hong kong ipos in just a moment. first, the asian stock markets finishing low across the board. investors reacting to all of that negative outlook that we've, particularly in terms of economic indicators that nina was talking about both out of china and japan. and take a look at the impact pfr here's the shanghai composite, down sharply, more than 2% a session. the nikkei down more than 1.5%. and generally, yes, if you're in europe you're famous because everybody's talking about the crisis in continental europe right now. really impacting the markets quite heavily, nina. >> manisha, it seems the euro zone crisis has been hogging the highlight, many investors say, for way too much time now. perhaps it's best not to be considering floating your company. we saw what two disappointing debuts on the hang seng in hong kong. uchina life and chow tai fook lost almost $2 billion each. >>> we know so much of what's going on with the markets and the ipos as well is about sentiment, what people think, pessimism is dragging down

. >> and i'm pauline chu in hong kong. the top stories. a time of transition as people pay respects in north korea. the world waits to see what shape succession will take. >> the struggle to save europe's single currency continues as an emergency cash drive falls short. >> if you've still got last minute presents to buy, we've got the gift guide for you. >>> in north korea, it's a time of deep mourning. in the rest of the world, it's a time of deep unease. one of the world's most cyclic nations, one with nuclear capabilities is undergoing only the secondhandover the power in 60 years. the future policy direction is hard to guess. the son and anointed successor of kim jong-il looked at his fathers's body. the media outlets are now calling him the great successor. >> despite that, south korea's stock exchange and currency are largely shrugging off fears. the kospi closed up. it shed 3% on monday. there was a real dip as the announcement of kim jong-il's death was made public at noontime local time on monday. you might remember, it fell almos

take a look at hong kong. you'll see it coming right off the top, fairly sharp losses from the opening. not surprising because the u.s. in turn is reacting to the fears that the eu agreement is basically not enough. we had moody's saying it would revisit ratings of all the eu countries. and fitch expecting significant economic downturn. >>> tech stocks got hit after intel cut its forecast. exporters were weak, of course, on the european concern. one stock to tell you about today, olympus up by nearly 5.5%. there's a report that the auditors will approve the quarterly earnings report. now, they have to submit this report by thursday, olympus does, to remain lifted. if they don't, they'll be taken off the nikkei. investors confident that that's not going to happen. i want to quickly show you what's been going on in shanghai. the market down nearly 2% for the day as a fourth day of losses. the actual index is now at its lowest level since march of 2009. still uncertainty over how beijing will boost the slowing do

things not really feeling fresh here in hong kong.rprise that a lot of people are jumping on planes and heading to europe. how is the weather there, guillermo? >> europe is going to see the cold air, especially in the east, we are dealing now with a lot of snow and the prospect of significant snow for bulgaria. so sofia may see 40 sent meters of snow in the next few days. the lows are greece, turkey, istanbul may see snow. antalia will be mostly rain and clouds. in britain, things will cool down but we do not expect so much rain anymore. take a look at germany. we see some snow now. it's because we have a jet here, the jet stream. it's like a highway for storms. so the storms sit on it and ride along and that's why right now over germany we see all that snow. but in general from germany all the way to spine and portugal, we are going to see good conditions. i'm not talking about this only, all the way up in porto, for instance. and the east unstable, all the way up into norway, into sweden, st. petersburg, russia, the czech republic,

this is "world business today" on cnn from hong kong and london. christmas countdown is on, and temperatures are ticking down as well both in eastern europe and in china. let's bring in our meteorologist who's keeping an eye on all of those airports and highways for this busy travel days. how's it looking so far? >> i'm going to start with the good news. actually it's for nina and all the way in the west because britain, ireland, france, spain and portugal are going to see warmer conditions than average, especially for the holidays, for christmas. but the east is where the problem is. we're going to see snow in greece, definitely in bulgaria. the alpine region with a lot of snow, even southern parts of italy may see snow. you see what's going on in here? it's getting much better. and the good note is that temperatures are rebounding. they're going to be above average, believe it or not, over there. now, all of those from the alps, germany, poland, the czech republic, all the way to russia, it's going to be very, very cold. well, let me tell you als

