ramy has been following it much more closely than i have, right, ramy? >> yeah.arkets across the region fell between 1% and 1.5%. let me take you to the nikkei first. it closed down to about 1.25%. toyota posting its first quar r quarterly loss in two years coupled by the stubbornly strong yen, others are feeling the pinch as well. of course, a stronger yen eats away at the profits that are repatriated. there's talk that japan might intervene with monetary easing. over here in hong kong, the hang seng fell on the weak manufacturing data. hsbc is listing here, pares down earlier. it plans toiquette $3.5 billion in cuts as well as lay off 30,000 of its staff. meantime over in the mainland, the shanghai composite closed nearly 1% down. there's speculation that china's central bank might raise interest rates again as soon as this month perhaps to keep up the fight against inflation. banking stocks as you might expect fell. also air china and china eastern as well as china southern, theyal fell about 3%. that's on new passenger fuel surcharges which take effect today.

ramy, as always, thanks for that. the stock markets clear cut for a moment around here and seem to be about to do the same thing in europe. same for oil. there's been a big drop in crude inventories. down by more than 2% on wednesday. as you say, they're making up some of that lost ground today. apparently crude trading at $84.05. that's up $1.16 a barrel on the nigh next market. nina. >>> as to what happened on wall street on wednesday, the brief reprieve we saw for investors on thursday, once again they began to drop. with the dow jones industrial average rounding out 520 points. look at these kind of numbers. the dow was off by 4.6% by the close. as you can see, the s&p and the nasdaq for their part weren't far behind either. let's take a look at how things are in term os testify premarket action. right now the market looks set for a healthier open. as you can see, these are the futures for the futures market. nasdaq market pushing up higher at 1.3% in trading. andrew. >>> okay. that 'twas mildly encouraging number

let's go to rami on how the markets did. not well, rami. >> they fell throughout the day.the pack downward. first to japan, because the strength of the yen as well as a bigger than expected drop in exports pulled the nikkei down closing 1.25%. when the end gets stronger, exporter share prices take a hit. toshiba and hitachi, down 4 to 4.5%. the hang seng was down 1.3%. it had been trading flat for most of the day but it fell in the last few hours of trading. the top gainer is the hong kong exchanges and clearing. it closed up more than .5%. this is the holding company for the hong kong stock exchange itself. it's in joint venture talks with the shanghai and the shengjen exchanges. the shanghai composite also down 1.6%, the biggest loser of all asian markets today. new annual housing data showed housing prices rose 4.3%. the composite itself has fallen more than 9% as anti-inflation measures have hurt growth in stocks that list on this board. the asx 200 was down 1.22%. i mentioned the $10 billion hostile bid for foster's. resource-related stocks fell on slows of growth. bh

manchester united moving from finance to football, ramy. it seems there are reports of an ipo for man u. why would it make such a move especially when the markets have fallen so much of late? >> good question. the simple answer is it has to pay some really big bills and it has to pay for its players. so take a look here. as of last spring, the legendary football club was in dead by this much. 370 million pounds or more than 600 million dollars, not to mention annual interest payments of this much, about $74 mill qulun. and in a bit of irony, manchester united which are english league champs 19 times over were also listed by forbes as the most valuable football team in the world worth more than $1.8 billion. that doesn't translate easily into lick equippedity, that's why they're gearing up for this ipo. manchester united could list 25% to 30% of its shares in a partial floatation, and that could pull inasmuch as $1 billion from their growing fan base in asia. and man u would list on the singapore stock exchange and not hong kong which it had

ramy, thank you so much for that.my inocencio. >>> so far we've covered all those elements into the show. we're only 47 minutes into the hour. you're watching "world business today." these are live pictures of hong kong, a city that ranks 35th on a list of the world's most livable cities. which are the best and which are the worst? we'll tell you if you stay tuned after the break. >>> now for another check on gold prices. you can see it's up about 30 cents from the troy ounce trading at $1,829.85. welcome back. live from cnn live in hong kong. this is "world business today." >>> here is a question for you. where do you think the most livable place in the world is? this new report out by the economist intelligence unit. it ranks 140 cities based on their stability, health care, culture, education and infrastructure. taking first place, melbourne, australia. the report found the city had one of the most efficient transport systems as well as a vibrant and safe social scene. i guess if you've been out to a party, you eas

