policies. that's all for us tonight. tomorrow night, cnn's arizona republican presidential debate is live at 8:00 p.m. eastern.ar republican presidential debate is live at 8:00 p.m. eastern. i'm zain verjee at cnn london. the headlines at this hour. hundreds of protesters have forced the u.s. embassy in kabul into lockdown this wednesday after american troops disposed of copies of the koran in a fire. angry afghans have burned tires and thrown rocks outside camp phoenix in response to the action that was taken over alleged extremist messages contained in some copies of the holy book. nato commander general john allen has since described the move as a mistake. journalist from the "daily telegraph" joins us from kabul with the latest. what's happening today, and

could this escalate? >> well, it seems to have already escalated. today's protests seem to be more violent and more furious than yesterday. there are several hundred people on the eastern side of kabul trying to get into the city center. they've burned shops. there are reports that shots have been fired in the air to try to stop them. there are also protests in the eastern city of jie lal bad, where a dr. told us that one person has been shot dead and ten wounded. so it is escalating already. >> ben farmer from the uk's "daily telegraph." thank you. kevin rudd has resigned as australia's foreign minister. he made the announcement as a hastily convened press conference in washington. he told them he would not be involved in a, quote, stealth attack on a prime minister. there had been speculation that rudd was trying to challenge julia gillard for leadership amid reports she was getting

ready to sack him. that's it for headlines. i'm zain verjee, and world business today starts now. good morning from cnn london. i'm charles hobson. >> and good afternoon from cnn hong kong. i'm pauline chu. this is "world business today." here are the top stories we're following. greece gets its bailout, but now comes the hard part. lawmakers have just days to deliver on promised reforms that are already running into determined opposition. and a chinese company is trying to stop shipments of apple's ipad into and out of china. pro view says the ipad trademark belongs to them. the world stock markets have had more than 24 hours to absorb a

greek debt deal. we've seen a pretty muted response to a supposed resolution. most stock market benchmarks here in the asia pacific region rose this wednesday but not decisively, and investors in europe are currently showing some caution as well. charles? >> caution is right. now, the greek finance minister evangelos venizelos says a nightmare has been avoided with the country's second bailout. one might argue the nightmare is about to begin. sweeping cuts in wages and services must be implemented before the country gets a single euro cent, and the streets of athens filled with dissent again on tuesday. the sacrifices greece has already made to brussels in its fifth year of recession are painful enough. speculation they've been made for a bailout that just will not work could prove draining to spirits and wallets alike. demonstrations are set to continue on wednesday with

greece's two main labor unions urging workers to voice their disgust at the deal. alynda joins us with more. you're out there on the streets of athens. i notice it's raining. tell me what will happen? what are the events, expected events over the next day or so in athens? >> reporter: we do expect a protest rally by the main unions. this is all against the latest measures that are about to be voted in as part of the new bailout plan. the vote is expected to take place either tonight or tomorrow, and so will the vote for the psi. so greece has to show in the next ten days or so that it is able to put all the measures that it has promised through in order to go to the eu summit on the 1st and 2nd of march, saying we've done our part. now it is your turn to sign our treaty and go ahead with the

bailout. we expect the government to move very quickly on reforms. in some cases, reforms that it hasn't been able to implement for years. >> it is the government, but it's kind of a minority government. it's very, very unpopular in the sense that its main parties are very unpopular in the opinion polls ahead of the april elections. is the government going to be able to get this through, or do you think there might be some fragmentation, some splintering of its own ranks, given how unpopular it is and how very unpopular this deal seems to be? >> reporter: well, at the moment, greece has decided on this part. they will be able to get the measures passed because these are measures they decided before the deal on monday of the the cabinet has already agreed on the measures. i don't think they'll have a very hard time getting these measures through. the problem is what happens next. greece is expected to have an election probably as soon as april, and from there on, the

balances of power might be shifting because a lot of the smaller parties are gaining popularity against the two main parties that are currently forming the coalition. so the result is not certain yet. and this could have a role to play on the future of greece in terms of the measures and how easy or difficult it will be to implement them. >> we've seen clearly very violent scenes in athens in the past. we've seen people even being burned to death actually in an attack on a bank last year. are we likely to see a repetition of the violent scenes. is the anger going to explode, or is there a sense of resignation for many greeks right now? >> it's hard to tell which way it's going to go. if the measures seem important for the greek people. so if this does seem to be a way out, does seem to be a