. >>> hello, i'm andrew stevens in hong kong. >>> i'm nina dos santos in london. welcome to "world business today" with our continuing coverage of the search and struggle for a solution to the debt crisis in europe. >> so once again the european union has proven itself anything but. today was meant to it be finality friday, the day when they got their fiscal house in order. euro zone leaders wanted a treaty change signed by up a27 eu nations. at 5:00 a.m. in brussels, a weary nicolas sarkozy confirmed that britain was not playing ball. >> translator: david cameron requested something which we all considered unacceptable, namely that there be a protocol written into the treaty which enabled the uk to opt out of a certain number of rules applying to financial services. we're not able to accept that. we consider quite the contrary. >> so the 17 euro zone members along with 6 others in favor must now press on with what's being called an intergovernmental agreement. their goals, well, to introduce binding control on the budgets of those 17 countries, also to implement

as you see there the standout is hong kong.ously a very liquid market, but certainly getting a double boost today. not only was the general confidence boost from the liquidity moved by the central banks around the world. there was also the chinese move to allow the banks to lend a little bit more money which certainly helped sentiment in hong kong as well. you can see shanghai also getting a boost. looking broadly, there was the biggest rise we've seen in hong kong for two years now, although it has come off from a relentless selling spiral. but really if you watch the space now, we've certainly seen the catchup there. whether it will continue remains to be seen. as i said, investors also responding to beijing's loosening of monetary policy. take a look at the really big gainers, chinese property stocks. they've been absolutely hammered as china has taken several measures over the past two years now to try to take the heat out of the economy, particularly the property bubble in china. now, we're seeing a reverse china -- actual

hong kong, first day back from the holiday today, down by 0.6%. a lot of investors, not to mention brokers as well still on holiday. in australia, the gold price was falling. the markets, you see, down by 1.2%. copper prices were also down. and both of those commodities dragging the mining stocks lower. the nikkei was down. we've got more on that i just a moment. first, though, i want to talk about one stock in particular, a stock we've been talking about since march of this year, tepco, down almost 12% as you see there. that's now at its lowest close this year at 186 yen. japan's trade minister urging temporary nationalizedation of tepco today. tepco is the operator of the fukushima daiichi plant which had the nuclear meltdown. the stock now down just a shade under 90% this year in talk of nationalization, obviously, unsurprisingly spooking investors. now, meanwhile, releasing reams of data this morning. and on the whole it paints a pretty downbeat picture for the month of november. starting with industrial production, down 2.6% in the month of n

i'm andrew stevens in hong kong., 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

. >>> i'm andrew stevens from hong kong. welcome to "world business today." the top story this friday, december 30, the final wbt of the year. >>> penultimate. anyway from austerity measures and anger on the streets to bond yields going from bad to worse, it's been a rough year for the eurozone and there could be more of the same to come. >>> traders have had a turbulent time of it, too, as major stock markets slumped. we'll take alike at the best and worst performance. >>> and it's been a quiet christmas for occupy london protesters, but eviction from their central london camp looms in the new year. >>> and as the year draws to a close, we have seen a modest rally here in asia following those gains on the u.s. overnight and ahead of a higher open in europe, charles. things at least in the final trading day are looking a little better. >> yes, i think we are seeing a certain amount of buying going on here. it doesn't take much to boost these indices. clearly the trade does continue to be thin. now we have seen a continuation of the gains we saw on thursday fr

hong kong, up 1.6%. resource stocks are giving hong kong a boost as i did in australia as well.by 0.6%. the australian minor up 1%, alaminiacorp of china up 1%. >>> the president of the scandal-tainted cameramaker olympus addressed a scathing new report published on tuesday. in it, an investigative panel calls olympus management rotten to the core of their handling of $2 billion worth of lost investments made in the 1990s. olympus will appoint a board to decide whether to take legal action against those executives involved. >> translator: we're still considering filing criminal complaints. the board of investigation is looking at the whole issue from many directions. we are, of course, going to take the result into consideration. but as a company if we decide to take legal action, we will. as of now, we are considering filing criminal complaints. >> the story isn't over yet. take a look at the share price here. the scandal has played out very much in the performance of olympus' stock. it was the end of october, that's when the news of the accounting scandal broke and the stock f

