles to reign in the mounting debt. we'll go to rome in a minute. let's look at how market are trading one hour into the session. we're seeing gains fairly steady. decent actually.

more than 1% of the london ftse. up by nearly 1%. one of the themes here is reasonably encouraging corporate news or certainly companies that are reporting numbers which are ahead of expectations, for example the mobile phone service. but the problem is that those are lowered expectations really. let's look at markets in asia where they ended tuesday's session in mixed territory. the nikkei was down by 1.25% after they lost ground against the yen. shares in toyota lost 1.7%. the results came after the market closed and it was a 19% net loss for the fiscal second quarter. in contrast to some of the european results we got. hang seng ended the session flat

despite gains in the panking sector. the shanghai, half a percent with the losses for the australian asx 200. one powerful factor helping to drive the nikkei down is the growing scandal enveloping japan's olympus corporation. shares in olympus tumbled 29% to a near 16 -- to a 16-year low as the company's president made a stunning statement. it's worth one-third what it was before all of the scandal broke. anyway, at a news conference today, the olympus president said the company hid heavy losses on securities investments for decades through inflated advisory payments. he placed blame for the cover-up on three -- on the vice president, the auditor and

former president. tack yam a said he would consider criminal complaints against them but drew the line at rehiring the whistle blower in this affair who was unceremoniously sacked on october 14th. >> translator: the reason for firing former president was because of his character and arbitrary actions. we think the actions were unacceptable and made the decision to fire him. we're sticking to that decision. we understand the three are the ones who knew about the deal. i myself was not aware of the fact at all until yesterday evening. >> that could be a case of the pot calling the kettle black. but maybe that's just my take on it. anyway, the unfolding scandal is battered and bruised olympus' share price. no doubt about that look at how it's plunged in the last month. it's lost 70% of its value since

october 14th. there it is at around about -- that sort of level. compared to that kind of level. really, nearly 2,500 to below a thousand. closer to 500 yen. perhaps not coincidentally, that was the same day that the olympus fired its british ceo and president michael woodford. before he was sacked because of his supposed problems with character, he raised alarm bells that olympus paid out in advisory fees related to its acquisition of the medical equipment. woodford, who seems to be the only one who smelled a rat at olympus, he said he was removed after he wrote to the then chairman and urged him to resign over the payments. instead, he assumed woodford's roles eased him out from the presidency. but resigned then and increasing pressure on october 26th.

well, coincidentally or not, i spoke with michael woodford on october 25th, 11 days after he was ousted from olympus or from the top job at olympus as president and two weeks as ceo. take a listen to what he had to say. >> what is clear is it's inexplicable and and board, we've paid three quarters of a billion dollars to unknown parties in the cayman islands. come on, charles, please. >> i take your point on that. do you expect the regulators will get involved? >> it's all in the public now. i passed my correspondence to the media and in communication with the fbi. this can't be hidden or tossed back in the box. it won't go away until specific and definitive terms for what and to whom three quarters of a

billion. $687 million. >> okay. but in terms of your own position, you worked for the company for 28 years. >> 30 years. >> 30 years. for 30 years, didn't you -- were you surprised that this went on? >> totally shocked and i'm still traumatized by it. i just found it incredulous. that was michael woodford. he spoke me there back on the 25th of october about one of the biggest corporate accounting scandals to hit japan in years. of course, the next day he resigned and olympus says the investigation is nevertheless ongoing. in the you state, the major stock markets climbed higher in the final hours of trade on monday as investors kept a close watch on developments in italy. the price of bonds crept up a fraction following the record

yield numbers in europe. here are the closing numbers. up by about two-thirds of a percent for the blue chips for the dow. only one-third of a percent for the nasdaq and i'm not sure what happened to the s&p 500. again, we seem to have a number there, a number that clearly is wrong. it did trade obviously on monday. now, it's a tough job, but somebody has to do it. greece was expected to name the new prime minister on monday. what's taking so long? a live report from athens in just a moment. if you've just signed up for medicare or will soon, there's no time like the present to consider all your health insurance options. does medicare alone meet your needs? would additional coverage be better for you? well, now is a good time to take a look at an aarp medicare supplement insurance plan, insured by unitedhealthcare insurance company. get started by calling for your free information kit and guide to medicare. as you probably know, medicare only covers

