www.strength.org and find out where a site is near you. >> great. well said. it's been such a pleasure. >> great hanging with you, man. >> thank you so much. really enjoyed. enjoyed it. i'm zain verjee at cnn in london. here are the top stories. operation activists inside syria are criticizing the arab league saying the group didn't send enough observers to monitor the country. observers on this video appear to be witnessing heavy arms fire in the city of homs. the men in orange vests are apparently the monitors taking photos in the area. state-run tv in mean marseilles at least 20 people were killed in an ploex and fire. government officials tell the french press agency the blast

happened in a compound of warehouses but it was not caused by a bomb. the report says more than 95 people have been injured, many of them firemen. a final tribute to their fallen leader. ♪ north koreans took part in a memorial service for kim jong il who died nearly two weeks ago. they observed three minutes of silence for the former leader and pledged support for the new leader, kim jong-un. what's expected to be a robust debate has began in the indian government over anti-corruption legislation. the bill would give power to create an ombudsman in house. those are the top stories from cnn, the world's news leader. "world business today" starts right now.

good morning from cnn london. i'm charles hodson. good afternoon from cnn hong kong. i'm andrew stevens. welcome to "world business today." the top stories this thursday, december 29th. while north korea observed a moment of silence for kim jong il, economists are talking about how the economy will fair. china accuses lal ways z of rampant mismanagement after a fatal crash in july. we look at how the industry is trying to rebuild its reputation. stolen goods are discovered in sydney. we'll tell you how much this lot is worth. we begin with the markets this day, and in asia, the losses were extended, all the markets pretty much finishing lower today. that tracked the losses on wall street. in europe, something of a positive start to the day.

charles, the underlying story here, the strange one, we had some pretty good news coming out from italy on the short-term bond auctions yesterday, but investors are sort of ignoring them. >> we are seeing a built of buying here, andrew. i suspect we've had in this rather thin trade over the holiday period, we've had a lot of buying or a lot of gains for the indices. i suspect investors are slightly worrying when everyone comes back and puts their heads together next week we may see a bit of selling. it's certainly not evident on this chart behind me. the debt crisis, still very much in the spotlight. we'll be talking about the italian bond sell in a moment. but that's an important factor. rereported yesterday the banks are opting for low interest from the ecb rather than short-term loans from each other. a large amount of cash made available by the ecb has simply

gone back to the commercial banks' individual accounts with the ecb. clearly this is slightly worrying to investors because they feel the commercial banks may be stockpiling cash and they may know something they don't ability a powe testimony credit crunch coming up. let's have a look at the currency markets. the your i don't slipped to a ten-year low against the yen and an 11-month low against the dollar in tokyo this morning. 1.2920. so going quite sharply down. this sauf by about a current and a half actually just in the past 24 hours or so. so a lot of pressure on the euro, and that does suggest in the minds of many investors globally the sovereign debt crisis does continue. on that vein, let's go back to the italian bonds. investors were probably hoping for more good news out of europe to help them forget what's been a pretty horrible year in terms of european stocks.

with wednesday's debt auction in italy, they got it. but today will prove a test of whether confidence has returned to this continent. hot on the heels of the ecb decision to lend $630 billion to banks, the short-term borrowing costs are significantly down. in a $12 billion, that's half the rate they were in the last comparable auction that was in november. that was 6.5%. so really quite a decent, steep decline in the yield which suggests investors not quite so bearish about italian debt. there's the figure of 4.85%. compare that to the previous month of november, 7.81%.

clearly down in both cases. let's hope that continues because in terms of italian austerity apart from anything else, that is good news as well as from the markets. the bigger challenge comes to difficult, thursday, for italy, with roughly $11 billion of longer-term debt being auctioned, maturity is ten years. the ten year yield currently sits at about 6.5%. that's below the figure economists see as sustainable for the longer-term sovereign debt. >> still pretty uncomfortably high. that's been worrying investors in asia this day as well, the ten-year bond, very, very closely watched, not just obviously in europe, but right around the world. remember italy is the third biggest economy in the eurozone. as you can see, red arrows once again pretty much across the board. losses on wall street certainly starting to seep through here,