he at one point went from hong kong to japan to recuperate.the one that wanted to be an artist and wanted to paint. i thought about that because it must have been hard growing up in hong kong to be far away from everything and have a dream and get sick at this point. i thought u is there a story here? that's the way it begins for writers. people think things jump out and we have it in our head. it's the opposite we have nothing in our head. we turn on the machine and praying for something to come. with women of the silk i researched for 6 amongs and read and read and read. in one book i found 2 lines about the woman silk workers and knew immediately that's hai wanted to write about. it came to me like a dream that every writer prays for that you just knew you wanted to write about this. with the second book it was difficult i sat down and didn't know what i was going to write for about 6 months. which was fearful for me because of the fact i knew i didn't have the second book. steven's story, i asked myself questions. a lot of writers do that

certainly hong kong is enticing to the business community at the moment. for the first time hong kong has taken the top spot in the world economic forum's financial stability index, overtaking the u.s. and the uk. and that's thanks mainly to the size, scope and transparency of its banking and finance sectors. a silver light in the gloom. welcome back. you're watching "world business today" live on cnn. >>> a unique crisis is spreading across norway. we're talking about dwindling supplies of butter. the result, rising demand and spiking prices. it all comes at a critical time, too, as butter is a key ingredient in many traditional norwegian holiday treats. >> we have to apologize for the norwegians in preparation for christmas, they make these christmas cakes and so on. and butter is a very important ingredient in that. if you don't have butter, you can't make those cakes. >> in addition to holiday demand, lower than expected milk production and a low carbohydrate diet trend are also being blamed for this shortage. >> i don't know what happened. but everybo

the hong kong's broadcast authorities, asian television, atv, to pay about 3,000 hong kong dollars or $3,800 u.s. dollars for july. they admitted the mistake after submitting the story. also the release of an investigation saying atv failed to properly confirm its information and took too long to withdraw the report compounding the error and causing a great social impact. in october, jan made a public appearance several months after speculation his health worsened became widespread. up next we have sports. >>> welcome into the sports report. sato climbed the ladder, one rung below the top. promoted to ozeki 9 1/2 years after his professional debut and it's quite clear he's still looking up. >> translator: we are here in tokyo. they include delegates from japan, malaysia, and china. for the next three days, they will exchange ideas on how the international community can work together to pull down cyberattacks. they organized this fallout. japan is happy to host it. it being the victim of a number of cyberattacks in 2011. hackers accessed the computer network of the lower house. cybercr

i'm andrew stevens in hong kong. >> i'm charles hodson in london. thanks for joining us. top stories on monday, december 5th, it's make or break in europe. leaders have five days to save the single currency, it seems. >> beijing's fears about social unrest grow as more signs emerges that the economy is cooling. >>> and a dozen supercars are smashed to smithereens in japan. amazingly, no one is seriously hurt. >>> well, the countdown continues. five days remain to save the eurozone as it approaches a raft of key meetings are in the diary. the british prime minister said many years ago is a long time in politic, andrew. >> i suspect it'll feel like it's endless. let's take a look at some of those meetings ahead. in a little over three hours, the french president sarkozy and german counterpart chancellor merkel will meet in paris under pressure to impose new budgetary constraints on the eurozone problems. on tuesday, mr. sarkozy will speak to tim geithner, who is also flying over. the u.s. president barack obama described it as a series threat and europe drawing to a close w

. >>> hello, i'm andrew stevens in hong kong. >> and from cnn london, i'm charles hodson. this is "world business today" and these are our top stories much there had a cautious mood on the markets after a downgrade warning in europe. >> a change of tact by china breathes new life into climate change talks. >>> and a trickle of tourists return as thailand recovers from devastating floods. >>> the timing could hardly have been worse. just as leaders of the euro-zone's biggest economies put on a united front standard & poor's threw a big spanner into the works and put 15 euro-zone nations under review for possible downgrade including germany and france an put the brakes on the rally we've been seeing. >> we'll bring you numbers and detail in a moment. suffice it to say europe apart from the uk is off by 1%. have a look. these are the 17 that all use the euro. greece's credit rating reflects a high rick of default and cyprus which was already under review. as s&p mentioned they placed the remaining on review for gowngrade. that means there is a 50% chance of a downgrade in the