resolution, given how many cuts they have endured, given a lot of austerity these last two years, we're likely to see them follow these measures. if, however, the measures aren't working, the reforms are taking a long time, greece is not heading in the right direction, then that might change, and there might be a tide turning against the politicians. >> okay. elin da joining us from live from the greek capital of athens. many thanks to you. greeks aren't just upset about the cuts they're facing. they're angry at the notion that athens has sold out to brussels and that their country's sovereignty has been compromised. but one former greek finance minister says the european intervention is a necessary evil. >> i think, in fact, it's beneficial that we're going to have increased monitoring and that there's going to be an escrow account. i think these are positive

decisions because we have proven over several years that we are not particularly good at handling such issues. so we need help, and that's going to be helpful. let's have a quick look at european stock markets, trading for an hour and eight minutes now exactly. it does look like another day of losses. if we look at the xetra dax, the main eurozone index, that has been moving down since the open, just steadily selling off. clearly, the good news we've had, for example, on the u.s. economy is not really impacting here in europe. i think any optimism we had following this greek bailout deal has been fairly short-lived. most people in the markets do tend to feel it's a bit of a band-aid and it will only be a matter of months before the greeks come back for another bailout. they certainly feel that it's going to be extremely challenging, not to say totally

impossible for the greeks to deliver, pauline. >> yes, we're hearing a lot of skepticism out there, charles. asian investors were a bit more upbeat this session. take a look, tokyo and shanghai led the gains. japanese exporters were higher on the weakening yen. actually, against the dollar, the yen actually broke the 80 yen barrier briefly for the first time in about 6 1/2 months. so exporters did well. toyota, nissan, and mitsubishi all gained around 2%. and chinese e-commerce site alibaba.com. the session ended up about a third of a percent. shares jumped 43% after it resumed trading on wednesday. shares had been suspended since february 9th as parent company ali baba discussed buying back yahoo! stake.

it was property stocks that were the main gainers in shanghai, mainly after shanghai said it would loosen restrictions on owning a second home. charles? let's have a look at wall street. trading volumes were light as markets reopened following the presidents day holiday. stocks rose early in tuesday's session after news of greece's debt deal. the dow jumped briefly above the 13,000 mark for the first time in nearly four years. gains, though, were fairly muted by the close. let's have a look ahead to the start of trade in new york later on wednesday. and in terms of futures, we do seem to be looking at higher open there for the u.s. markets. it seems like the european markets have disconnected from both asia and the united states, and that good news out of the u.s. economy seems to be what is driving wall street. pauline?

>> that's good to see, at least for now. charles, we're going to take a look back a year, coming up on "world business today." it has been a year since the christchurch was devastated from an earthquake. nts and annoying account fees. at e-trade, our free easy-to-use online tools and experienced retirement specialists can help you build a personalized plan. and with our no annual fee iras and a wide range of low cost investments, you can execute the plan you want at a low cost. so meet with us, or go to etrade.com for a great retirement plan with low cost investments. ♪

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an estimated 60,000 people turned out for a memorial service marking the one-year anniversary of last year's devastating 6.3 magnitude earthquake. they also observed a moment of silence to honor the 185 people killed in the quake. welcome back. you're watching "world business today" live on cnn. >> the christchurch earthquake struck in the afternoon, surprising workers during their lunch hour and bringing down buildings in the city's busy commercial district. it's hard to forget the images

like these shot shortly afterwards. the rubble you see is from the former canterbury television building, where 115 of the 185 quake victims were killed. recovery efforts have been under way for about a year now, but progress has been too slow for many residents. and the latest population figures show that more than 10,000 people have left the city in the first half of last year. >> a steady flow of aftershocks has been blamed for the slow pace of recovery. the government says there have been 10,000 since last september, but there are signs of progress. $25 billion have been allocated for christchurch's earthquake recovery. $2.5 billion of that has gone to rebuilding homes and businesses. and earlier on wednesday, new zealand prime minister john key says construction has started on 26 different commercial

buildings in the city center. 200 infrastructure repair projects are also under way, pauline. >> charles, as new zealand reflects on the one-year anniversary of the earthquake, many there are having to deal with a powerful storm, which could lead to flooding for some areas. meteorologist ivan cabrera is at the cnn center with the weather forecast. ivan, how bad are things looking now? >> big storm heading out of australia crossing the tasmin sea. we've been following this the last couple of days, and now it's crashing into new zealand. both north and south islands have to deal with this rainfall and strong winds. look at this, almost a hurricane here. of course, it's not. but we are looking at a significant storm system. gales not out of the question, especially for the west-facing coastlines here of the islands, over the next 24 hours, and then the heavy rain will commence and continue over the next 48 hours. some of the tallies could be upwards of 200, i'm thinking