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it looks as if that intervention a couple weeks back has made a difference. if you look at the chart, it's pretty clear that has put the yen on a total different trajectory. today is the day we'll learn who will take on one of the most challenging jobs in european politics. prime minister of greece. it is these days anyway. so don't laugh. many consider the favorite to be lucas papademos. our jim bolden is in athens. papademos is a man who the markets will put a little bit of trust in given his previous job. does it look as though he's going to emerge at the top in greece? >> reporter: charles, i think the markets will be extremely unhappy. because he is the man that has been rumored since last thursday, frankly, that he would probably be prime minister. with that in mind, it's been a

real interesting weekend where the two main political parties have been wrangling to try to find somebody like papademos who is -- we should be hearing in about one hour if this does take place, that he is the man. we were supposed to hear monday night. but it seems as there's been a little hiccup which isn't going to please european partners. we'll see whether or not he does pk the next prime minister and they try to ram the austerity back through the parliament in the next couple of months, charles. >> it's interesting. this is an exercise in coalition building. i'm not sure that greece is particularly experienced in that. rather like britain actually. do you think it looks as if that will work, the parties will rally behind him and will rally behind the deal that was struck in terms of the greek bailout for the -- >> reporter: the coalition

government. they just -- they call it a coalition government because the new party, the main opposition, the one in power in the '90s, that party really doesn't want to be part of a government that pushes this package through. i think what's happening now, the main opposition parties basically trying to come up with a way to agreeing not to stop the austerity packages being pushed through parliament. so they don't want to be part of this government for the next 100 days. they need to somehow all the main political parties except for the big communist party, for them to somehow agree not to interfere with the caretaker government until the elections in february. if they can come to that kind of agreement today, if they can find another statesman like papademos to agree to put this package through and convince european partners, i think the markets will move their eyes

into rome. if they fail to get a prime minister named in the next few hours, some of the focus might come back here, charles. >> okay. jim bolden joining us from athens. many thanks to you. as jim hinted. it's not the only government with a government in turmoil. across the aid rat i can, we're poised for a knife edge on the parliamentary budget that could see him drummed out of office. if a defeat doesn't finish him off as italy's leader, a confidence vote might. joining us from roam rome is matthew chance. matthew, how do you see the day unfolding in terms of italian politics? >> reporter: well, it's difficult call. obviously, silvio ber lus cone i is going into a crunch vote for him. it's a question mark whether he has the vote to see it through.

if he can't, it starts in two hours from now. there are reports in the newspaper saying between 20 and 40 members of his ruling coalition have, excuse me, defected to the opposition side. if that's the case,then that's plenty of people to bring down the italian government. put a new leader in power. but silvio berlusconi is making it clear publicly that he doesn't intend to go easily. i'll show you a couple of newspapers. one of the pro berlusconi newspapers, a picture of him rolling up his shirt sleeves, wearing a combat helmet saying come and get me. indicating that he's going to resist this idea that he's going to be stepping aside. another newspaper here, a paper owned by berlusconi, obviously, reflects his views saying this

headline here, saying i'm not leaving. which is pretty much a reflection of his public position even though there are all these reports that he was planning to step down yesterday and his public position, at least going into this important crunch vote is that he's going to fight it to the bitter end, charles. >> okay. let's -- this may be a big if, but if he loses that vote, what happens next? will we then have weeks of chaos while italy tries to find somebody who can muster parliamentary majority? >> well, we're in sort of uncharted territory here as a matter of fact. so it's a bit difficult to know exactly what's going to happen. certainly if he loses the vote, berlusconi is being reported in newspapers and commentators say will have to think seriously about whether he wants to continue leading the country in what would almost be a confidence vote perhaps later in the week. if he can't command the majority in the parliament, the focus

then will go to the italian president who will have the ability to ask another figure, an opposition figure perhaps, another leading political figure in italy to try and form a majority government himself. and so there are a number of possibilities that could come out of silvio berlusconi losing this vote. by no means is it a certainty that he will lose. as i said, he has been working very hard, it seems behind the scenes to attract rebels back to his side even. he's certainly not going to go without a fight, charles. >> matthew chance joining us live from rome. many thanks to you. you'll keep us updated or cnn's viewers updated throughout the day on that debate and that vote. if things in the euro zone seem confused, the message in britain could not be clearer. david cameron added his voice to a chorus of others urging the european central bank to throw

its weight behind efforts to solve europe's deepening crisis. >> let me be clear, it is for the euro zone and the ecb, the european central bank to support the euro and global action cannot be a substitute for concrete action by the euro zone. the g-20 withheld certain commitments at this stage precisely because we wanted to see more concrete action to make it more credible and stand behind their currency. had short, the world sent a clear message to the euro zone, sort yourselves out and then we will help. not the other way around. >> david cameron there, the uk prime minister. while germany is fiercely opposed to a bigger role for the european central bank, many economists appear to think the measures taken so far are not strong enough. the bailout fund, had a hard time raising money from investors to ten-year bond sale on monday.

it was forced to offer a yield 177 basis points over the yield on german government debt. that was more than three times the yield on its ten-year bond sale in june in terms of the spread. its latest offering was slightly over subscribed. by comparison, the first bond sale in january was nine times oversubscribed. a further sign that the ecb may have to wade in furlt, it bought $13 billion of distressed bonds last week. more than double than the week before. despite that support, the yield on italian bonds has shown no sign of falling. what's going on in you're watching "world business today." he's got success in the bag or actually not the bag. james dyson, the inventor of the bagless vacuum asset his sights on other ideas. we'll hear from dyson next. watch this.

