>>this >>this week on world business... >>saddled with debt and stagnant, is britain still great? >>at the end of the day britain is not going to be

able to compete on basic manufacturing with the emerging economies of the east or the south. that's never going to happen again. >>gearing up for the 21st century - india is spending a trillion dollars on transport infrastructureover the next 6 years. >>the delhi metro itself will be bigger than the london underground. >>and mountaintop mining - the controversial coal extraction technique that is literally changing the landscape in the west virginia. >>as far as i know there's no way you can blow up a mountain and put it back. there's no way they'll actually ever gonna get this back to its original contour. it's impossible. >>hello and welcome. i'm raya abirached and this is world business, your weekly insight into the global business

trends shaping our lives. last weekend billions of people around the world watched the british royal wedding on television andnext year millions more will tune in when the country hosts the olympic games. for a small island nation the uk may still punch above its weight, but there is little doubt its glory days are over. >>reporter: the pomp and splendor of central london plays on past glories to attract millions of overseas tourists every year. it's a vital part of the uk economy bringing in 27 billion dollars annually. but the reality for britain today is an economy in poor shape, gdp growth sluggish at 1.6% and adeficit of 230 billion dollars this year. >>mousavizadeh: there's no question that if the current economic policies do not succeed in turning the economy around - creating employment, creating growth - then you will see a britain much diminished in the world. >>reporter: the government is

taking drastic action, with 136 billionollars worth of planned budget cuts by 2015. this means many public sector jobs will be lost, sparking anger and demonstrations. >>protestor: it's affected every citizen in the country; it's a fight we cannot afford to lose. >>reporter: but with economic growth stalling, it is a course of action the government cannot affordto ignore. >>prof. quah: i think in the short term there will be pain as we need to adjust. the austerity cuts are needed for general sound public finance; we cannot live in an economy where we are indebted morethan we can conceivably pay. >>reporter: the cuts have been most keenly felt in places like middlesborough in the north-east of england. the local council has been told it must save 80 million dollars and cut 500 government jobs. >>and many in work are being asked to reduce their hours. >>doohan: if i cut down to 15 and a half hours, the tax

credits i wouldn't claim. the maintenance payments i get from my ex-husband - he also works for the councils. so obviously, any effect on him isgoing to affect me as well. so i'm literally going to be literally living on the streets with two children. >>reporter: unemployment is sitting at nearly 8 percent and with inflation at 4 percent, even those with jobs are feeling the pinch. >>campbell: used to be a family treat; maybe once a week we would to get a takeaway meal - and we can't afford to do that anymore. we haven't bought one for some time. you have to think twice before booking a holiday, going places. >>reporter: the uk economy has weakened. it may still be the sixth largest manucturer in the world, but is unlikely to hold on to this position for long. >>mousavizadeh: at the end of the day britain is not going to compete on basic manufacturing with the emerging economies of the east or the south. that's never going to happen again. >>reporter: overall britain has slipped from fourth

to sixth largest economy in only 6 years, has a bloated public sector and was left exposed to recession by over reliance on the financial sector prompting fury from the british public. >>protestor: we want equality for everybody. no banker's bonuses. >>campbell: the bankers gambled with everybody's money, they lost, they made choices which the average householder wouldn't dream of making in terms of the risks they were taking, and they are not paying for it. >>reporter: bankers may bear the brunt of most public anger, especially as billions of dollars of taxpayer's money were spent on bailing out the banks, yet bankers are still receiving multimillion dollar bonuses. >>despite this, the country's financial sector is one of the uk's few remaining strengths and will become even more important for generating growth in the future. >>jiang: although a lot of people blame the financial services industry for the financial crisis

butnevertheless it is still a large part of the uk economy and it is where the uk probably does best, so i think part of that story still has to be around the financial services industry, around the capital markets that london offers to the world. >>reporter: the uk, after all, remains one of the most open western economies. it's a big draw for overseas companies looking at investing and using it as a base to expand into europe. >>jiang: people often joke that you probably can pretty much buy anything in the uk. but not the same can be said of the other countries like germany or france or even the us. you do have a lot of iconic brands in the uk, already being owned by foreign companies. so they see that as evidence that foreign investment are welcome into ts cotry. so i actually see that as strength of the uk economy.

