dynamic and so fast -- we played the game so fast, it's beautiful to watch. hello. i'm monita rajpal at cnn london. here are the top stories at this hour. people are lined up at the polls for a second day in egypt for a second day. egyptians are choosing members in the lower house of parliament since hosni mubarak was driven from power in a people's uprising earlier this year. there are reports of an explosion near the iranian city of isfahan. the exact location has not been disclosed. it's reported it was part of a

military exercise. a uranium conversion plant is located just outside that city. earlier this month a mysterious blast damaged a missile base near tehran. a woman in the state of georgia says she had a 13-year affair with republican candidate remember man cain. she made the claim in an interview with local tv channel. cain has been married for more than 40 years, marred with a lot of allegations against him. he says he knows the woman but denies the affair. this is the fifth woman to accuse him of sexual harassment or extramarital contact. i'm monita rajpal. "world business today" starts right now. hello. welcome to wbt, i'm andrew stephens in hong kong. >> i'm charles hodson in london.

the top stories on tuesday, november 29th. rupert murdoch squares off with shareholders as phone hacking revelations continue to rock his leadership. stock markets in europe are stumbling after moody's puts dozens of banks across the continent on notice. the united states has ratings problems as its own as fitch sounds the economic alarm on political infighting. today is a big day for the murdoch empire and most specifically james murdoch, the son of the media magnet rupe per murdoch. the younger murdoch is increasingly seen as compromised as revelations about phone hacking at his father's giant titan of the media industry news corporation just keep on piling up. james murdoch is on the board at the parent company news corp. and that company's -- and at the company's agm last month, more

than a third of the shareholders voted against his re-election. so he survived, but clearly a big revolt. the question is will he face a similar shareholder revolt today. nina dos santos is at brks squi brks's annual general meeting to test the mood. nina, does it look as if he'll survive or it will be a rerun, if you like, of what happened at the main board at news corp.? >> it may well be the latter charles. let's point out that news corporation controlled by the murdoch family owned 39% of british sky broadcasting. for that particular reason analysts are saying it's unlikely we could see too much dissent against murdoch and him not being a chair here. we have had some of the top ten investors coming out an speaking against james murdoch's

re-election of british sky broadcasting. that's largely because, of course, the handling of the phone hacking scandal. we know he's been grilled in front of uk members of parliament at least twice, put on the spotted to try and, let's say, explain what kind of role or how much knowledge he had about phone hacking allegations at the newspaper groups he's run. these are tough times. the call for him to go may be growing. >> what intrigues me is what is the thinking of the share how olders likely to vet to keep him in place? he is to some degree compromised. >> reporter: first of all, we could make a clear distinction between the newspaper groups and also bskyb. we should also point out that bskyb, i'm currently in the london qe2 conference center which is wherein vesters will

come to vote later today, it's not based right here. it is one of the companies at the heart of all of this scandal in the sense that news corporation had tried to buy bskyb out right and had to drop the bid precisely because of the heat it was taking from the phone hacking scandal. james murdoch has been hauled over the coals at least twice. he denied he knew anything about allegations of phone hacking being more widespread. that contradicts with what at least two of the senior former lieutenants of news corporation have said, but that is the position he's steadfastly kept at the moment, charles. >> nina, thank you very much. have blowey out here, very novemberish. whichever way shareholders vote, one thing is clear, bskyb customers don't think much of murdoch as the chairman. a survey showed out of more than