even perhaps 250 millimeters, not out of the question here. watch our wind map here. you see that center of circulation just crashing in almost like a hurricane there. we're going to see very gusty winds along the coast as well heading into the next 48 hours. so we are preparing and bracing ourselves as we mark this somber anniversary here in christchurch and all of new zealand for this, strong winds, again flooding possible. then into the weekend, we're going to continue with some showers. by then, the threat of the significant flooding and those strong winds will have subsided as we'll be in a colder southwesterly flow. but a big storm on the way to new zealand as we speak. pauline? >> yes. certainly not cooperating on this very sad day. ivan, thank you very much. still ahead on "world business today," as japan's export sector continues to struggle, south korea's overseas sales recently hit an all time high. andrew stevens is in seoul, where he's been talking to the country's finance minister.

>> reporter: thanks, charles. i certainly have. we've been talking about exports, how korea is managing to keep its export sector so buoyant. we've also been looking at the reaction here in korea to that greek bailout. obviously, korea no stranger to imf bailouts. got some interesting perspectives here from seoul. we've got that story just ahead.

welcome back to "world

business today." >> if greece got a stay of execution last night, so too did the eurozone in a sense. it's bought some time to protect itself from a greek default further down the line by taking unprecedented control of the greek economy, even to the extent of changing the country's constitution. as jim boldin explains, it's been a big step for brussels. >> reporter: after another marathon session around the table in brussels, europe's finance chiefs emerged, bleary eyed. after hours of talks, greeks will get a second loan to stave off bankruptcy for now, more aid chosen over bankruptcy. >> it's the intention of nobody to have greece outside the euro. this would be a bad solution for a reason, a bad situation for the euro area. >> reporter: with the second

life line in two years comes more oversight of the greek economy and a fundamental change to the way brussels oversees where its money goes. >> every eurozone country that borrows too much and has to raise money in the markets has to borrow from brussels and will have to give up sovereignty to eu institutions. it's asymmetric. it doesn't apply to eurozone countries who are not in trouble. it doesn't apply to germany or the netherlands or finland. >> reporter: for instance, greece is being told it has to change its law and then its constitution to make debt repayments a priority when it comes to the government paying its bills. until that change, greece will have to put debt repayments in an escrow account with oversight from brussels to make sure the money is there to pay bond holders. it's all part of increased vigilance to the worry of some. >> i think there's a broader point about democracy here, and that is having to submit your

national budgets to an unelected bureaucracy, and that seems to fly in the face of all concepts of democracy that i understand. >> reporter: then comes the so-called fiscal compact. the countries that use the euro and many others in the european union have vowed to monitor each other's budgets and deficits and stick to mandatory limits on public debt and enshrine balance the budget rules into national law so that another greece shouldn't happen again. 20 years ago, rules were put in place to keep debt from getting out of control. that didn't work. greece got its first bailout after promises were made by athens. that didn't work. now closer scrutiny of tax and spend is the new price to pay. jim boulden, cnn, london. the debt problem in greece and the eurozone more broadly has had ripple effects around the world. no region or territory is really immune from those effects, and they're being felt keenly right here in hong kong, which is home

to the businessie -- busiest ai cargo airport in the world. it's a pretty good barometer of global trade. and as our analyst reports, things aren't looking very good. >> i'm here at the air cargo terminal of the hong kong international airport. if you're looking for signs of global uncertainty, you don't have to look very much further than here. this airport is the world's busiest air cargo terminal. this airline here, cathay pacific, is the world's largest air cargo carrier. air cargo dropped by about 5% around the world, but cathay pacific dropped 9%. this freighter with 100 tons just landed from new york city. this isn't so much about demand from asia as much as it is about demand from outside asia, specifically the united states and europe.

in fact, europe accounts for a full 30% of all china's exports, and its debt drama that's led to a decrease in asian electronics and clothes. the international air transport association says it expects absolutely no growth for cargo traffic for the rest of this year. and cathay pacific ceo john s s slosser says he doesn't see it being up until at least the second half. that's bad for cathay pacific. they're looking to boost passenger yields while also holding off on purchases. they're not purchasing two freighters until 2013. none of this is good news for china's exporters who rely on cargo just like this just for growth for their factories. we're going to take a quick break. "world business today" will be back right after this.