>>reporter: that said, fdi dropped from $186 billion dollars in 2007 to $45 billion in 2009. hardly stellar. >>mousavizadeh: so the question really is, can britain - and this is a difficult balance to strike -remain a global power by being a place where investors want to base themselves, want to meet, where innovation and technology still is able to take place, because of really the ability to attract the best people in the world still to want to be here rather than china or russia or india. >>reporter: however it's clear people are still keen to come, in itself a validation that whatever its woes the uk is still an attractive place to live and do business. every day people walk into this chamber as citizens of countries such as jordan, ethiopia, india, or australia, but walk out citizens of the uk. >>citizen 1: i'm happy and proud to be british, i'm

waiting for this moment from 11 years ago. >>citizen 2: truly this day is a great day for me to be part of the british citizen, and i'm really delighted, yeah. >>reporter: so for some people it's great to be in britain, but is britain still great? >>jiang: it is still great britain and i guess if it can find that growth engine it'll be even greater going forward and i see that foundation is still there for people to be rebuilding on. >>reporter: that will be a big task and it's clear the uk will never be the global super power it once was. but compared to other european economies britain is in a better position to bounce back. >>india may be one of the economic success stories of the modern world, but it has achieved this despite some truly antiquated transport infrastructure. the government is pushing to improve this with a massive investment programme which

will benefit millions of people, yet there is some resistance to the plans. >>reporter: every weekday morning in mumbai, 5000 lunch deliverymen go to work, taking hundreds of thousands of home cooked meals from the suburbs, to workers in the city centre. >>reporter: the dabbbawallahs, as they are known, are semi literate, but achieve a loss rate of only1 in a million; using a system that business magazine forbes ranked in efficiency in the same category as high-tech companies like motorola. >>sawant: "the code is unique but very simple. when somebody new joins us it takes about 15 days forthem to be trained. and then they know which station to take this to and which office to deliver itto." >>reporter: it's a testament to indian ingenuity, but at its core the business is a workaround -adapting to the often failing colonial and early post-colonial infrastructure that is a feature of much

of the sub-continent. >>narula: "one of the major challenges which india needs to overcome is to have a realistic assessment of where they're heading. it's all well and good for us to say that we want to catch up to china but that requires meaningful planning, meaningful integration between a lot of different agencies >>reporter: india is raising its investment from 4 to 9 percent of national income, ploughing 1 trillion dollars into infrastructure from now until 2017. >>the money is being spent to transform places like new delhi; home to over 11 million registered vehicles, more than all other indian cities combined. the region loses nearly 420 million man-hours every month due to traffic congestion. >>inderwildi: "it's a good thing to get people off the road and into a mass transit system especially because you can reduce emissions, not only co2 emissions but also polluting emissions and you can reduce your dependency on oil.

>>reporter: so - the delhi metro. rapidly becoming a landmark, it's single-handedly trying to transport this 1,000 year old city into the 21st century. it already carries 1.5 million people every day, is still expanding and the aim is to double its size in the next decade. >>nath: the delhi metro itself will be bigger than the london underground and we will have done about close to 419 kilometres, billions of dollars of investment, that would take care only again of a part of delhi's problems, because delhi has a huge metropolis and growing numbers coming in every day. the challenge of urbanization in delhi and the challenge of urbanization in our large cities is huge. >>reporter: another huge project will create 15,000 kilometres of new roads and highways at an estimated cost of 30 billion dollars. >>however while this may be great for people in the big cities, 90% of indians live in villages or towns of less

than two hundred thousand people, far from the great new highways.... >>dr. mccartney: there is a tendency to the big and the glamorous infrastructure projects that lendthemselves to ministerial visits and cutting ribbons on new highways; commonwealth games, these big exciting flashy infrastructure projects rather than making rural roads passable in wet weather conditions. the boring, low key, small scale infrastructure but nevertheless makes a big difference to lives of ordinary people." >>reporter: that said, the project has made a real difference to many rural indians, especially farmers. it's estimated that 25% of perishable goods rot, because bad roads stop produce getting to market on time. >>singh: "there is a lot of progress, there are national highways here. earlier we had problems transporting our produce. now there is no problem at all and we are benefiting from this progress. we are getting very good rates

for our potato crop." >>reporter: however as always there is dissent; while many farmers feel the benefit of the new road network, others are protesting against their land being acquired for infrastructure projects.... andthe government's acquisition policies. >>vox pop woman: "so what if they are making roads, it's not going to feed us. inflation is so highthat we can't afford to feed ourselves." >>dr. mccartney: "it is very difficult to build roads in india because property rights are so complicated. it can take a long time in the courts to acquire property to widen roads or buy the farmland, reallocate farmland to road building purposes. soit is a very very slow and long process." >>reporter: but at the end of that process, if the government wins, they have the right to make a compulsorily purchase. >>rajesh devi was given $6,500.00 for her land but says that without

the ability to farm - it is theonly livelihood she knows - her family face starvation. >>devi: "we are all affected, women and children too. when our land is taken from us, how will we farmers feed our families? and the compensation was too little. >>reporter: there may be resentment and legal wrangling and bureaucracy might hold up the development of roads, where the country's great rival china can move much faster. but it is also a signal of one of india's great strengths... and notably lacking in its main competitor. >>dr. mccartney: "in the long run in order to sustain growth one needs an independent judiciary, one needs protection of private property rights, one needs a vibrant civil society and india already has those things. you know, very difficult to create however creakily functioning they are india hasthem but china has the daunting task of trying to create those institutions. removing the legal system, property rights from its communist legacy, the communist party.

