And in an exclusive interview with nbc, one of the worlds most famous whistle blowers, Edward Snowden said he was trained as a spy and was not just a lowlevel analyst. Youre watching worldwide exchange, bringing you Business News from around the globe. Good morning. Welcome again to worldwide exchange. Lets get straight on with some of todays top stories. General electrics latest offer for alstom has been, quote, improved with notable changes on the companys commitment to job. The comments were made after a morning meeting between hollande and jeff immelt this morning. Stephan is in paris. Given these latest noises, whos most likely to do the deal here do you think . For the time being theres no affirmed formal offer from siemens so ge is alone in terms of a formal offer. We know the original bid has been improved, especially on jobs. Theres no details on precisely what General Electric is offering for alstom. Yesterday, speaking to the parliament, jeff immet says the group would make increased commitment about jobs in france. Were not talking about creating more jobs in france, thats for sure. Ge was also expected to announce a tieup with alstom in rail signaling giving, in practical terms, control of that unit to the french company, alstom. That could seduce the French Economy minister who was very cautious on the industry strategy. Were waiting for more details. But its not confirmed that ge improved its original bid. On the side of siemens, chairman of siemens france said yesterday through a committee of the french parliament, that the company would make formal offer on the 16th of june at the latest. And he confirmed that it would propose an asset swap in order to create two european champions, one in rail with alstom and one in energy, in power with siemens. But thats all we know for now. We dont know what would be the strategy of siemens in terms of job creation. The latest is that ge improved the offer in order to get the blessing from the french government and from what we knew, thats definitely a good step in order to get the approval from the government. As we know, thats the job protection in france was the top priority for the french government. I propose we can perhaps listen to what jeff immelt, the ceo of General Electric, said to the french lawmakers yesterday evening. Alstom will not disappear. Through our industrial project, france will have more jobs in the global power business than you do today. You will have more decisionmaking with four headquarters. There will be more r d in france than today with broader technology. You will have more Global Impact to a larger sales presence. Alstom will not be absorbed by ge. So that was yesterday, before the meeting with a french president , Francois Hollandee. I cant help thinking given hollande lack of Popular Support that the idea of selling off some of the countrys crown jewels probably will not be the best plan right now. What has public sentiment been regarding the idea of this at least . Well, at the beginning there was a third option which was a control of alstom by the french government, some sort of nationalization. First of all it would be extremely difficult to implement. We need to find money and also get the actual one from brussels. This has has been dropped by the french economic minister. Two options remain on the table. One is General Electric. The other one is siemens with an offer expected in the next couple of weeks. And from what we heard this morning, ge has made a huge step towards the french government, not only its offering to protect jobs in france but its offering to create jobs in france and given the level of unemployment in this country, thats something that will certainly seduce the french government, julia. The frenchmen get seduced in the comments there. Thanks, stephan. Lets say convince. That was a bad translation from french. I like seduce. I cant see jeff immelt trying to seduce Francois Hollande. No comment. I think im blushing as well. The swiss consumer giant hopes will strengthen its skin health division. Valiant has a 47 billion bid on the table for rival allergan. Lets talk about nestle first. Theyre trying to move towards well nice, higher margin products. Theyre trying to get under your skin, julia. Nice. There you go. Lets talk about the strategic sense of this deal. It does make a lot of sense according to a couple analysts quoted on the wires this morning. As you pointed out, theyve been making this month into the aesthetic dermatology business. Brand sales in north america are around 250 million. It is a sizable business. The more interesting point, probably is, why is valiant doing this . Allergan amounted quite a good defense last night we spoke to an analyst on the show this morning. He said this is all about clearing the desk for that deal because they want to get some of the competition issues out of the way. Today were expecting an improved offer from valaent from allergan. Some analysts say dont expect too much from that offer. Its not going to improve dramatically in terms of the cash component. I launch a defense of the deal as well. Allergan were criticizing business strategies, theyre not of the kind of scale they need to see. Yes. Interesting. Well be watching out for that. Carolyn, thank you so much for your insight. We were taking Valeant Pharmacies making a staunch defense likely today of the push back they got from allergan yesterday. Lets take a quick look right now at some of the european markets. The u. S. Stock 600 right now, pretty even between gainers and losers. Down right now by 0. 2 . Lets have a look at the key movers as far as the markets are concerned this morning. You can see originally we have the ftse 100, the xetra dax and the cac current all losing ground, around 10 . We did see gains in the market on monday and tuesday for the european core ined seize. The ftse may be lose a bit of ground yesterday. Also gaining slightly in todays session so far. Lets have a look at the top stocks as well. On the downside, sbm offshore, one of the worst performers on the european market. Theyre losing 7. 