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welcome back. you're watching "world business today" live on cnn. a lot of people minot so recognize this particular logo, they might have heard of a product which made the company, dyson, a household name. dyson is in fact the brainchild of james dyson, an english man with a passion for architecture and engineering. he's responsible for inventing a

range of appliances that have become a staple in the world. perhaps his most famous is this, the bagless vacuum cleaner. we have a couple of quite hairy labrador retrievers at home. i won't say anything about these things but it's an advantage not having a bag if you're that much pet hair to hoover up. let's not go there for too much longer. talk about james dyson instead. he spent five years developing his first vacuum and made more than 5,000 prototypes. he's encouraging other inventors to come up with their own ideas. felicia taylor caught up with the boss of dyson. >> reporter: here we are at the global headquarters of dyson, the birthplace of the bagless vacuum. sir james dyson made it his life's passion to invent and innovate and take the everyday product and make it something a little more unique. and now sir james is rewarding younger talent. engineers that have the same kind of passion and this year's winner is an australian man who

invented the air drop. >> what he's done, taken hot air, take it underground where it's cooler and condensation forms and he's using that to put back into the land through a watering system. it's brilliant. the idea is to encourage students to design and develop technology that solves a problem. >> why are you so passionate about innovation, about creating new things? >> because it's exciting. it's challenging and it is solving problems and what's what i love doing. i think it makes engineers love doing. >> it's very important because if you don't protect it. people will copy you. if you're putting a lot of time, energy, intelligent thought and money into developing new solutions to things, which have commercial possibilities, you've got to be able to go out and commercialize that. i think this is what we need to do in the west because you can see what's happening in china.

china is becoming the manufacturing center of the world. it's got to be better engineered and better designed than what's offered by china or other big exporting nations. >> you don't consider yourself a businessman? >> no. i'm a designer and engineer. of course, i make things and i supply them to people like you, but that's my business. but i don't ever think of it as a business. most important thing is that almost everything i do fails. everything we -- my 600 engineers out there do fail. what's interesting is watching the failure. that's what you learn from. you never learn from success. >> did you seriously wake up one day and say wow, i have this idea for a vacuum cleaner. >> it smoldered within me for 25 years. my mother used to make me vacuum at home. this terrible smell of stale dust that the vacuum wasn't picking up.

>> i'm going to steer you this way. >> you're not allowed to see this. >> this is where i'm not supposed to go. >> i have to block the view. you're not allowed to come in here. >> thousands of failures in research and design that turned into a multimillion dollar business. felicia taylor, cnn, london. we'll have more on the european debt crisis in a moment. if only we could just kind of vacuum clean that up. investors are worried that italy could be the next domino to fall. with good reason. italy, of course is a much larger economy. it's also got high debt levels. we'll take a light-hearted look at how it all went wrong after the break. i realized i needed an aarp... medicare supplement insurance card, too. medicare is one of the great things about turning 65, but it doesn't cover everything. in fact, it only pays up to 80% of your part b expenses. if you're already on or eligible for medicare, call now to find out how an aarp... medicare supplement insurance plan,

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from cnn london, i'm charles hodson. welcome back to "world business today." quick look at the european stock market. positive session. still green arrows across the board. up by more than 1%. zurich is up the least much just over 1%. decent gains for the zee tra dax. decent amount of corporate views seems to be feeding it. it's perhaps more the corporate news flow than the political news flow. markets are waiting to see what will happen in italy. meanwhile in asia, stock markets ended tuesday's sessions with mixed results. the nikkei was down by 1.25% after exporters lost ground about the strong yen or lower. i think the 78 is not bad. the big market mover was the camera maker olympus and shares

tumbled 29% after the company revealed it hid heavy losses in securities investments. hong kong hang seng ended flat despite gains in the banking sector. as for the asx 200 in australia, that finished half a percent higher. in terms of wall street, we're looking at a mixed open after the dow rallied on monday. alison kosik is at the new york stock exchange. >> stocks in the u.s. climbed at the open, then quickly slipped into negative territory before eventually rising once again. word that greek prime minister george papandreou will soon resign along with reports that burr le burr lus cone i will be stepping down. it kept the market in limbo. at the close, the dow jumped 85 points to 12,068. the nasdaq added a third of one percent. the s&p 500 gained two-thirds of