dampen the mood from the outside. all the markets were off fairly sharply. the nikkei was down 1.1% at one stage during the intraday trading session. worries about european banks being felt by the asian banks as well. finance companies taking a hit across the region today. also a little bit of profit taking before year end. want to focus on nikkei because charles is talking about the currency. the yen is now at a ten-year high against the euro. obviously that hurts japan's exporters. we saw a big selloff in some of the big japanese exporters today. australia continues to be the mining stocks dragging things down, the broader s&p down by .5% as commodity prices continue to weaken. i want do report one interesting story that came to light over the past 24 hours or so, china has got one over the u.s. again. a "financial times" report is

citing the investment banking firm dear logic which says china is the best place for initial public offerings. take a look at this. these are the three top ipo destinations in 2011. the report says london raised $18 billion. compare that with new york. that clocked up this year $30.7 billion of ipo activity. that .7 is important because it was just out shined by hong kong. hong kong raising more than any other exchange for the third year running, $30.9 billion. that comes, also -- comes with the hang seng index falling by 20% this year. it didn't put investors off certainly buying the ipos at the outset although the performance you can see over the year not good because of a falling hang seng index which is pretty much

in line with the rest of the world. want to focus on two launches we had this year. prada raised $2.1 billion. chow tai fook, a luxury jewelry. a lot of people saying china will remain the place for ipos. if you add hong kong's $30.9 billion to ipo's on the mainland, the total ipo raising in asia, $73 billion. >> it will be fascinating to see whether ipo fever will spread across the border into china's neighbor and ally, north korea. didn't seem to be very much in prospect. in fact, 12 days after the death of its leader, that nation fell still, but not silent.

as the official mourninging period for kim jong il came to an end, a memorial service in pyongyang brought tens of thousands of north koreans only the streets each bowing in reverence. attention will shift to kim's successor, the inexperienced 20-something and until now unfamiliar kim jong-un. >> the country's new supreme leader has certainly been thrown in at the deep end. food shortages cripple swaths of north korea, he noods to get the nation back on track. earlier harvard professor spoke

with anderson cooper. >> one fundamental question, will kim jong-un will be able to make money on a recurring basis. kim jong il was purported to run this system quite well, quite effectively. so the question going forward, irrespective of being the third son, will he learn from his uncle, a known rainmaker with the running and the profitable operation of the state training companies. >> what is it that's making the money? >> a key part and a new reality for north korean yeah, they have very important chinese partners. the commercial deals and transactional deals, it isn't one of resurgence or alliance, it's each side going out and trying toe make a buck. now the partnerships between these trading companies on the north korean side and private companies on the chinese side is growing rapidly in the border

region, and specifically the mining agency. already we're seeing reports of increasing of coal exports from north korea to china. so the evidence is there. >> barbara dem wick is the beijing bureau chief. she said kim jong-un doesn't have to prove himself to north koreans, but to the world. >> i think there's a lot of expectations that when he comes into his own, that he's going to open up the country. the chinese certainly know, the north koreans know that the country cannot be sustained at this level of poverty, deprivation and hunger in north korea is so extraordinary, it's in the middle of the greatest economic miracle of the world next to china and south korea and japan, and somebody has to

move things. the question is kim jong-un going to be it. >> baexports of coal have been growing recently. this sin dickive inside north coreyian trade. a seoul based organization says trade between the two countries has reached an all-time high. the agency says $4.6 billion in trade was carried out from january to october. that represents a 74% increase on the previous year. now, 83% of all north korean trade is now down with china. that dependence continues to grow. but let's put that in context. pyongyang certainly may see beijing as a vital trade partner and ally, but beijing reminds much more on seoul in a financial sense.