5 , this after the dutch oil platform revealed it is seeking clarification about whether its been excluded from brazils offshore tender process. Moving on, actually on the topside, Telecom Italia gaining just shy of 4 . Investors dialing into Telecom Italia. Nice. After Goldman Sachs raised its price target for the stock to 1. 50, that up from 95 cents. Theres a buy rating on the telecom provider. Broadly flat on the year, the dutch retailer and Parent Company of stop and shop and giant foods said results were m impacted by lower margins in the u. S. Our outlook in the Second Quarter, it will also be impacted by our investments in our customer proposition for future growth as we know. Thats one of the things we also said this morning, that the u. S. , mainly in the u. S. , the margin will be slightly lower in the First Quarter, reflecting investments in customer propositions and growth. Also, thats the Commodity Prices in the u. S. Were quite high in the First Quarter and im looking then clearly on this. We had a bit difficulty passing through to our customers. Shares in hugo boss sliding after shareholder premiere said it will place a 5. 6 stake in the german fashion house up for sale. Even after the sale, it will still hold around 50 . So a little bit of weakness right now this morning on the european markets. Not necessarily taking their cue from the asian markets. Sri is in singapore. I can see a sea of green behind you. Yes. Risk appetite seems to be kicking out here, julia. We are seeing some strength nonetheless thanks to the strong offshore lead. The markets over there liked the data, didnt they . Lets talk about the shanghai market. The gains are building here. We got industrial profitability numbers. They were around 10 expansion is what we saw in april. That hints at some stabilization in the economic picture. The market is still banking on some further stimulus measures from the authorities in mainland china, just to keep the economy on an even keel. Lets talk about the bangkok market. Were seeing a post coup high here on the set. The market probably likes the fact that the military council are getting down to the brass tacts of economic management. They are paying the rice farmers as well. Despite the fact that we saw dismal numbers in terms of manufacturing and the trade position swinging to the deficit to the tune of 1. 5 u. S. Billion dollars. Taylor swift canceled her concert in bangkok as well. The sensex, we have been seeing profit taking. The next big event will have modi and his team strike a position on the budget. Its going to be one of fiscal discipline and consolidation albeit with a smattering of targeted spending, especially on infrastructure. Well wait and see. Back to you now. Well catch up with you later on in the show. Im joined by kit dukes, head of Global Foreign Exchange strategy at societe generale. We do see the dollar at an eightweek high. I know what youre going to say. I dont know what im going to say usually. The u. S. Data is steady for want of an expression. We cant call it a recovery because its a fullgrown cycle and its been going on for a long time. Its failed to kick on to the kind of old normal growth people would like to see. The u. S. Economy trundles along at 2 point something percent growth. And yet the fed, very clearly is sending us signals that they intend to be as dovish as possible for as long as possible any way. Where does the mweh fit with the index . Its eightweek highs because the biggest part of the dollar index is the euro which deserves to be at 5,000week lows, on the back of the news that were getting. Thats whats driving it. The dollar is at nothing like eightweek highs against a range of emerging market currencies, particularly. Theyve all been recovering steady as u. S. Treasury yields have been drifting lower and the equity market drifting up. You think the euro has downside, irrespective of whats leading the dollar index string sj now or not the time to get back into the dollar . I think it will be bumpy. What were looking for is to sell by the dollar. I would like to be buying the dollar more broadly within six months of their first rate hike as opposed to selling the euro within two weeks of their next rate cut. Talking on euro downside, weve moved four big figures lower in recent weeks. Citi coming out this morning saying the good news as far as easing is concerned is in the price here. Is there a risk that draghi disappoints and we see a spike higher . When i get back to my office ill look at those money supply numbers pretty closely for how awful they were. There is no feedthrough in terms of rates. They need to do something about it. The last two rate cuts the euro did trough, before, at or soon after the event itself. So the driver of euro dollar is still 70 fed policy, 30 anything that happens in europe. Unless draghi can come up with something thats much more like abeonomics. Get politicians on the side to do something to the weakened currency. I expect ill still be finding euro dollar at 1. 35, 1. 