ramy imocencio there. charles?se to china. we'll tell you all about a case in which the roles are reversed in u.s./china trade relations. that is next. ♪ sing polly wolly doodle all the day ♪ ♪ hah >>> welcome back live from cnn hong kong and cnn london, this is "world business today." >>> many americans are wary of the products that china ships to the u.s. they're also worried about the overall economics, particularly the trade between them. he's making chopsticks and selling them to china at the rate of some 4 million a day. john vause has the story. >> reporter: jay li knows better than most the art of the possible. >> everybody says are you crazy? >> reporter: crazy because he's making chopsticks in the u.s. and selling them. >> this is a chopping machine. this is like a small pressing machine, the making of chopsticks. >> reporter: that's 600 chopsticks a minute, 2 million a day. his factory is running nonstop, six days a week. >> did you ever think you knew so much about chopsticks? >> no. >> reporter: jay wa

ramy, thanks for that. crunching the numbers for us. >> more numbers to crunch i'm afraid. >>> on wall street, the u.s. stock markets rebounded on thursday. what we had is optimism returning to the markets, thanks to, in part, a report showing that jobless claims fell to a four-month low. at the closing bell, the dow was up by almost 4%. it was a gain of nearly 4.5%. but the s&p 500, the broader index, and the nasdaq. the u.s. stock markets really showing a strong rebound. but, andrew, we've seen swings and gains. swings between losses and gains every day. it's really a different picture to the one we saw a month ago, isn't it? >> absolutely. it's interesting, though. seeing this slight disconnect now, where you get the wild swings still in the world's biggest market. but here in asia, the movement has become much more subdued. investors are sort of stepping back a bit, perhaps taking a longer view of what's happening, at least in this part of the world. you're watching "world business today." >>> she was o

ramy inocencio joins us.n you look at it, does it bear up under scrutiny. >> depends on which country you look at in aus an know. the ten-member nation is not a monolithic nation. i spoke with four analysts throughout the day today. one from hsbc singapore, another from singapore's institute of international affairs, another from the asian development bank in the philippines and another from the institute of southeast ashian studies. i wanted to get a lot of these people in on this conversation. they all agreed that indonesia is the anchor for asean right here. that it's the most stable. for example, the fourth largest country in the world with 240 million people. that means that they have a huge consumer base. that consumer base allows them to keep on pushing consumer demand there. especially with a lot of young people in the country, there's a lot of veracious consumers out there, for tech, for example. it also has a growing middle class. they can afford more stuff basically, buying telephones, buying cars,

ramy thank you so much. >>> tokyo benchmark nikkei there down more than 9% over the past week. it was down 5% alone today, did recover a little bit of those losses though and certainly ramy was saying tching post earthquake and tsunami lows in today's session before coming back. exporters continuing to bear the brunt of the problems. kyung lah has been watching the falls over the past few days. is it the exporters leading the way or is this very much like most places at the moment broad-based? >> reporter: it is broad-based but we are focusing on the exporters and in particular toyota and sony look like they are really sort of leading the way. they were both down some 5%, and that's fairly significant, if you consider the market did end down 1.7%. but the overall sentiment from tokyo, the news that we're getting is there appear to be a sentiment switch in the middle of the day, though. early on the sentiment was very negative. we had one trader tell us that over the last few days, there's no panic here in tokyo, but they were starting to reach that point where they could talk t

. >> ramy, thank you very much. charles?> well, we're going to make a stop at the international weather center in a moment. we'll have an update on why southeast china is now hunkering down. the nascar nationwide se, i know pleasing fans is a top priority, 'cause without the fans, there'd be no nascar. just like if it weren't for customers, there'd be no nationwide. that's why they serve their customers' needs, not shareholder profits. because as a mutual, nationwide doesn't report to wall street, they report to their customers. and that's just one more reason why the earnhardt family has trusted nationwide for more than 30 years. nationwide is on your side. >>> welcome back. you're watching world business today live on cnn. >>> a powerful storm killed 16 people in the philippines and caused significant damage in taiwan. now china is in its path. jennifer delgado is at the cnn weather center. tell me, jen, how does this compare to irene in terms of its size and destructive power? >> charles, big difference. it's certainly a

left to the ramie a car dealership through one. made sure that there were no people around the buildings that were nearby were vacant. and we started a fire that resulted in forty thousand dollars with damage to three trucks unfortunately it's taken me to start a fire and found guilty of several different crimes be sentenced to twenty years before people want to pay attention to things that i had to say or people like me had to say. should i stay here for the duration of my sentence and the entire world and the life that i've had up to this point will be non-existent twenty one years from now that's hard to swallow. since it's real difficult but i can't look back and knowing what i know and how and what i have my heart. crude. this was the longest prison sentence for any environmental and animal rights activists in oregon the average sentence for arson if you're convicted of arson is two years so for jeff to get twenty three years for the same exact crime based on his political beliefs was outrageous and completely unheard of i thi

