andrew stevens, cnn, jakarta. >>> join us tomorrow when andrew stevens will be talking to the chairmanonesia's investment coordinating board about the challenges of shoring up foreign investment. that's on friday, right here on "wbt" on cnn. >>> now it's day one of the international economic forum in st. petersburg. the world will be watching on friday as the russian president, dmitry medvedev steps out with his chinese counterpart hu jintao. the kremlin is courting some international attention it seems as it plans a multibillion dollar private equity fund. john defterios, live from st. e st. petersburg on what that will mean. >> what is a framework is getting a firm foundation as a result of an interview we did an hour ago. >> we are open to foreign investments. the second is creating a specific instrument for them to be comfortable working from russia. the russian government is ready to give some comfort by matching foreign investments with funds, managed by professional team, not by the government itself. >> the chinese investment corps has decided to come in. we just don't know the

i'm andrew stevens. you're watching "world business today." these are our top stories. stocks slide after ben bernanke feeds the bears with a bleak outlook. >>> and saab says it's run out of money to pay its staff. >>> and we've take you to the flood-ravaged fields of china to assess the impact on the food chain there. >>> it's been a down day on the markets. asian shares lower and losses across europe as well. all thanks to the prognosis of the u.s. federal reserve chairman, ben bernanke. he's been painting a bleak picture of the u.s. economic recovery as well. weaker growth, nina and stubbornly high jobless numbers. not what investors want to hear. >> not indeed, andrew. let's go straight to the european markets and see how they're reacting to these kind of comments coming out of the united states late last night. we're about an hour into the trading day. it's a sea of red. the cac 40 down by 0.8%. similar situation for the dax and ftse 100. let's move along and talk about the currencies now. the euro is down by almost 0.5% against a rising dollar. the situation in gr

i'm andrew stevens. you're watching "world business today."'s friction with opec. >>> prada has more style than substance with a stock market debut that disappoints. >>> sunny side up. from the paris air show we'll meet the pair nearing solar plane pilots. >>> first up, let's take a look at the markets, asian stocks had a pretty good day on the hole on the back of hopes that the greek debt crisis could be nearing a resolution, also hopes that chinese inflation is now under control. it was a pretty positive open here in europe as well. for the most part the indices kicking things off with gains in excess of 1% for this final trading day of the week. let's go straight to the numbers. greek hopes definitely powering things ahead. some of these markets were down in excess of 2% yesterday. most notably the kec 40. it's rebounding the most currently up by 1.5%. >>> interesting, nina. greek helping the mood in asia. the gains across the board were being driven by the chinese premier win you bow. he says by the end of the year china will have beaten i

i'm andrew stevens in hong kong. >> i'm charles hodson in london.s from now.

andrew stevens gives us a look. >> reporter: welcome to the future, specifically the checkpoint of the future. this is what iata, the airline industry trade body is hoping will become common place a one-stop shop for security from the curb to the gate, as they say, with dignity. how does it work? let's ask ken dunlap. hello. >> welcome. >> thank you very much. you're head of security at iata. walk us through this. >> i want to show you the revolution. >> okay. >> the first thing you need do is identify yourself to the system. >> passport in here. says it's normal. i'm a normal person. >> that's result of passenger pre-screening done by your government and a known traveler program that your government may choose to implement within your country. >> okay. i'm through this stage. >> we have a smart system. >> through the normal channel. okay. >> what do i do now. we're asking you to identify yourself one last time so you don't sneak into the tunnel you don't belong into. >> passport there. iris scan, this says everything is okay. i'm still good. >> you're fine and cleared to walk through

i'm andrew stevens in hong kong. >> i'm nina dos santos in london. "world one" is next.

let's go live to andrew stevens there in singapore. what's actually caused them, the bosses to decide it will plummet this year. >> reporter: it never rain, it pours. when the bad news comes, it seems to come in batches for the airline industry. just three months ago, iata was talking about profits of 8 billion, three months later they cut that in half. it gives you an idea of how gloomy, how pessimistic the industry is becoming about their own future as far as the numbers are concerned. based on a whole wrath of things. just a quick perspective here. if you look at the last ten years in the airline industry, three of those years have seen profits. the airline industry as a whole has last something like $68 billion in that ten years. and the profits come in at 40 billion. it gives you an idea of how grim things are at the moment. why now? well, if you look at the headlines in the up ins around the world over the past five or six months or so, charles, it's easy to understand what has been driving down the passenger growth and driving u