38 in september. Then i am going to be keen to sell it. The blip weve seen in terms of more strength, a reason to sell . Not much of a blip. For the rest of this week what you would observe is yesterday we had every reason for the euro to rally. How do we make money this week . It goes down. Sell it. I sell it against a bunch of things, not the dollar. Norway, turkey, pound. Youre staying with us. Coming up on todays show, up off the rebound. Bids are lining up for the l. A. Clippers Basketball Team after the former owner Donald Sterling is forced to give up the company. Phone out whos ready to play ball. Bring out the bling meanwhile, luxury retailer michael kors posts Fourth Quarter earnings. Will the Company Stock still be in style for investors . We get the analyst view later. Did you see my voice pick up with fashion versus football . I couldnt help myself. And we head to thailand where the Army Continues to tighten its grip on the cant after imposing a night time curfew. Well be live with the latest in bangkok. Stay with us. Youre watching worldwide exchange. Lets get you up to date with some of todays tech news. Intel has entered a tieup with rockchip to create chips for use in entry level tablets. Under its rare collaboration, both companies will be jointly developing and selling the product. The partnership does not include any investment between the two companies. Intel says the chips produced under the new tieup will be available in the first half of 2015. Nadella says the future depends on the companys ability to build, not buy the next big thing in what he calls the postpc era. He says microsoft is not interested in spinning off xbox or selling bing to yahoo . I think he said the post postpc era. Well correct that. Nadella says the task now is to turn skype into a real product, promising it will launch by the end of the year. Lets take a quick look at microsoft. As you can see, higher by around 0. 5 in trading today, this year up just shy of 10 . Google cofounder and ceo says the company is building a selfdriving car without brakes or a Steering Wheel. Google uploaded this demo video to youtube. Speaking at the conference, he says the vehicles will be on the street this year, one of products being developed by google x. Those include balloon powered Internet Service and google glass. You can see more coverage from the re code code conference all day today and thursday right here on cnbc. Our colleagues state side will have full coverage of that. Well be speaking to the ceos of twitter, blackberry and linked in, just to name a few. Thailand swung to a trade deficit of 1. 8 billion in april. That follows almost a 1. 5 billion surplus in march. The surprising drop is not due to the countrys political unrest, however, it failed to offer an alternative reason for the decline. Now, joining us is mary chalviker. Shes Investment Strategy at may bank securities. Talk to me about the economy right now. It looks like were on the verge of recession. We had Morgan Stanley saying were not going to see a new election for 12 months. The deterioration in the economy right now looks set to continue as far as i can see. What are your thoughts . I think that the worst is over in the First Quarter, that gdp contracts 5 s 0. 6 . And after they start to take over the situation last week and back to solving the problem and issuing the stimulus package to gain confidence from the thai people. Weakened demand starting on the last mandate. I think this is a key issue that domestic consumption will start to grow again next month. And we are waiting for the year 2015. They will report within this week. So this is the process from the governme government, to the local and working team to try to stimulate the economy. And gain confidence from the local and foreign investor. Is the message that military rule in the country will draw a line into the uncertainty and political instability or that will only come when we get the next election . I dont see where the military rule is the answer here. I appreciate the country understands this and weve seen numerous coups but the economy was in a far worse state coming into this. Yes. This is the key issue that the foreign investor might be confused and concerned about. I think that ncpo will set up the new government to take care of the situation, the thai economy for 12 months from now. I think that the ncpo is working on this issue. So i think that the foreign investor will thank you so much for your insight. Maryree chowvikran, thank you. For the international investor, the first question is can they get to a stable democratic background again in 12, 16 months . That will hang over us and hold us back. The second is were in a very, very emerging market asset friendly world with fed policy and economic recovery. Being what they are at the moment. When i look at asia, thailand is not the one that leaps out as, im going to put my money there. There are Better Stories in the philippines and malaysia and in thailand. I wonder if thats the reason we havent seen the 30day chart that we were showing of the equity market in thailand . International investors werent involved in this market. If you look at the philippines, vietnam, these are countries that will see growth above 5 this year. Why would you be in thailand . Again, its not really been beaten up. Its not cheap enough to entice. I think it will be there at some point because well get an economic bounce. Well have at least one eye on what happens next. Where else, if we have to look more broadly in emerging markets, i hate the phrase now because we have to differentiate quickly, where would you be buying in terms of currency . I still like turkey. Even though theyll be cutting Interest Rates. Valuation is still attractive. Mexico is the perennial cheapened and undergrowing currency. But as long as the s p is going higher, i think im still going to stick with that. It may be more that that obviously was the first to come back. Philippines i still like. You said of the s p, do you expect to continue to rally . I think its dangerous. Way that the fed is unwinding the Interest Rate adjustment that happened with tapering is putting air back into bubbles. While they drop rates down here, tenyear yields at 2. 5 while theyre buying bonds every day, well go on. Very quickly, Glaxo Smithkline to be probed over bro bribery related charges. Can the giant shake off the allegations . Stay tuned. Well be discussing. Youre watching worldwide exchange, bringing you Business News from around the globe. Welcome back to worldwide exchange. Here are your headlines. The change in tone from the french president. As Francois Hollande says ges offer for alstom