43 times more to be precise. that's indicative of the fact that while the cia fact bank ranks south korea as the 44th richest country on earth per head in population, it puts north korea down at 154. that's just below senegal and the ivory coast. the pressure is on kim jong-un to try to turn things around. certainly his father focused on this military-first strategy. a lot of people are saying certainly in the early days kim jong-un is likely to continue that, but will have to confront an economy which has been shrinking quite dramatically in recent years. >> we don't know the level to which social unrest is rising or might rise. and i think that's one of the fascinating kind of indeterminant factors about north korea as we go forward.

florists in the chinese border city of dan dong were in high demand as north korean immigrants gathered to pay respects to their dear leader. many mourners traveled to the consulate which showed the funeral on big screens. others filled the city's municipal north korean restaurants to mark the occasion, andrew. charles, let's turn back to the markets now. in wednesday's session on wall street u.s. investors continuing to worry about if and when europe will solve its debt crisis. will it happen in 2012? there weren't great signs coming out of wall street, selling intensifying ahead of the closing bell. most of the major markets falling, not a huge amount, but still all down by more than 1%

apiece. that's how the numbers fell. the dow down 1.1% t. nasdaq and broader s&p down about 1.3%. the s&p is in negative territory for the entire year. what can we expect when trading resumes today? let's take a look at the futures. this is where they stand correctly. the green arrows here paint a slightly more upbeat picture for the thursday session, although these numbers can change quite radically before that opening bell. charles? >> the "wall street journal" reports some employees of the uk-based oil giant bp could face felony criminal charges in the worst offshore oil spill in u.s. history. i hardly need to remind you, but in april 2010, an explosion at the deepwater horizon rig killed 11 people and sent oil gushing into the gulf of mexico for 87 days. the journal reports u.s.

prosecutors are focusing on several u.s. based engineers and at least one supervisor. it says investigators are looking into whether they may have provided false information to regulators about the risks of deep water drilling in the gulf. u.s. department of justice could decide not to bring charges however. let's look at the bp stock price. last check up by about .5% in a rising market, andrew. still ahead on "world business today," a fatal train crash sparked widespread outrage in china. will beijing put the brakes on the rapid expansion of the high-speed rail system. putting limb pus in the frame. we'll take a look back at the scandal that tarnished the optical giant and whether it can make a comeback in 2012.

[pig oinking] [hissing] [oink] [oinking] [ding] announcer: cook foods to the right temperature using a food thermometer. 3,000 americans will die from food poisoning this year. keep your family safer. check your steps at foodsafety.gov. [oinking]

welcome back. you're watching "world business today" live on cnn. china is blaming what it kals rampant mismanagement for a fatal train crash that caused public outrage. 40 people died and nearly 200 injured when a high-speed rear-ended another in july. a final report singles out 54 individuals and says they will be punished. they include engineers and a former railway ministers who was fired before the crash for alleged corruption. the report also blames badly designed signal equipment, inadequate safety procedures and bidding irregularities. beijing insists it's still going ahead with plans to expand the railway system, although it does say it will proceed more

cautiously. eunice joins us. rampant mismanagement. what do they mean? ed what happened? >> reporter: the invaefters found there was rampant mismanagement both at the railway ministry and also at the company that produces the signaling technology that was to blame for this crash. this was a highly anticipated report. it was meant to rebuild public trust. for the most part, the report was relatively transparent. a lot of people were saying the names were named of people as well as companies. also they were talking about how there was a lot of technical detail in this report. there were a lot of diagrams as well. again, all in an effort to try to win over the public and to be get the public to realize the government is doing all it can to really try to investigate this crash fully. the public was outraged back in july at the way at the government and the authorities

had handled the train crash, and so there's still a lot of skepticism out there. in fact, for the most part online the general consensus has been that the findings themselves and the cause seem to be believable. however, people are still very skeptical about the way the government had assigned blame to this crash. people are saying 54 people are going to be facing punishment, but the three people who have been singled out are either in jail or dead. so they really don't have a way to fight these charges, andrew. >> so china says it will continue where this high-speed rail network. what will change in future development, eunice, do you think, from this report? is it clear in the report that they are going to do things differently? >> reporter: well, it's not clear that they are going to do things differently. they say they're going to continue to improve on their

technology and, in fact, what i guess is clear is that they don't want this to be an indictment on their train technology or their train program at all. a lot of people here have been saying that this report has also been -- another reason why they have this report is because it's meant to try to shore up confidence in the industry they have themselves. chinese companies have also been looking overseas to try to sell their train technology in the overseas markets and there's been a lot of skepticism and concern that the signaling technology that was used back in july is used on a lot of other different lines here in trains an subways. the report this time said, yes, that's true, the signaling equipment has been used in other lines, but they said that back in august of those design flaws have been fixed, so this isn't a concern anymore. again, they don't want this to really be an indictment on china's train technology or its