hsbc was up about 1.5% in hong kong today. banking group was up by a similar amount in sydney and trading in sydney ended early this afternoon ahead of a long holiday weekend. nina? >>> let's go back and take another look at those u.s. markets. u.s. stock markets closed higher on thursday after a quiet preholiday session. volumes thin as we enter the last couple of trading days of the year. investor optimism got a boost from the upbeat report in the labor market. also we saw strength in the financial sector there. let's go into the report we saw on jobless claims, claims for unemployment benefits in america dropped last week, holding crucially below a key level that analysts associate with job creation. and here's where the numbers settled when it comes to the stock markets. the dow adding about 0.5%. the nasdaq and the broader s&p rising by 0.83%. investors were also taking in the government's second provision of gdp for the united states. and that particular reading noted that the u.s. economy grew at an annual rate of 1.8%

we're live in hong kong. happy friday.et's take a quick look at what's going on in europe right now. the markets are about 90 minutes into their trading day. it's all -- it has been positive. the xetra dax turning negative. the broader index, which is the stock 600 index, on course to get gains -- or have gains around about 9% if they can hold these levels which would make it the best week in europe for something like three years. in asia be with the major indices also finishing broadly higher, shanghai the odd one out, down by 1%. a little bit of follow-through suggests optimism remains in markets here in asia. speaking of optimism, u.s. investors are also showing signs of optimism ahead of the u.s. monthly jobs number. that's out in about four hours from now. always a big number. this is where the futures are. they've increased steadily over the last 30 minutes or so. the nasdaq showing a gain month are than 1%. >>> there's certainly been a lot of doom and gloom in recent months about the state of the u.s. jobs market. i

she joins us from hong kong.ut the state of the economy, there really isn't much of one. >> there isn't much of one, monita, because their economy is very, very fragile. the her mitt kingdom is very isolated and lags behind other countries. its 2009 gdp was estimated to be $28 billion. in comparison, south korea's gdp is more than 30 times that size. north korea relies heavily on food aid from china since it can't afford to feed most of its population. north korea depends on china for most of its trade. the korean trade investment agency based in seoul says china accounted for 83% of north korea's $4.2 billion worth of international commerce in the year 2010. now, while north korea isolates itself, the regime has partnered with south korea in a complex called kaesong which is on north korean territory north of the dmz. this complex combines south korean investment and technology with cheap north korean labor. 123 south korean companies work out of the complex. they mainly manufacture things like clothes, electron

hong kong's hang seng and sidney were closed. elsewhere the major indices continued the downward trend for the year. japan's central bank issued a warning about the risk of the european dead crisis which did nothing to boost confidence there. the nikkei lost .5%. we've seen a good run up. still thin volumes there i suspect. in shanghai the composite slid a little bit more than 1%. in seoul the kospi was down 2.75% in the morning but clawed back most of those losses to end the day down by .8%. >>> sony announced on monday that it's selling its nearly 50% stake in the flat screen tv venture that it has with samsung. the sale, which is worth about $940 million, brings to an end a seven-year collaboration between the two tech giants that is still yet -- still to make a profit. >>> let's move to the other story that's moving big time here globally in the business world. that is in india, in the state of rajistan, where a strike of doctors is in its seventh day. health ministry officials are denying reports that more than 40 patients h

in hong kong, i'm manisha tank. this is "world business today," the top stories on friday, the 16th of december. japan welcomes this news that the fukushima daiichi nuclear plant has been declared stable. >>> raising billions of dollars in the virtual world. the company behind farmville. >>> and 'tis the season to go shopping but perhaps someone should tell the great british public. >>> without further adieu, let's get straight to the markets in europe. this is how been they've trading in just an hour's time. we're still holding into positive territory. we saw substantial gains for these markets in excess of 1%. in yesterday's possession and in the first hour of trading they seem to be holding 0 to that positive momentum, supported in particular by encouraging jobs and manufacturing data coming out of of the united states. those numbers out on thursday showed we saw u.s. jobless claims at a three-year low. it's not helped by the fact that fitch ratings, one of the more influential ratings agencies has decided to dow