and so even if china has raced ahead in the last thirty years, many would argue and agree in the next fifty years perhaps india is going to overtake china" >>reporter: more and more people are beginning to believe that the world's biggest democracy may, after all, be playing a successful long game. >>still to come on world business... >>it may be significantly cheaper than underground extraction, but opponents say mountaintop mining comes at a great cost to the environment and we are at the verbier high five, where amateurs get to race against real legends. >>skiing with the stars... and the rest in just a moment on world business...

>>west virginia is the second largest coal producer in the us. it mines around 160m tonnes each year, roughly a third of it by mountaintop mining, a practice that pulls coal from shallow seams on ridges and peaks. environmentalists say it is destroying the appalachian mountains, and the health of all those who live in them...the coal industry, however, says it's completely safe, and here to stay, in an argument that's becoming increasingly bitter. >>reporter: it isn't easy to get to a mountaintop mining site in west virginia...in our case, it requires the help of a four wheel drive and a keen conservationist... >>webb: lets get out and venture off. what we're going to do, we're going to walk down this road andgo round the corner here and you're going to be blown away. really. yes. >>reporter: ben webb is right...it is an awesome

sight....and not one he likes... >>jong: how do you feel when you see something like this? >>webb: i feel horrible. it's horrible what they're doing here. i think this site's roughly 21 miles. it's pretty bad. >>reporter: mountaintop mining accounts for about 40% of all the coal mining in west virginia. it'sa form of surface mining that accesses shallow coal seams. one the coal industry sees as essential... >>raney: we're able to recover the full coal seams in the top of the hills because you can't underground mine them. they're too thin. you can't hold a top, you can't have a bottom. you can't have a safe environment for an underground mine in these upper coal seams. >>reporter: but activists say mountaintop mining is creating anything but a safe environment. i meetbo webb beside an elementary school that lies directly beneath an active surface mine...one he's convinced is poisoning the area with dangerous coal dust and chemicals... >>webb: the american school board journal came in here and did a story and their investigation showed that 10 people, students,

staff teachers had died of cancer that attended this school in the previous 6 years of their report.. >>reporter: however coal industry supporters say surface mines are both legal and safe. and while they admit active sites aren't pretty, they point out that companies are required by law to eventuallyrestore mountains to either their approximate original contour, or, in a state where naturally flatland is rare...levelled off to encourage development, like at this former site... >>jong: so any kind of flat area that you can create in your opinion is valuable obviously economically. >>horton: absolutely it is. absolutely. it allows us to keep our children at home and employ them here and they don't have to leave home. >>webb: of all the land that's been flattened in west virginia, only about 3% has had any reclamation. it's not being used for anything. they're not improving it in any way. >>reporter: in fact, environmentalists say mountaintop mining is nothing more than a cheap way to access coal...by blowing the tops off mountains, and filling in adjoining valleys with leftover waste

that chokes off streams, pollutes rivers and tarnishes water supplies.... >>raney: first of all it's not waste. it's the natural rock and dirt that is out in the ground abovethe coal. it's not waste at all and i take offence to people using that term because it's completely inaccurate. >>sebok: it turns everything orange, like rust. the only thing i could clean it off with my bathtub and commodes and things was an acid cleaner, an acid based cleaner.. >>raney: every drop of water that leaves the site has to be treated in a system of some sort to be sure that we meet water quality standards. >>webb: for them to say they're putting out clean water is just a ridiculous statement. >>reporter: whatever effect it's having on the environment, signs of support for a coal industry that still accounts for around 15% of west virginia's $46.3b gdp aren't hard to find. largely because in what is america's second poorest state, for generations it's provided