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welcome back to cnn hong kong. i'm pauline chu. >> and i'm in cnn london. welcome back to "world business today." a quick look at european stock markets. we are now almost 90 minutes into wednesday's trading session. not too much optimism out there. another day of losses for the main eurozone markets, in particular the xetra dax off

about .66%. >> charles, it was quite a different picture here for different reasons. markets finished mostly higher in the asia-pacific region. the nikkei gained about 1%. a weaker yen helped give a boost in tokyo. the dollar actually broke the 80 yen mark just briefly, which is the first time that has happened in about 6 1/2 months. that was good for exporters today. and chinese e-commerce site aliba ba's shares jumped 43% after it returned to trading on wednesday.

shanghai indicated it was going to loosen property regulations of buying second homes in shanghai, which also boosted the market. now, in the u.s., the major indices were rather flat at tuesday's close. the dow ended the session 15 points higher at 12,966 after pushing through the 13,000 mark for the first time in almost four years in earlier trading. the nasdaq shed .1%, and the s&p 500 closed just one point higher. the markets do actually look set for gains at the open when trading gets under way on wednesday, about five hours from now, with futures from all three indices in powerful territory. that 13,000 mark breakthrough on the dow may have been the first since may of 2008, but enthusiasm over that debt deal in greece just wasn't quite

enough to keep the index above that key psychological milestone. nevertheless, the managing director of knight capital, peter kinney, told erin burnett that he thinks the market capital is solid. >> if you stop to think we're up roughly 23% in roughly a quarter and a half, the market has moved with great sponsorship, great leadership, large cap tech financials. the numbers have been surprisingly strong with employment and gdp improvement. the numbers have been strong in terms of macro territory and earnings. earnings season has been quite strong the last two quarters and largely in this quarter, beating expectations with guidance fairly positive. with that as a back drop and considering that many people are invested in the market, 54%, the number that you mentioned previously, there is still quite a bit of cash on the sidelines. if you can see a pull back in the cost of energy, a pull back

in the cost of what the g geopolitical represents, you could see a surge of capital into the market. >> let's move back over here to asia. japan's currency has been weakening since the beginning of february, but it's still strong enough to really put a squeeze on japanese exporters. and as japan tries to deal with the yen's strength, european demand issues, and also the aftermath of natural disasters at home and abroad, another asian export power is already taking advantage. south korea has positioned itself as an alternative manufacturing titan with home grown companies such as samsung and hyundai reporting record profits just last month. cnn's andrew stevens is live in seoul now, where he's been talking to a man who's trying to buck the global slowdown. andrew, first, before we get to those issues, let's get some perspective on the greek bailout from where you are. south korea had its own experience with a bailout in the late '90s. what has the reaction been there?

>> reporter: hello, pauline. as you say, south korea is no stranger to these bailout pack am ages. we saw a big package to help the south koreans in the late 1990s. we had anger over the restrictions put on reform by the imf to get that money. so the koreans have been watching very closely how the sovereign debt crisis and the bailout packages have been rolling out across europe. i spoke to the deputy finance minister, and i put it to him whether he now thinks that, because we have this finally a bailout package signed and sealed for greece, whether the worst is now over for the eurozone. of course, the eurozone is such a big export market for countries like south korea. this is what the deputy finance minister had to say. >> i think the worst is over,

but the problem is the bailout problem is stable or not. so it totally depends on the efforts of the greece government and people. so how they fulfill their conditions, how they make their fiscal position sustainable in the future. >> reporter: are you confident that the greek people and the greek government will fulfill its obligations? >> to be honest, i think they should make more efforts. >> reporter: making more effort, that certainly is a catch cry that resonates not just here in south korea, but pretty much across many countries about how greece now goes ahead and basically complies with a lot of the reform demands that's being put on it. but there was a uniquely korean perspective on this too, pauline. i asked the deputy finance minister, what sort of things should the greeks be doing? and he said, well, when it happened here in south korea,

you had scenes where south koreans were lining up to actually sell their gold for the national good to raise the money. he described it as a sort of a sentimental approach to it, but it was more like everybody pulling in the same direction. so he was saying, instead of greeks lining up to protest against the government, against the bailout package, they should be lining up to pull together to do things like selling their gold to help. certainly quite a radically different perspective from south korea. >> i would say that china will have a soft landing because they have a lot of policy moves. so so far china's policy is mainly focused on export oriented. nowadays, there's some differences of the development with coastal area and the inland