one percent. with little news on the economic calendar, the focus will remain on europe this week. one analyst tells us that italy will tell us an elephant in the room. because a country does not have a great record of handling physical problems, investors are expected to remain extra cautious. coming up tuesday, wall street will get a report on small business optimism along with earnings from toyota and october sales figures from mcdonald's. that's a wrap of the day on wall street. the situation spooks investors and many people are asking themselves how things got this bad. let's hear from two people about an unpalatable set of circumstances. >> this is italy's recipe for disaster. not only is the country the third largest economy, but it's somewhere that we remember and know well because of its food. >> pizza, of course. pizza indeed. >> if you want to make a recipe

for disaster, as in italy's case, you have to start with significant amount of borrowing. $2.5 trillion and counting. 120% of jdp. the financial situation in italy gets more precarious, it's more expensive to keep -- >> the bour b's. second one budget and cutting back on budgets, right? >> italy has had to introduce a number of emergency budgets, austerity measures. the last one was worth about $60 billion. but the concern is, is it going to be able to implement them? the prime minister is backed into many a corner by his fellow euro zone and head of state to say you must implement your emergency budgets soon before it gets dire. >> number three, the bonds. we've been talking about bond yield getting higher and higher. ha does it mean and when does it become dangerous? >> the cutoff point for when it becomes dangerous, they say it's about 7%. in terms of the yield. so the interest that you have to pay investors to get them to bet

on you and lend you money. italy's yield stands at 6.65%. >> going up every day. >> and going up every day. we've hit records already. this is the concern that we could see this country entering bailout territory, it's enormously important because it issues no less than 200 billion euros every single year. >> we can't talk about italian without mr. berlusconi as well. >> another couple of points with that. this is an interesting image. this is one of the images that came out of one of the many anti-berlusconi protests over the last week. >> translate for us. >> it's an image, of the prime minister of italy in his younger years inside a toilet seat. the word here scheduled actually means expired. wouldn't want to cook with anything that's gone off, would you? >> nina desantos with max foster. let's get to another country with finances in trouble.

greece. things weren't as bad in greece as they are now. one bedrock has been the tourism industry. they're asking whether tourism can soften the blow as the broader economy tanks. jim bolden reports from athens. >> around the acropolis, on this sunny day, all looks well. tourists are still flocking here. and musicians ply for a few euros. it's tourism, a mainstay for greece. that must be seen as the savior for this crumbling economy. >> it has been quite up the last month. but when you have riots almost every second day and the feeling of people being disgruntled, tourism is going to pay the price too. >> reporter: during the latest in a long line of euro crises here in athens, the streets this time were peaceful.

there were some anti-government demos, but no strikes and certainly no riots. still r the scars of a recent riot are everywhere on the square. black from fires, broken glass. missing marble from the pillars on the finance ministry. one hopeful hotel is repairing the steps ripped up during october riots. while banks, always a target, continue to repair and rebuild. and change is all around. >> you need time and that's an essential part missing from all packages to revamp the economy. you have to get two or three years of mostly peaceful developments and then you have to get some investment. investors don't go to places where they don't feel that their foot is really on solid earth. >> the government has promised privatization as part of a

massive reorganization of the economy. so-called structural reform. that could take years. it also faces tough opposition to plans to open up to more competition, certain industries like pharmacies, trucking and law firms. all pledges on paper to its european part mers to help greece stay in the euro, repair its economy while sticking to tough austerity promises. a bailout indeed but with dignity say some on the streets of athens. >> people need, yes, we need this final dose of money. but we need our integrity. >> the greek people have worked exceptionally hard. we're not lazy people. we workman i hours per day and they have taken away our dignity. >> reporter: a recent survey shows consumer confidence at record lows and economic sentiment appears no better.

some say it needs prayers. outside help for sure, be it tourists or foreign direct investments. something has to revive an economy mired in recession and keep the lights on. >> jim bolden reporting from athens. he'll keep us updated, of course, on political updates and who is likely to emerge as the next prime minister in the next few hours. still ahead, a tax for polluters, the australian parliament put a price on carbon. will the decision win votes from the public? the details next on cnn. where there's magic. and you now understand what nature's been hiding. ♪ at dow we understand the difference between innovation and invention. invention is important. it's the beginning. it's the spark. but innovation is where we actually create value for dow,

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from cnn london, i'm charles hodson. welcome back to "world business

today." a green light to a contentious carbon tax bill. the biggest polluters will be forced to pay for their carbon footprint. here's our report.

broke. which seems like it's only a few weeks ago. that's it for this edition of "world business today." i'm charles hodson in london. you're watching cnn, the world's news leader. if you've just signed up for medicare or will soon,

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