jobs for the locals... >>cline: i've worked in the mines 27 years. my grandfather worked in the mines. my dad worked in the mines. all my uncles worked in the mines. >>reporter: in nearby logan county, some see those coal jobs as crucial to the local economy... >>kirkendoll: it probably touches directly 80% of the people in some fashion to a spinoff job or whatever, so its critical to us. >>reporter: most coal miners earn over $60000 dollars a year, more than double the state's average salary... >>webb: these guys in order to make 60000 dollar a year, they're working an awful lot of overtime. >>reporter: surface mining in west virginia directly provides around 6000 jobs. it only accounts forabout 6% of the 1.2b tonnes of coal mined in the usa each year, so environmentalists say it's not essential...more importantly, they believe it simply can't be done in a way that isn't hugely harmfulto the environment... >>webb: well, as i know

there's no way you can blow up a mountain and put it back. there's no way they're ever going to get this back to its original contour. its impossible. >>reporter: others, however, believe the restored sites are just as good as the real thing... >>horton: i'll just drive up here by myself or with a couple of my buddies or maybe my wife and we'll just sit around and enjoy the quiet and peaceful afternoon. >>jong: couple of beers? >>horton: yeah we'll have a couple of beers. yeah. that's a fact. have a grill. sometimes we pitch a little shoes. have a good time. >>reporter: those opposed to mountaintop mining claim it's already ruined over 500 mountains covering 1.5 million acres, and is slowly but surely destroying the appalachians..... >>webb: looks like afghanistan. you know, it's supposed to look like rich thick forest. >>cline: if they do away with mining and coal. west virginia is going down. it can't survive. >>raney: they don't fer y alternative to it. they say do it underground. you can't mine that coal underground. so they give you easy answers

and they walk away. >>at the end of a long hard winter season, the world's top skiers converge on the swiss resort of verbier for one of the most exciting pro-am ski tournaments in the mountains. where the likes of the legendary alberto tomba and current downhill world champion didier cuche, joined forces with 350 amateur racers. >>reporter: the verbier high-five, possibly the wildest pro-am ski race in the world. >>reporter: every april for the last 12 winters the swiss resort of verbier has hosted the high-five, the now traditional curtain closer to the racing season,

where past and present ski champions pitch up to race against everyday skiers, it's the pros versus the joes: >>alphand: normal skiers, you know, they look races on tv. they can see racers, they know their names and everything but they cannot really compete with them because it's not the same races. and so finally if they sign in here they get a helmet, a bib and they can race against the pros. >>reporter: setting them back 80 each, which may seem a lot, to be humiliated by some of the greatest skiers on the planet... >>smith: so much of ski racing is elitist, it's meant to be, its fantastic to watch professionals onthe mountain, but to get a chance to see the general public access this type of race is fantastic. it gives them the chance to race amongst guys that they respect and guys that they look up to. >>reporter: but in such a rarefied environment the everyday skier has to work hard to compete with the world's best? >>tomba: you know, when you go for inspection, the course, the slope, you can see

the gates, good pushing the power in the starting gate, this is good, i think, and then concentrate until they finish, the last gate is important when you feel tired. this alberto was winning e race - because all the others they get tired in the last gate but alberto, good shape and then strong - speed! >>reporter: indeed alberto, speed is certainly of the essence. as the tournament name suggests the event is split into five different competitions, a giant slalom, boardercross, speed skiing and a very unique triathlon where instead of swimming, cycling and running it's all about sledging, crawling through igloo tunnels and bungee running. these first four disciplines act as qualifying events for the parallel slalom where the top male and female amateurs team up with the pros for the knockout grand finale: >>yet after a long hard season

on the world cup circuit surely the last thing on their minds would be yet another race, but still they keep on coming... >>krieger: the athletes really like to get together in a friendly atmosphere and relaxed atmosphere in order to celebrate the end of the season. that's one of the main reasons. and it's also a good reason for them to come here to show their sponsors one last time in the season >>reporter: not forgetting, of course, the irrestible lure of cold, hard cash... >>krieger: the overall budget of the event is around 450,000 euros. and we dedicate about 60-65% ofthis budget to the athlete's budget. >>reporter: televerbier estimate they sell an extra 3000 lift tickets directly because of the event,and resort bed occupancy for the weekend is close to 100%

>>bucowksi: we put in about 80,000 euros into the event and the return of investment we calculate interms of the press, in terms of the number of hotel stays, in terms of just the reputation and the fact that people follow us and that they want to come and all of that makes it an incredible return on investment. we estimate the return of investment to be about 1 million euros. >>reporter: media exposure from the event has also gone global, with the event highlights generating500 hours of coverage across 80 territories. >>but at the end of the day this is a lighthearted event and the end of this day saw reigning downhill champion didier cuche partying hard and even manning the pumps. >>cuche: you cannot come to ver bier just the skiing, you have to enjoy the after skiing and the night. cheers. >>that's it for this week's

world business. thanks for watching. we'll see you again at the same time next week. ?? ?? ?? ?? 10