area. so i think the chinese politicians recognize this, and to overcome the global recession, or global slowdown, they will boost domestic demand, especially in the inland area. so in other words, they will put a lot of money in infrastructure investment, and they may have some very strong measures to boost their consumption. >> reporter: that was the answer to a slightly different question we put to the finance minister a little later in our interview, pauline. that was him talking about really how he sees the chinese economy performing because obviously china is such a key, key export market now for countries like korea. remember, korea is dependent on exports, about 50% of its gdp still comes from exports, which have been holding up remarkably well. if you look around the region and you look around the world about what has been happening to export demand in general, the

koreans in the last quarter of last year had very, very strong numbers. and the deputy finance minister puts that down to the fact that only about 10% to 15% of its exports go to the european market. it's managed to diversify its export markets right across the globe. it's not dependent on any one particular market. so therefore, it's been able to ride out this storm a little bit better. also helped -- and this comes back to what you were saying right at the beginning, pauline. the currency, the korean wan, has gone down in tandem with the u.s. dollar, whereas the yen has gone the other way. so the wan has a strong competitive advantage over the japanese yen, which is certainly helping its export push. >> you certainly covered a lot of issues with the finance minister. i wonder if he also talked to you about the impact of the higher oil prices we're seeing today. did he mention any concerns about that? >> reporter: yeah, i did actually put that to him,

pauline, because korea -- again, the korean economy is dependent on 100% imports of oil. so any spike in oil prices -- and what are we seeing now? around $107 for nymex and $120 for brent. he said, yes, it is having an impact on the performance of the korean economy. he didn't quantify what that impact was. but interestingly, he did say they're no stranger to dealing with high oil prices in recent history, and there is a stimulus package standing by ready to be implemented if the price of oil continues to rise. this is interesting. he's talking about basically putting more money into the economy, also offering tax breaks for companies for businesses here to offset high oil prices. so koreans are well aware the price of oil could continue to spiral, and they say they have these contingency plans in place though they haven't yet been

triggered. >> very interesting to see that they have a very organized plan "b" just in case. andrew, we look forward to hearing more of your interview with the finance minister on the next edition of "world business today." thanks so much, andrew stevens, live in seoul, south korea. charles? still to come here on "world business today," a bitter trademark battle over the ipad. we'll tell you why chinese companies attempted to have sales of apple's tablet banned on its home territory.

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alleged internet pirate will be under virtual house arrest and banned from using the internet. kim dotcom faces multiple copyright infringement charges in the united states. welcome back to "world business today" live on cnn. a bitter battle over who owns the ipad trademark in china has landed in a shanghai court. apple has been locked in an increasingly intense dispute over the ipad name with chinese technology company proview. now, proview is seeking an injunction to have sales of the ipad banned in china under the ipad name. well, today's court action is just one part of a pretty complicateded legal battle brewing in china over the ipad trademark. to help us understand this better and to break it down, eunice eun joins me live from beijing. eunice, what exactly are both sides arguing? >> reporter: well, pauline, both of them say that the ipad name

in china is theirs. apple says it bought the worldwide rights to the name from proview in taiwan a couple of years ago. proview says, yes, that's right, they bought the rights. however, those particular rights didn't cover china. so proview is on a campaign to try to stop the sale of ipads across the country in various areas like shanghai, and they're trying to get china to put a ban of exports on the ipad from this country. pauline? >> so proview is trying to stop sales of the ipad within certain cities. is this actually affecting ipad sales in china at the moment? >> reporter: well, on a very, very limited basis. the company proview was able to win a lawsuit in a smaller city call in the south, and there the retailer was forced to stop the sale of ipads. we spoke to a couple of stores in other cities who told us they were instructed by the authorities to stop the sale of

ipads because of this ongoing legal battle. however, this is not a nationwide situation, and also the stores are hugely popular. they're mobbed with people all the time. the products are really winning products for various people around the country. and, in fact, if you look at the sales for apple last year, they reached $13 billion in greater china. so right now apple doesn't have any real problem. pauline? >> well, this is just the latest in a whole slough of patent lawsuits that apple is involved in. what's apple's strategy in tackling a lawsuit like this one? >> reporter: well, it's definitely fighting back, and a lot of the analysts say that it's because they do have a lot to lose. they could lose -- estimates are that they could lose hundreds of millions of dollars if they lose this legal battle. so they are taking the effort and taking the time to hire the right people to go after proview and really to clear their name. now, a lot of people believe here that the two sides will

likely settle out of court, and the reason for that is that people say, well, the reality is that, as much as it seems to be disappointing for chinese people not to see their ipads or for the sale of ipads not to go on for apple fans, you also have to think that it would be hugely disappointing for a lot of the chinese factories that also make these products. pauline? >> yeah, there certainly would be a domino effect, a ripple effect there. eunice yoon live in beijing with the latest on the proview-apple lawsuit. thanks so much, eunice. charles? just ahead on "world business today," we'll give you a recap on the major stock markets and tell you why australia's foreign minister and former pm kevin rudd is stepping aside. @ so what do you think? basic.