1,000 bskyb customers, 68% want the younger murdoch thrown off the board. the poll was conducted by the market research firm ugov. bskyb customers, three-quarters of those sky survivors have little or no trust in the murdoch family's ability to own or operate media in britain. but andrew, it is the shareholders that count. >> absolutely. always the shareholders and enlisted companies that count at the end of the i. certainly representations matter. the reputation of the family isn't likely to be helped by the latest twist in the phone hacking scandal. giving evidence into the behavior of the media, the singer charlotte church described how at the age of just 13 she had been swayed by the

power of rupert murdoch's newspaper to make or break showbiz careers and gave up a fee of more than $150,000 for singing at the tycoon's wedding in exchange for being, quote, looked upon favorably by a powerful man and his papers. >> i also remember thinking why on earth would anybody table a favor over 100,000 pounds. many and my mother being quite resolute that the 100,000 pounds is definitely the best option. but being advised by management and certain members of the record company to take the latter option, that he was a very, very powerful man. i was in the early stages of my career and could absolutely do with a favor. >> now, rupert murdoch's news international denies any such deal was made. church also said that she was hounded by murdoch's newspapers anyway throughout her teenage years.

it's been a volatile year certainly for news corp.'s stock price, especially with the plunge in august when the phone hacking scandal first broke. year to date, take a look at that, the stock is up by a little over 13%. charles? >> that brings us neatly on to the stock markets here in europe which have been open for 68 minutes now. we had been expecting a little bit of continuation of the powerful rally we saw on monday. you know what? we're already out of gas in terms of that. positive sentiment clearly wayning amid this morning on european banks from moody's. we'll have more on that in a moment. that's clearly been taken rather seriously by investors. in terms of the eurozone crisis, we have european finance ministers meeting in brussels later today. i suspect we already bought into the rumor and selling on the fact if it comes to the fact of them making progress in terms of

them putting institutions in place and money in place to deal with the yet crisis. uk chancellor george osborne makes -- i'm sorry. we still had the markets up there. anyway, never mind. moody's could downgrade european banks' debt ratings and the banks in 15 european nations could be affected. moody's says it's because government support could be removed. governments may not have the cash to bail them out. these four could all be reviewed. and we're seeing a fairly sharp selloff. off by 1.6%, same story for unicredit. andrew? >> here it was all about the optimism over the past 24 hours rather than what we're seeing in europe right now. certainly we had the big pop in the dow. the s&p was up by more than 2%.

huge rallies in europe yesterday. that led to a pretty strong day here across the board. the underperformer but still over 1% higher. asian exporters getting a boost, still getting a boost i should add on the u.s. retail sales number. we had black friday. also had some pretty strong cyber monday sales numbers as well. that's helping the engs porters in the region. the banks also getting a boost as well. hong kong up 1.2%. a lost o financial stocks as well. the nikkei was up 2.3%, helped by the exporters. a number out of the japanese economy as well, some conflicting numbers actually. if we look at what happened -- at what we've had -- we had household spending which was down about .4% in october compared with the same month last year. retail sales, though, were up by 1.9% in japan against a forecast of just .7%.

retail sales actually double expectations. add to that, though, unemployment rising in japan. unemployment up to 4.5% from 4.1. the broad takeaway from all these numbers is the actual economic boost we saw from the reconstruction from the tsunami is slowing down in japan, charles. but still, the japanese investors or investors in japan certainly concentrating on the bigger macro picture. interesting to see if the european losses hold and wall streeters flip, i suspect we'll see negative territory once again. one reason we're seeing a better mood on the markets is action is being taken to get the eurozone back on track. european finance ministers are meeting in brussels today, tuesday, to agree on plans to bolster the bloc's bailout fund. the time for that has never been more pressing. reports say the size of the pot, the efsf is well short of the

$1.3 trillion that is felt to be needed because not enough investors are interested. meanwhile, france and germany are working on a plan to keep the single currency safe. under their proposals the eu will have more control over the eurozone member's budgets and be able to impose penalties on those. this is something that's been quite welcome to the markets, one of the reasons for the rally on monday. meanwhile european council president spoke with u.s. president barack obama and the european president barroso on monday. afterwards von rompuy said he was working on roadmap for more fiscal discipline in the eurozone. back in europe or the oecd, the organization for economic cooperation and development says