train program as a whole. andrew? >> all right, eunice yoon, joining us from cnn bay ling. let's see how all this saf nexting the major railway stocks. you can see china railway group, the operator, the limited company, closed flat on the shanghai stock exchange on thursday. keep in mind it set a new 50-week low on wednesday when its share price dipped to 2.49, up slightly on thursday. for the year it's down by some 41%. now look at today's close for china railway construction corporation. it closed down more than .5%. andrew. samoa is fast forwarding the the future quite literally. we'll tell you why the island nation won't have a december 30 this year when "world business today" returns.

welcome back. you're watching "world business today" live on cnn. >> if you thought time travel was a far-flung distant dream and would never happen, welcome to cnn, here we are, 24-hour network. the pacific island of samoa will

travel through time tonight, so far that it will miss friday altogether. at the moment samoa is one of the most west early places on earth. at 11:59 p.m. on thursday, samoa will be to the east of the international dateline, but that line will itself move and two minutes later at 12:01 a.m. it will be to the west of the dateline, and it will be saturday morning. now, although it may not sound like much, the move will have a big impact on that tiny island nation. the new time zone will put samoa three hours ahead of eastern australia instead of 21 hours behind. that's good news for business, they will be able to trade more easily with its key partners in new zealand and australia. we'll have to take a short break and we'll be back with you after this. more "world business today" in a

moment. stay with us.

in cnn london, i'm charles hodson. >> an i'm andrew streechbs at cnn hong kong. you're watching "world business today." thinking about the samoa story, a mind bog her. the bottom line for tourists is you'll lose a day of your holiday if you're there. you're not going to be very happy about that. >> no. but i think it's good for businesses, because apparently they'll gain a couple days a week with the people they do business with which is australia and new zealand.

these can be very sensitive issues when i think about the consequences of putting our clocks forward here in the uk so we're in the same time as western continental europe. very controversial. let's see what's going on in europe where the markets are 90 minutes into the trading day. last time i looked we were looking at gentle gains, those have gone away and we're traceding close to the flat line, off by about .25% for most, and off by about a fifth of a percent for the xetra dax. in asia tracking losses on wall street. i can't tell you what the samoan market did. but trading is thin, remains thin because of the break between the christmas break and new year, never much action as far as volumes go. certainly the emphasis on the

downside. the european concerns the main concern. banks in asia getting a hit from the weakness in european banks. also we've got the long-term italian debt auction, the ten-year bonds will be sold later this day. also a little profit taking before the beginning of the new year. i wanted to point out there in japan, the nikkei down nearly .3% as the yen hits a ten-year high against the euro. the your roe has been falling quite sharply over the past few days. charles? >> traders in the united states. they saw red in wednesday's session. alison kosik brings us the latest from wall street. >> stocks fell wednesday with the tech and financial sectors among the hardest hit. trading volume was light as expected, but the losses weren't. the dow lost 139 points closing at 12,151.

the nasdaq dropped 1.3% and the s&p 500 fell as well slipping back into negative territory for the year. the nasdaq and s&p 500 have just two sessions left to make up their losses. with no major corporate or u.s. economic data in the mix, investors turned their focus back to europe. the bond auction by the bank of italy was initially viewed as a success on wall street, but that optimism faded concerns on thursday's fails. those worries sent europe to a 15-month low. the weekly count of new claims for unemployment benefits on thursday. we'll also get a report of manufacturing in the midwest region of the u.s. and a look at pending home sales during november. that's a wrap of the day on wall street. i'm allisison kosik at the new k

stock exchange. it was the year a whistle-blower brought a japanese icon to its knees an perhaps changed forever the way japan inc. is governed. olympus became the biggest corporate story. michael woodford, a 30-year-old veteran who uncovered a massive black hole at the company just weeks after he became the olympus ceo. when he approached the board for answers, he was sacked for his troubles. the british-born woodford did what many in japan considered unthibl, he went public in a big way. this is what he told cnn. >> olympus has paid the largest ever fees for any m and a in the history of capitalism. it was three times what was paid when rbs bought the $70 billion transaction. olympus has paid nearly three-quarters of a billion