ramy imocencio with more on the downfall. >> andrew, thanks. they tasted first blood. first off to japan where the nikkei fell more than 2% and is now down more than 12% year to date. sony fell nearly 4%. honda was down more than 3%. here in hong kong the hang sang fell 2%. we're talking pachk of china, china construction bank. they fell between a 1% and a 5% here. in the mainland the shanghai composite fell almost 4%. fell to its lowest point in a year. again, financials here were the big wave and over in south korea, something interesting here. the kospi was down 4% and actually trading was suspended for about five minutes. this was after a selloff this morning triggered a drop of more than 5%. analysts triggered the plunge as they sold off equities. finally in australia, they fell about 3%. miners were hit especially hard. ala resources fell. >> they're still pretty firmly in demand. not perhaps as much as gold. what's happening there. >> that's right. the new gold record is what everyone is talking about today. let me bring the chart up. the record crashed through

rami. >> i think it's clear cut that the regime was not going to transition peacefully.nk they made that very clear early on. >> he was raise in a muslim family, telling me syrian americans are generally united against him, but in a san francisco armenian church, he tells me christian syrians are worried. >> what i'm hearing from my brother is that there are people with guns from people interfering and also, regime is doing really brutality in stopping all of this violence that is happening. >> he stresses his condemnation of the violence, but adds, the regime protected the syrian christian minority, and christians are worried if he leaves syria could become an islamic state. >> we don't know who is the opposition. still, we don't know who is the opposition. do we see any persons or any demands from the opposition? the only thing they're saying you're out. >> dr. bayloi resist autos i will agree to that, many protestors out there say the slogan, that slogan is kurdish, muslim, christian, we are one. >> this saturday, the free syria association is holding a rally in suppo

ramy inocencio has been watching the news for us. it's interesting. big falls today, but apart from south korea, it could have been worse. >> it could have been worse, but could have been much better. as we got closer to the markets' closing times, the selloff accelerated across the region. experts were the big way on the nikkei, closing 2.5%. nikkei, honda and sony between 3% and 4%. the hang seng closed 3.5%. one of the biggest losers, cosco pacific, one of the largest shipping operators, closing 6%. oil shares fell, too, following the price of oil. the shanghai composite in the mainland, that closed down almost 1%, following the region's losses. it was the least heard in the markets. it was a bit more at tuned to the china domestic markets rather than world markets. in australia, the asx closed down 3.3%, representing more than $40 billion wiped off the books in just a day. banks down to 4.5%: the worst performing index in this region was soles cos pee with a loss of more than 6.2%. for more of that, let's cross live to paula hancocks. why did sout

amenities with all the latest green technology snrlt it's a chicken coop designed by architect james ramyt the chicken co--op because it is a chicken coop but at the same time it's a luxury residence for poultry. there's a parameter by which you can judge your success and that is, is it happily laying eggs? >> reporter: do they? >> so far all of them are laying away. >> reporter: one of ramsay's several thousand dollar coops can be found on a terrace overlooking none other than new york's central park. >> that chicken coop may actually be nicer than my own house. >> osgood: still to come, clothes made the woman. designer diane von furstenberg. >> reporter: do people actually use these on golf courses. >> yes, these are approved for golf courses. >> osgood: par for the course. >> osgood: i was a soda jerk in my day once upon a time. those were the days. ice cream parlor and soda fountain in old time columbus indiana landmark restored to its original 1900 design. we're told that nobody knows that better than the one our anthony mason has been to visit. >> very nice. thank you. >> reporter:

. >> a little ramy out there this morning. >> a little bit of drizzle. nothing too heavy. here is a live look from the roof camera in san francisco. you will need to use your windshield wipers here and there. this afternoon, sunny and warm. nobody debitors our region from 60s along the coast to the upper 80s. the fog is a bay area wide. the north bay, the entire stretch of 101, the peninsula and down to the south bay, overcast conditions. fairly expensive this morning. when will it burn off? we're still looking for a bay area wide fall. by noon it will pull back to the coast. we will all get some fairly decent warm and once that happens. we will be dealing with all once again tomorrow morning, this afternoon will be pretty nice. low 60s through most of the east bay and south bay. we are still dealing with the mid-upper 50s. let's take a look at the afternoon highs. mid- upper 80s. >> in downtown san francisco, mid-60s. here is your 7 day forecast. we have a warm day shaping up for saturday and sunday. let's get a check on the morning commute. >> still a pretty quiet ride a