the european central bank should cut interest rates and play a greater role in buying up bad debt. andrew? >> charles, with the oecd actually forecasting a fall in growth for many of the european countries including the big ones, germany and france and italy in particular and a broader mild recession in the near term you can see where its concern is certainly coming from. it forecasts growth across its 34-member nation will slow, expanding by 1.6% next year, down from 1.9% this year. the oecd says confidence is sinking as people lose faith in europe's decision making. it does say things will improve only if there's quick decisive action. that's what the markets have been looking for for a long time now. the first order of business there, bulking up the eurozone bailout fund which is what we're seeing going on today. in fact, second, by allowing the european central bank to extend

its balance sheet to print more money, something germany doesn't want to see. the chief economist is warning that financial shocks in europe could start a global change reaction. >> there are a number of triggers that could happen like sovereign default or major banking event. the point is not so much to trigger as the whole eu area is in trouble today and any event could trigger waves that would lead the area into depression this year, next year and 2013, but also spread its negative impact across the ocean to the united states and even hurt growth in emerging economies. >> the oecd isn't the only group ringing its hands over europe. half a would away japan's biggest invest bank has slashed exposure to european debt in several countries. ramy inocencio is looking at that story.

>> those cuts cut through much of southern europe over the past three years. nomura cut its risk by 75%. take a look at the percentage cuts to specific countries. you can see the bank made its biggest reduction in italy, down by 83%, followed by spain at 62% and greece, down 43% there. the reason for that, year to date, no muir rah's share price has plunged 53%. that is as investors reduced their exposure to the investment bank. last week on november 24, its stock value hit a 37-year low and investors sold off this year because of the bank's huge losses. on november 1st, nomura posted a loss of nearly $6 million from the july to october period because of losses overseas. this was the first loss in more than two years. following the news of nomura's eurozone debt price, it closed

up 2.5%. it has a long way to climb back. moody's has placed the bank on review. its rating could be lowered to just one notch above junk. andrew? >> ramy, thanks very much for that. still to come on "world business today," strong retail figures on optimism on the employment front may only offer a short-lived reprieve for the u.s. we'll tell you what fitch has to say about the health of the world's biggest economy in just a moment. 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, for society, and for the world. ♪ at dow, we're constantly searching for how to use our fundamental knowledge of chemistry to solve these difficult problems. science is definitive.

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welcome back. most of us pretty much know the story by now. facebook started as a small project in mark zuckerberg's harvard university dorm room back in 2004. it now has roughly 800 million users around the world, estimated to be worth billions. we may soon know just how much it's really worth. "wall street journal" reports facebook is offering an initial public offering that it hopes to

put the company's valuation at more than $100 billion. the report also says the ipo could happen as soon as april to june of next year. welcome back. you're watching "world business today." the ratings agency fitch lowered its economic outlook from united states from stable to negative following the u.s. congressional debt committee's failure to reach a an agreement. the company's aaa credit rating remained intact. fitch's group managing director david riley joins us now in the london studio. why have you made this particular move now? >> we said we could review the u.s. aaa rating in light of the super committee. as you highlighted that failed to take some of the choices the u.s. needs to address in terms of tax and spending. our concern is they won't make any decisions until o 2013 at the earlier. we are worried if they don't put in place a credible reduction

strategy, the debt will continue to rise and there's a reasonable chance we would subsequently down the u.s. >> you have maintained the aaa credit rating. why have you done that and how long are you likely to do that for if we fail to see progress? >> we've maintained it because there's still fundamental strengths of the u.s. economy. it is actually still growing which is something you can't say about europe or the united kingdom. it benefits from the global reserve currency status of the dollar. if you look at the overall level of federal debt, it's not that much higher thanks say, france or the uk. in terms of how long we're kind of waiting, post elections they need to put in place a plan. if they don't put in place a plan by 2013, then the rating will come down. >> okay. in a way, looking at the bigger picture here, the surprise is that aaa ratings have been maintained on so many sovereign debt issuers because they're all