dollars and we don't know what for to parties we can't identify in the cayman islands. >> the comments caused a firestorm. olympus's share price went into free fall, at one point falling 80%. woodford's crusade continued. in another interview this was his response to the scandal. >> totally shock and still traumatized by it. i found it incredulous. >> it was all too big to ignore. in the following weeks olympus admitted to hides losses of up to $1.7 billion from investments that turned sour dating back to the early 1990s, pledged the resignation of the board and carried out a full revision of their accounts over the past five years. an independent investigation meanwhile found olympus management, quote, rotten to the core and infecting those around it. at this stage links to organized crime have been all but ruled out, but criminal charges are still a possibility, and

investigations continue both in japan and in the u.s. if there is any good news, it's the inherent strength of the company to recover from the scandal. >> olympus will survive because the underlying businesses are so strong. in what form i think remains unclear. >> the mess at olympus is shining a spotlight not only on the company, but corporate governance across japan. was this the actions of rogue directors or is there a wider cultural issue at work? that's the question investors hope will be solved in 2012. now then, crisis? blat crisis? we're in the heart of the world's largest food market in the heart of europe, and it is thriving. and we're talking peanut prices. yes, you guessed, peanuts no longer cost peanuts.

a quick look at the oil price now. small increases in the price of

both brent crude and nymex this thursday. brent was $108 a barrel. nymex still below the $100 a barrel mark after it pushed through that level earlier in the week on the fears that iran could block oil supplies if western sanctions go ahead. welcome back to "world business today." >> economic turmoil is dominated europe throughout 2011. there is one market which remains strong. this one concentrates on food rather than finance. as jim bittermann reports, thousands of parisians have been stocking up on those little holiday essentials. >> reporter: it's before dawn on a frigid december morning. already hundreds of trucks have been converging for hours on the gigantic market south of paris. 120,000 tons of food and perishable products will be coming through here this month. before this day is out, 20 million french through their

wholesalers, retailers, shopkeepers and restaurant tours, they've done their shopping here. they call this the biggest food market in the world. it's difficult to overstate the size of this place, nearly 50 acres of individual stands, it supplies the food for nearly one-third of france that comes through every day. and so this holiday season, is there any sign of an economic crisis here? very little. >> translator: in france people have the habit of giving themselves pleasure during the holidays. i think it will be a big new year's despite it all. >> reporter: despite it all takes in a lot since in a lot of cases food prices are way up. lobster and oysters, holiday favorites, are up from 20% to 40%. >> translator: this year is different buzz a storm passed through last week and there have been 15 days of very, very bad

weather. because of the shortage of product, prices have risen a lot. >> reporter: nonetheless the market directors expect 6,500 tons of seafood products alone to pass through here this month, up in some cases as much as 30%. sales and prices in other delicacies have also been rising. truffles selling retail at 2600 euros, $3500 a kilo. for sommer chants, there's a lot at stake. >> in december it's 25% of the all year, just in december. it's very important to have a very good month. >> reporter: from all indications at this market, it will be a good month for the merchants no matter what the economic crisis globally. but beyond the end of the year, few are making positive predictions. it may be the natural wariness of these small and medium-sized business owners. many believe at the high living at the year's end, french

consumers will have to do serious belt tightening in the new year. a story weave been talking about all year, the rising costs of food across the year. here is a new one, peanuts. not at the levels of truffle-like prices. "the "financial times"" is citing drought in key growing areas have withered crops. peanut butter up 40% in price. peanut prices are up 60% across europe. that's largely because of lower supplies coming in from india. traders don't expect peanut prices to fall any time soon. corn prices reaching a six-week high. dry weather could also reduce corn production in brazil to key

production areas. charles, looks like it's going to be a pretty expensive 2012 for those that like their peanut butter. i must say i'm a little partial to it myself. >> i'm convinced it has something to do with it growing up, or at least partly in my case, in australia. it's definitely an american thing. bitter man and i are obsessive about it as well. let's take a look at the groebl weather picture. meteorologist ahas more on the cyclone battling asia. this is quite serious stuff. >> you're right. we're following the storm system because right now it's lrs battering the coastline of india, and what it's doing is bringing heavy rainfall, strong winds. over the satellite imagery you're seeing the eye become more apparent.