i'm andrew stevens and you're watching "world business today." the top stories this wednesday, australia suffers its biggest economic squeeze in 20 years after severe flooding soaks the mining industry. >>> mixed fortunes in the tech sector. apple had its head in the data cloud wu nokia is feeling under the weather. >>> and doubts, mistakes and regrets. not many ceos are big enough to admit them wu michael wu is. we sit down with the boss. >>> european stock markets rather subdued this morning. let's go straight to take a look at them. you should be able to see on this chart right now, we have a number of markets trading in the red. ftse in particular with number of heavy weight stocks currently trading without the rights to dividend or x dif depd and a reason to see a falloff there and we should mention that nokia shares tanking further after reaching a 13-year low yesterday after the company scrapped the full-year sales targets. those shares are currently down by 5% and investors looking at france's latest unemployment data. the jobless rate of

andrew stevens, cnn, jakarta. >> well, it is a place of altruism indeed.nd all week long andrew stephens will be looking at the economic development. that's this week. well, still ahead on this edition of the program, a long-time contender gives the imf leadership a new twist. that's coming up. >>> from cnn london, i'm charles hodson. welcome back to "world business today" today. let's see what's going on in europe where the markets are about 90 minutes into the first trade dag of the week. despite the fact that there aren't many optimists around the market, the bulls do have it actually. at the moment we're looking at gains of right around a third of a percent for the london ftse. just a fraction of a percent for the xetra dax and paris cac. friday's wall street slump clearly weighed on investors' minds at the start of the day and we stayed in negative territory. and continuing strength of the yen harming exports is just a shade above 80 yen to the dollar. there we are. the nikkei up by two thirds of a percent there. some gains for the hang seng. loses fo

. >>> and good afternoon from cnn hong kong, i'm andrew stevens. you're watching world business today. the top stories this friday, june 3. >>> a growing e. coli scare is threatening europe's huge food export market. >> china hits back over cybercrime claims while sony investigates yet another suspected batter attack. >> >> and groupon is hoping that investors will go crazy for coupons. >>> now at least 16 people are dead, more than 1500 are ill in an industry that earns $5 billion from exports to just one market is at risk. an outbreak of what scientists are calling a super toxic strain of e. coli bacteria has spread to ten western european nations with 15 fatalities reported in germany and one in sweden. researchers say they don't know where it's coming from, but suspicions about contaminated projects have caused russia to band imports of all of the eu countries. the eu commission says the exports are worth more than $5 billion a year, nina. >> andrew, doctors say antibiotics are not effective against this e. coli strain and it could make this in

andrew stevens, cnn, jakarta. >>> welcome back. travelers in canada are facing flight disruptions.ir canada ticket agents are on strike. the sticking price, pensions. they will operate at full schedule today but passengers are likely to experience inconveniences. they hope to steer customers to its on-like check-in services and airport kiosks. check its website for details >> and travel disruption in australia and new zealand. heavy volcanic ash is still causing heavy delays. meanwhile, new zealand said thousands of home will have to be abandoned in church christchurch. let's get the latest on the air travel disruptions there in the southern pacific. joining me live in sydney is james. so, james, is the situation getting a little bit more relaxed now? >> good evening, charles. well, i suppose it's a question you could pose to some of the 60,000 or so passengers that have been stranded for two days now. as i heard you mention, the flights to and from melbourne have largely been lifted. a lot of the airlines, like qantas, actually putting on larger planes and more frequent flights to

andrew stevens tells us what's changed. >> in the end it was a slam dunk. christine lagarde was appointed by consensus to the top job at the imf. its 24-member executive board didn't even have to call for a vote. china, india, brazil, and russia. they duly lined up to lend their support to the french finance minister. but what a difference a few weeks make. when dominic strauss-kahn was forced to step aside to fight sexual assault charges in may, the emerging member powers made it quite clear it was time to break with tradition, the tradition of automatically appointing a european for the top job. the candidates were selected solely on merit. but that's where their campaign ran out of steam. they didn't put forward their own consensus candidate to challenge the euro-zone's favorite, christine lagarde. mexico's governor did throw his hat into the ring but he lacked support. in the end, only australia and canada got behind karstens. in the days leading up to the decision, china, india, and brazil all announced their support. but india has put her on notice. f

the country's economic efforts is the two-term president who sat down with our andrew stevens and began by addressing the question of corruption. >> translator: change cannot happen as quickly as turning over your hand and it cannot happen overnight. sometimes had has to be done gradually and steadily. croney capitalism has been corrected with transparency. the practice of collusion between government officials and business has been rectified and it is not like what happened 10 or 20 years ago. i see that we are heading in the right direction. i admit there are still cases of collusion but i think the overall spirit or the agenda of embarking on fair level business practi practices from my perspective is moving forward. >> reporter: but the watchdog transparency international still rates indonesia quite poorly on their corruption index. you have another three years in office. what would you like to achieve on this issue by the time you leave? what do you think you can achieve? >> translator: corruption is indeed our biggest challenge. my biggest challenge. i have to be frank on that. in