to some degree suffering stress. all these budgets are overstretched as a result of trying to spend their way out of this enormous recession that people are still dealing with. do you see in a way you ought to be making decisions a little earlier rather than now? >> i think that's a fair comment. you're right. all the major aaa sovereign governments have real structural problems, whether it be the economy or in terms of their public finances. i think one aspect is we've been trying to some extent see through the crisis has the government has.putting in place budget reforms and budget deficit measures. they start stabilizing their debt. if that happens and we still think these are amongst the best credits in the world. reading between the lines of what you just told me, it suggests to me you think actually governments will get on top of this and looking through the crisis they will come out in not particularly healthy fiscal shape, but good enough for you

to maintain the aaa. is that fair? >> i think that's fair. >> that's your best guess? >> that's precisely the situation at the moment. we have a situation where obviously the range of outcomes especially within the eurozone are extremely wide. either the eurozone will be reformed and ultimately could emerge stronger or it's going to unravel. that would have implications for the sovereign ratings of all of the member states. >> sounds as if you're still fairly optimistic then briefly? >> we're cautiously optimistic if i can characterize it. >> david riley, thank you very much for joining us from fitch ratings. after decades of hosni mubarak's rule, egyptians are shaping their country's future on a second day of voting. we'll be live from cairo in just a moment. for those of us with lactose intolerance... lactaid® milk. the original 100% lactose-free milk.

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these are live pictures of cairo's tahrir square. egyptians are heading the the polls for the second day to select a new lower house of parliament. the candidates they elect will be tasked with drafting egypt's new constitution. the elections are the country's first since former president hosni mubarak was forced from office back in february. welcome back to "world business today," the world's news leader. the head of egypt's election committee has promised a smoother voting process today after he received hundreds of complaints on monday for late poll openings and delayed

ballots. but overall, the mood has been pretty positive among voters. as we head into the second day of voting, how is the mood? do people remain upbeat, leony? >> reporter: i think so, andrew. it's been quite empowering from people who never had a chance to vote in their lives. there's a lot of concern about the security situation. things are pretty calm and relatively smooth considering. and that's really been encouraging for a lot of people. i would say there's been a lot of cautious optimism, but because of the smootheness of the events of yesterday, we'd expect a lot more people to go to the polls today, andrew. >> so optimism and so far the voting seems to have gone off pretty smoothly, all things considered, leony. just getting reports that the

stock exchange suspended trading. what's going on there? >> reporter: stock exchange opened much higher today, andrew. threes a reason for that. we've seen egypt's economy in a sense of clis sis over the past nine or ten months. investors have been looking for some kind of certainly, some kind of clarity. the events of yesterday and today with the smootheness of the elections is a positive step. just to put things into perspective, andrew, the economy which was booming at over 5% last year is down to about 1% this year. we've seen foreign currency reserves decline steadily over the past ten months, down about 40% this year. so when you speak to people on the street, speak to businesses, speak to businessmen, they are feeling quite concerned about the future because no one really knows what the outcome is of this election process. i spoke to one economist yesterday and this was his blunt assessment of what he sees for egypt's economy. >> the country is bleeding.

egypt is bleeding financially. it's bleeding foreign reserve, bleeding the stock exchange, bleeding tourism, bleeding with unemployment. the bleeding has got to stop. for the bleeding to stop, uncertainty has to be dealt with. >> reporter: andrew, as he's saying, the country is bleeding, particularly in tourism which created 10% of the jobs in the past, brought in 11% of the country's gdp before the revolution. everyone wants to see the economy turn around as fast as possible. >> leoe thank you very much. you're watching wbt. back in just a moment.