affecting northern parts of sri lanka. typically you only see a tropical cyclone in the month of december, about a 35% chance. winds at 148. it has been picking up, the gusts up to 185, making landfall in about the next 16 hours. you can see 24 hours out it will be over stords the west. it doesn't matter the landfall time. so many people worry about that. right now you need to be worried about possibly finding some type of evacuation because the system is going to be moving in. it looks like it's going to be moving in and making landfall to the south of chennai. we'll be dealing with the strongest winds and highest storm surge in this region. you'll notice on this region, very populated. this means this whole area is going to be likely dealing with extreme flooding. certainly this is not a time to ignore the weather forecast.

paying attention to your local weather authorities is very important. heavier rainfall, talking 15 to 25 centimeters. certainly that is going to lead to flooding problems there. the other big story has been coming out of europe the last couple weeks, the systems of low pressure through the northwest have been bringing strong winds through parts of ireland, great britain. the wrinds, 42, 46. yesterday some of those regions saw wind gusts up to 198. let's go to images to show you what it was like yesterday, a vfr wicked day indeed. just a couple weeks ago they dealt with this. i'd say about two weeks ago. you can see people whipping around. this caused the waves to really crash, really affected areas towards northwest. charles, as you know, yesterday even in london those winds were gusty, gusting up to 58 kph,

roughly about 70 miles per hour. for the remainder of the year this means a very chilly end for the new year, but it looks like we should be dry for parts of great britain and northwest europe for new year's eve. there's your forecast. now you can be light and happy. >> okay. provided i remember to wrap up warm for all the outdoor celebrations. >> it's going to be windy still. >> and gloves and all the rest of it. jen, thank you very much. jennifer delgado from the international weather station. it's been a good day for police in sit any, all trail yeah. we'll show the $6.5 million haul of stolen goods and why it might not be quite so easy to find the items' owners. ♪ sing polly wolly doodle all the day ♪

♪ hah will be giving away passafree copies of the alcoholism & addiction cure. to get yours, go to ssagesmalibubook.com.

the price of gold continues its downward journey losing 3.5% over the past seven days. this thursday gold is down over $3.00 and currently priced at $1552 an ounce. welcome back to "world business today." now, police in sydney, australia, have discovered a treasure trove of stolen property. they say the haul is the work of some pretty sophisticated thieves. >> reporter: in a hunt for hidden treasure police uncovered 120 kilograms of silver

bouillon, with it piles of antique jewelry, guns and $2.2 million. >> yes, it is a staggering amount of cash. >> the haul was stolen during more than 10 break-ins from hornsby to the bridge. police say at times the thieves spent hours inside homes using sophisticated methods to get into safes. >> they're using a method which if you first walk in the room you wouldn't first identify that a break-in had taken place. >> reporter: people are urged to check their safes to see if they, too, might be a victim. despite the rarity of the belongings, it might be tough to return them to their owners. >> the 120 kilograms of silver bouillon we believe may be as a result of melting down stolen jewelry. >> reporter: a father and son have been arrested in redford and expedited to victoria. no one has been charged over the sydney haul.

a quick look at the european stock markets. we did see some gains to start off with, and we're holding on to those. moving around the flat line. up a little bit now, only the zurich smi up about a fifth of a percent, andrew. it was an opposite picture here, charles, as we've been saying during this broadcast, the asian markets finishing in the red. only shanghai backing the trend. the same picture yesterday, worries about the strength of the yen against the euro as the euro continues to fall out of a ten-year high, hurting companies like toyota and sony. hong kong adding to the .5% fall yesterday. australia, the big mining companies down there as well. if you want to commented on any of the stories you see in the show, peanut butter prices perhaps, get in touch with the

whole team on our facebook page, facebook.com/cnnwbt and let us know what you think. that's it for this edition of "world business today." i'm andrew stevens in hong kong. charles, i am informed that you mix your peanut butt terp with marm laed. is that true? >> that's absolutely true. i'm off for a peanut butter sandwich. you're watching cnn, the world's news leader. -- captions by vitac -- www.vitac.com