. >> i'm andrew stevens at cnn hong kong. welcome back. you're watching "world business today." >>> let's have a quick look at the european stock markets. we're now 93 minutes nearly into the trading day. we have been seeing in terms of the big three markets a little bit of selling, certainly close to the flat line after decent gains on tuesday, still losing about .5% for the zurich smi for slightly separate reasons. we did have that strong run-up. so a look at the athens general now. that's just opened about three minutes ago. the reading we're getting there is it's a good buy signal if you like there, up by about -- getting on for 2/3%, between half and 2/3 percent of athens stock following the confidence vote won by the prime minister george papandreou. what about over in asia, andrew? >> that confidence vote is certainly helping to calm some nerves in asia, although there was also local issues affecting the markets. certainly as you see, helping the nikkei up 1.79%. the s&p up by half of 1%. metal prices rising on tuesday. and that hel

the suspect 19-year-old steven wing later met up with his alleged accomplice 18-year-old andrew conti. conti's home is in loudoun. both men were arrested. >>> now to the big story that sent shock waves throughout capitol hill. this one had a seven term new york congressman making a tearful apology today. anthony weiner caught in a racy photo twitter scandal came clean in a press conference. fox 5's will thomas is in the web center now. the story broke on the web. >> it did and the first photo to hit the web was a photo of the congressman in his underwear. he said he didn't post it to twitter and said he wasn't sure if it was him. that was last week. today it was kind of a palms up admission that he screwed up. >> i'm deeply sorry for the pain that this has caused my wife huma and our family and my constituents, my friends, supporters and staff. it was a mistake, but not just one. he said he sent the photo of himself in his underwear by twitter to a female college student, but he also admits to having explicit exchanges with six women over the last three years, some of which occurred a

steven, a republican who changed his position. >> i know my vote is a vote of conscious. >> it hasn't been approved by the people. it's the legislatures that shoved this down the people's throat. >> governor andrew signed this into law a little over an hour ago. couples can get married in 30 days. new york becomes the sixth state to allow gays to get married. >>> pride celebrations began in san francisco with one of the largest gathering of transgender people in the world. elizabeth cook on why some feel they are not part of the community. >> i just had legally my name changed, my gender changed through the court. my birth certificate i received a couple months ago. i'm full female now. >> it was a sea of color along the streets of san francisco as thousands of transgendered men and women march from delores park to city hall. >> i'm trying to put the t in front of the lgb. >> this is like one of the biggest gathering of transgender people like anywhere in the world, i think. so it's prett magical. >> i just came out a year ago. it's important to see as many of us as possible. >> they march to show other transgendered people they are not alone. >> especially younger people, you know, because they

steven, a republican who changed his position. >> i know my vote is a vote -- it hasn't been approved by the people. it's been the legislatures that shoved this down people's throat. >> andrewthis into law hours ago. new york becomes the sixth state and the largest to allow gays to get married. new york has no residency requirement for obtaining a marriage license, so the state could become a magnet for gay couples all across the country. >>> and pride celebrations got underway in san francisco with one of the largest gatherings of transgendered people in the world. the purpose of their march, strength in numbers. elizabeth cook on why some feel they're not part of the community. >> i just had legally my name changed, my gender changed through the court. my birth certificate i received, i'm full female now. >> it was a sea of color along the streets of san francisco as thousands of transgendered men and women march from delores park to city hall. >> i'm trying to put the t in front of the lgb. >> this is like one of the biggest gathering of transgender people like anywhere in the world i think. so it's pretty magical. >> i came out a year ago and so it's very important to s

andrew -- anthony wiener. we want to begin this morning but the story that is the front page of "roll call." of light which is splitting democrats. stevenennis joins us live on the fun. thank you for being with us. set up the debate that we will hear later today. what are the issues and what is senator durbin specifically proposing? guest: we have a showdown between the banks and retailers. it is over a pot of money, about $1 billion a month up for grabs here. inside the beltway battle that's been raging for months. it hasn't really penetrated to the public, because they are not aware of the fees that are getting paid to the banks every time they use their debit card. it ends up being about 44 cents every time on average. the debate is whether that 44 cents is going to go down to 12 cents. that's what was voted for last year, but the banks have been on a full-court press to roll that back. it's about the money. and so it's been very intense. and it's been an unusual battle in that it's not really breaking down along party lines as most things here do. you know, senate majority leader harry reid has come out against the banks, but hasn't