from cnn hong kong, i'm andrew stevens. >> i'm charles hodson at cnn london. welcome back to "world business today." let's have a look at the european stock markets, 93 minutes into the trading day. we are just seeing a little bit of the rally continuing on the xetra dax. after a big run up we saw on most of the markets, a little bit of selling, only a tiny bit by the zurich smi, but up to almost .3% in the case of the paris cac and the london ftse. we have a warning from moody's. we have the european finance ministers meeting in brussels later today. there was optimism surrounding that. clearly i think the market already bought into that and is

selling what really was quite a strong rally on monday. here in the uk, the chancellor, finance minister george shek ka has a difficult day ahead as he admits the country's economy is underperforming. in his budget statement osborne says he's set to miss his target of missing the budget deficit by 2015, but he will set up measures including credit easing and youth employment schemes to get the economy back on track. in march, the office for budget responsibility set up by george osborne himself predicted 2.5% gdp growth for 2012. now, on monday the organization for economic cooperation and development, the oecd said that 0.5% is a much more realistic figure, very clearly it's going to take a while to get out of this mess andrew. >> certainly the uk not alone in facing those sword of problems,

charles. we're looking at the numbers in europe down. here in asia, it was a much different story and that's mainly due to the fact that the investment community in the asian markets, looking at what happened in new york overnight, a big pop for the dow and s&p and also that big, big rally in europe. this is a follow-through here, the nikkei up 2.3%. exporters getting a boost, also getting support from the state of the sales picture in the u.s. we had pretty good retail sales numbers out of the u.s. very strong black friday, plus strong cyber monday. that's what happened. nikkei up by 2.3%. hong kong up by 1.2. shanghai 1.25 and australia a little over 1% higher. it's been nearly nine months since japan's fukushima nuclear plant was crippled by a 9.0 magnitude quake and following tsunami. the plant's chief has been

directing on site operations. this thursday he'll resign because of an undisclosed illness. ramy inocencio joins us again. ramy, you've been looking at this story as well. obviously a key question here, is the illness a result of the radiation? >> that's exactly right, andrew. right now it's not clear if his sickness is related to that radiation exposure. the company has said there's no indication his health problems are connected. on the flich side, officials are not willing to say how much radiation he was exposed to. both doctors as well as tepco, the utility that runs the plant are being vague. yoshida revealed his condition was found as a result of a regular checkup. his statement is, he said i had no choice but to be hospitalized under short notice for treatment under doctors' device. he said it breaks my heart to have to bid farewell to in this

way to you all. the stock price hasn't moved much at all in june. it was down by as much as this, 91%. today it did rise by about 3.5%. many people are now watching the very personal side of the story and many will be hoping for the best for mr. yoshida. andrew. >> ramy inocencio, thank you very much for that. charles. let's take you to the new york stock market. optimism about european leaders trying to get a handle on the debt crisis. what helped in terms of wall street, a record $52.4 billion in takings for u.s. retailers over the so-called black friday holiday weekend immediately after thanksgiving. at the close major indices were up by 2.5% and 3.5% in the case of the nasdaq, andrew. >> that certainly is a strong picture coming out of wall

street, charles. now, that rally came after a string of poor sessions last week. but the market may struggle to extend the gains when trading opens today. that's where futures are at the moment. you see the dow coming off about .2% today. looks like a bit of follow through today, chafrls. just to focus in on one stock, citigroup is up less than half of the s&p index's gain of almost 3%. a judge in new york has rejected a proposed settlement between citigroup and the sec, securities and exchange commission. the banking giant agreed to pay $285 million in fines, but the judge has ordered the case to go to trial in july of next year. the sec accuses citigroup of misleading people who bought mortgage-related securities in 2007. that proposed settlement would have helped citigroup admitting any wrongdoing and would have kept details of the financial

instrument it sold secret. this is how much city's mortgage security cost investors, $700 million. andrew. >> speaking of big numbers, charles, it's been a very interesting investigation being carried out. for the first time we have details now on how much money the u.s. federal reserve, the central bank, dolled out to u.s. banks during the financial crisis following the collapse of lehman's back in 2008. the number of total support $7.7 trillion u.s. dollars. that's ten times the size of the u.s. t.a.r.p. program set up to bail out the banks and a couple of key industries following the crisis. bloomberg has done the investigation an compiled this data after 190 banks were forced to hand over their financial records through the freedom of information ability. out of that, the country's sixth