lee was born in hong kong and was fortunate to be born to mr.y father. inherited most of the money. his wife, miss tang, got a divorce settlement, as you said, of $154 million. which, by the way, is only 1/5 of what he's worth. less than 55% of what she asked for. >> okay. >> and there she is. quite pleased. she herself is a former attorney. >> okay. why that number? why did she -- i shouldn't use the word "deserve." why was she entitled? >> the marriage began to implode about four years ago when she got pregnant. he wanted her to have an abortion. she said, no, i am not having an abortion. she gave birth to a little girl who is 3 years old. mr. lee has only seen the child twice. i think that's grounds for divorce. >> wait. they were still married and living together -- >> they were still married. what happened was she got pregnant, he didn't want her to be pregnant. we're not sure if he was fewer kwo ious that it was a little girl up and not a boy. she refuses to have an abortion, gives birth to this beautiful little girl who's now a rich littl

reporter jamie ung looks back at what happened with chinese economy this year with economist in hong kong. >> very nice meeting you. thank you for coming over. >> thank you for having me. >> thank pup. >> could you give us a brief evaluation of the chinese can economy in 22011. what kind of year that has been for the economy? >> it has been a demanding year. the government is actively -- in the first half of this year, they tighten a lot the ratio many, many times and hike interest rates and the impact wasn't obvious. then in the second half year seems all impact finally came through and now the economy is slowing very fast. >> m the latter half of the year, expert growth declined due to credit problems in europe which is china's largest trade partner. concerns over economic slow down are spreading rapidly do you doo you to the drop that have been the driving force behind high economic growth. >> the latest trade number just published showed that the export growth slowed quite a lot to only 13% or so. it is a long way from the more than 30% yearly growth in the beginning of the year. it i

temperatures are not going to get too cold down towards the south, still down to about 16 degrees in hong kongh is a little bit chilly for you there. we'll be looking at the rest of the temperatures in just a second. drying out here in the eastern coast of china. just a few lingering showers here clinging to the southeast coast. as for japan and the korean peninsula, some areas of heavier rain here, too, we'll be seeing snow out towards the north of japan. but as one system pulls away, the pacific edge should be drying out for friday. where we see some heavier rain is going to be taiwan in toward the philippines and we see the lingering showers for parts of vietnam, as well as laos and cambodia. 17 in hong kong and taipei. just 7 in shanghai. 0 in seoul, 1 in beijing. a chilly day in the capital. minus 12 for the high in ulan bator. let's take a look in north america. many of you seeing clear sunny skies, it will be very chilly for many of you. especially in the mountain states and in towards the four corners here. out towards the east, we've got a few showers, probably snowshowers across the

the upper teens in taipei as well as hong kong. around 10 degrees in hong kong and chongqing and 3 in seoul, 4 in beijing and minus 14 in ulan bator. i want to take you to india to get you updated on the cyclonic storm we were tracking this week. it did make landfall earlier on today, and quickly downgraded, it's now a deep depression, so the wind has died down, but we're not out of the woods in terms of rain. more heavy rain in the nextix to 12 hours could cause more flooding problems here before the system finally dissipates by saturday morning. the rain should be a thing of the past by saturday. as we head now into north america. once again, we're going to see the southern half of the continent staying dry and fine and temperatures are above-average, too, and we'll check on those in a second. we have a pacific storm bringing rain to the coast. it is also going to be bringing some significant snowfall. another 35, 40 centimeters for the cascades and the northern rockies. accompanied by some pretty strong gusts as well. ahead of t

and then there was one for the first time this weekend there is a clear leader of the hong kong open and it's not shirley favorite remark or roy. quietly confidence with the group but not with the base the thoughts of russia football manager dick out of account following the euro two thousand and twelve group stage draw in kiev our correspondent richard vaughan poured feet caught up with the dutchman in the ukrainian capital. i mean it's probably a good draw you would have dreamed about it. because if you see. but. to do it. was going for your mind when you were drawn to it and obviously looked for group a would be a lot easier than the rest because we used hoping we would get a level. four and get. group. qualify. we could probably do. the same because also you know the greeks very well for instance i mean you play differently from last month a. team that used to be perhaps ten years ago and the. team in competition even playing at home with. your parents. to dangerous side because. the fanatic in the. home teams was very dangerous. as the world championship. as well but again if yo