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welcome back. live from cnn hong kong and cnn london, this is "word business today." australia's foreign minister kevin rudd has resigned. he made the move at a hastily planned press conference. it came on the reports he was planning to challenge julia gillard from the leadership and reports she was ready to sack him. for more on the story, i'm joined by political editor hugh rimmi

rimmington from the australia capital. one minute he's a foreign minister on a visit to washington, and the next minute he says, oh, by the way, i've resigned. it's very hard as an outside observer to avoid the impression that he jumped before he was pushed. >> reporter: you wouldn't want to avoid it too hard because that may be very close to the truth. but people who don't follow australian politics intimately, kevin rudd was the prime minister. he swept away 12 years of conservative rule back in 2007, and he was briefly the most popular prime minister australia has ever had. but rumors started to come out that he had a very chaotic government management style. and within a couple of years, he was toppled by his deputy julia gillard in sort of an internal push. now he became foreign minister after that. julia gillard believes, and the people around here believe, that since about late last year kevin rudd was actively seeking to undermine her with a view to bring on a challenge and get can back the prime ministership. this has come to a head in

recent days. he was overseas on a trip to the united states, as you say. it was starting to get expected. there were certainly rumors afoot she might have been waiting for him to return from the united states so she could sack him as foreign minister. he did get in just ahead of that and announced his resignation. he immediately got on a plane and is heading back to australia. >> on the assumption that he does challenge gillard for the leadership of the labor party and ultimately for the premiership there, how would that play with the electorate, and how would it play with members of the labor party who have been responsible for voting him in or otherwise as leader? >> reporter: julia gillard, the prime minister, is unpopular in the electorate, and kevin rudd has always retained a certain shine out with the public at large, not with his political colleagues. this all comes to a head, as many said it had to come to. it was becoming completely dysfunctional for the

government. the prime minister has announced -- she hasn't formally announced it, but her people have announced there will be a ballot. a special meeting of all members of parliament and senators, and she'll bring on the vote on the leadership on monday. there are reports those in that grouping are very solidly behind the prime minister. so she believes she will get that vote, and that will end his ambitions once and for all. >> hugh, i gather there's a video on youtube of kevin rudd issuing some fairly trenchant opinions in the direction of his aides after things go wrong. i believe it's a new year's message in mandarin, which, by the way, he speaks fluently.

how is that expected to play because the language is a bit inappropriate for children. >> reporter: you can look that up on youtube under vegamite. i hesitate to explain what that means. but you'll find kevin rudd having a rant, speaking freely, saying dismissive things about a chinese interpreter, banging a table, all this sort of carry on. the people who worked closely with him said that was fairly typical of his behavior a lot of the time. he was known for rages including blue language rages at people around him and his underlings, and yet the public had an image of him as being a rather cuddly benign character. very bright, as you say, a chinese speaker, and a good sort of a guy. the interesting thing that will follow from now is that if, in fact, julia gillard can win her

own job back in a leadership vote on monday, will this put an end to it and give her the clear area that she's going to need? because she faces an election next year. she could be swept from office, and the conservatives would get back in again next year. >> hugh riminton, fascinating stuff. time now for a last quick look at european markets. european stocks have been trading for just under two hours now, and it has been a pretty rough start to the session, off by .75% for the xetra dax. not too far behind for the zurich smi, off half to two-thirds of a percent. but the london ftse and the cac off by .25% each. >> the asian markets ended in positive territory for a variety of reasons. the nikkei ended up by almost

1%. exporters did well because of a weakening yen. at one point in dollar-yen trading, the yen broke the 80 yen barrier. that was good for exporters. alibaba was the big winner in hong kong trading. that's because its chinese parent company had announced it wanted to take it private. so alibaba.com jumped 43% in early trading. shanghai composite up 1%. the main aussie benchmark basically flat but in positive territory by the end of wednesday's session. charles? >> that is it for this edition of "world business today." i'm charles hudson in london. >> and i'm pauline chu in hong kong. you're watching cnn, the world's business leader. good-bye for now. ask me.

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