big wall street banks borrowed between them a massive $460 billion. this is the number breakdown. as you can see, there's five here. goldman sacks is not included although it does rank in the top sixth. the exact borrowing amount was not included in that report by bloomberg. if you take a look at what was going on there, morgan stanley at $107 billion down to jpmorgan at just under $50 billion. all the emergency lending allowed the banks to make big profits equal to nearly $5 billion. that was about a quarter of their total net income during that borrowing period. basically what happened, obviously, charles, they were getting very, very cheap money from the fed, relending, if you like at a higher rate and pocketing the difference. while the banks were going through the financial crisis, they were also making a lot of

money out of the fed's basically rescue of them. >> yes. what do we think of that? you have to just go hmm on that one. the cop 17 climate summit is off to an auspicious site. we'll tell you how the commission managed to steal the conference's thunder. financial advice is everywhere. real, objective investing help? that's a little harder to find. but here's what i know -- td ameritrade doesn't manage mutual funds...

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welcome back to "world business today." >> as policymakers gather in durban to talk about climate change, the skies above south africa have unleashed some of the worst weather of the year. let's go to ivan cabrera with more on that. it's all about climate change. getting a bit of extreme climate change on their own. >> nasty stuff across south africa, particularly in durban. you're absolutely right. we check in on what's happening there.

showers and thunderstorms sure. there's an area of low pressure, but this basically enhanced our rainfall here. 62 millimeters falling and that happened in just a few hours. so what happened is we had flash flooding, and the tin shacks that line the outskirts of durban. that is where we have the fatalities as a result of torrential rains that came fast and furious with this low enhancing the shower and thunderstorm activity. as the low departs, we're still going to have stop rain, but it's just not going to be as intense over the next 24 to 48 hours. things will begin to wind down. you see on our computer model forecast indicating showers and storms. moisture is what we need further to the north, specifically here across the alps. covering this, slopes still closed. no snow at the base, no snow at the mid levels. we have to go to the peaks of the mountains here to be able to get into some snowfall. this is the way it looked in 2008. it was a great ski season there. the blue depicting the snowfall that was covering the mountains here.

this is how it looks like right now, just unbelievable difference here. not only have we not had snow, we haven't had rain. we haven't had anything. the temperatures have been above normal. so we are in quite a drought here across central europe. let me show you some dramatic pictures here. this is one report particularly in switzerland that has been impacted. look at the way, guys, it looks. bare. and watch what happens as i put this into motion. this looks fantastic. unfortunately that was last year. that's not the way it's not only looking right now, but the way it's not going to be looking over the next few days. i don't see snow moving through there any time soon. we are still waiting for the snow season to get going for the resorts in the alpine region. andrew? >> tens of millions, i suspect europeans as well. ivan, thanks very much for the dramatic pictures. certainly shows effectively what's going on. charles? >> let's stay with south africa now and indeed with the weather

because the 17th un climate change conference kicked off in durban as mentioned on monday with a warning from the south african president jake cobb zuma urged the thousands of delegates in attendance to look beyond their own for the common good and benefit. our robyn kurnow has been in durban and joins us. i suspect there's going to be a great deal of difficulty in getting the walk together there, robyn. >> reporter: absolutely. they talk about a collective response in this conference hall behind me, but deal or no deal in the next two weeks here in durban many people are saying that a radical green shift is already happening, and we're talking here about countries, about states, about companies voluntarily doing their own thing, from china to california, from brazil to australia.

examples particularly in the last two years since the failure at copenhagen, examples of countries voluntarily trying to cut they're missions, cap they're missions, putting in carbon taxes, just some of the examples. corporate -- big corporate to small businesses, all suddenly realizing, many people beyond just the fluffy pr green stuff that in their own way in their own sector it makes financial sense to become more green. i think there are a number of examples. i've got a list of them here. as i started researching it, it became more obvious. things like hsbc and some of the big european banks prohibiting the financing of new coal-fired power plants, for example. we're looking at a company here in south africa who pushed for more green friendly transport vehicles. talking about a wine farm down

in the road in the cape area which set up its own solar panels. each of these are certain examples of how corporates are actually going in a way beyond what is happening in this building behind me. there's sort of this bottom-up green shift that has many people saying it's quite remarkable and definitely sped up in the last two years. of course, that has to happen in conjunction with the politics and the negotiation that is going to happen here. so many people still quite optimistic on that level that something is being done about this massive threat in terms of global warming. is it enough? the big question. reports over the past few months repeating again and again that global warming is reaching that tipping point, if something isn't done in the next two years there's going to be sort of quite catastrophic perhaps and also very long lasting implications for global warming if it goes past two degrees.

so real things happening outside this place, and i think that is what is important when we talk about climate change and the negotiations around kyoto. >> robyn, thank you very much. robyn kurnow joining us live from durban, south africa. andrew? charles, i'm sure you don't share this problem with me. in all my years of traveling the globe on business, i've never properly worked it out. how on earth do you pack a shirt in the suitcase and leave it looking freshly pressed. just ahead on "world business today," we'll bring you the secret to that success. stay with us.

welcome back. you're watching "world business today." t.n. lewin has been selling business attire since 1898. now he's trying to collar more customers overseas. the company's international sales rose 26% in the first half of this year. well, our richard quest asked ceo jeff quinn how he plans to grow its international business. >> we all have some experience, small experience growing up in business. but it's going to be a mixture of both franchise stores. we're opening our own stores in australia. we're also partnering with myers in australia to open a chain of

30 concessions. >> you describe the environment as challenging. we hear on this program today just how challenging. can you be optimistic about the year ahead? >> unfortunately i am an internal optimist and actually i can. i think businesses that succeed succeed through their product and not through necessarily just the environment. you can over come the environment if you have the right product and the right mindset to go out and sell it. >> okay. we need to talk less about the economics and more about the shirts themselves. we have some here. you've been making shirts for quite a few years. what are the latest trends in shirts? boring people like me always wear the same type. what are the latest trends? >> if i can show you one of the latest trends is actually to wear a shirt thasz r that's very business-minded during the day, but actually in the evening you can open it up and away you go. that's for the people -- that's a button cuff. >> are double cuffs in or out.

>> very much in. this actually comes in double cuff as well. i happen to bring along a single cuff today. >> in terms of the cut of the collar, what is the smart person wearing? >> this is called a duke of york color, very similar to what you're wearing. there's a smart person. then, of course, you've got the prince of wales collar. that's very, very professional. >> a bit old-fashioned. >> but so classic and so smart. i've got the good collar as well. now, here is the case. tradition. richard was obviously getting into this here. for those of you who haven't lost your shirt in the current financial crisis, quinn some good advice.

he took a moment to demonstrate the perfect shirt folding technique. all you need is a magazine. what you're left with is a stuffed shirt. pull out the periodical, pop the top on the back. personally i need to see that in realtime because i need a lot of help with that one. >> i'm not sure what he's doing with the sleeve there. it strikes me it will end up all crumpled. >> you need to make sure you don't take your jacket off, otherwise you'll show all those wrinkles. i destain putting a magazine in there any way. >> i get someone else to do it. that simple. anyway, we'll say good-bye. thanks for watching us on "world

business today." i'm andrew stevens in hong kong. >> i'm charles hodson in london. >> i'm charles hodson in london. see you next time. -- captions by vitac -- www.vitac.com ng 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, insured by unitedhealthcare insurance company, helps cover some of the medical expenses... not paid by medicare part b. that can save you from paying up to thousands of dollars... out of your own pocket. these are the only medicare supplement insurance plans... exclusively endorsed by aarp. when you call now, you'll get this free information kit... with all you need to enroll. put their trust in aarp medicare supplement insurance. plus you'll get this free guide to understanding medicare. the prices are competitive. i can keep my own doctor. and i don't need a referral to see a specialist.

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