soldiers, she's visited the stadium where in 1920 british troops opened fire on a crowd watching a gaelic football match. 14 people were killed. the flood-swollen mississippi river is slowly pushing toward the gulf of mexico, threatening more towns along the gulf in the united states. local residents aren't taking any chances. so far nearly 9,000 people have evacuated from the flood zone. a television journalist who went missing in syria three weeks ago is safe and is returning home. that's according to her employer. dorothy orothy will be returnin soon. they said she had been deported to iran where she holds citizenship. a campaign launched to release her was held on facebook and twitter. those are the headlines today. "world business today" starts right now. good morning from cnn lauchblt welcome to the show. i'm nina dos santos. >> good afternoon. i he lan gishs in a new york jail cell. he defends the company for taking a week to tell gamers about a massive data breach. and fashionista sara karen has design on the mensware market now fly on the wall series, "the boss" continue this day. we start the latest on the dominique strauss-kahn story and pressure is mounting on the head to step down or at least on the side as new details emerge about the sexual misconduct allegations against him. he's been accused of seven counts and now the direction more broadly increasingly hinges on what may or may not have happened in his hotel on a saturday afternoon, nina. >> strauss-kahn's alleged attempt of a hotel rape starts a chain of events that threatens to drive a wedge between the finance chiefs in the united states and in europe. washington's treasury secretary timothy geithner here is the high-profile figure to make his feelings clear. >> he's obviously not in a position to run the imf, and i think it's important that the board of the imf formally put in place for an interim period someone else. it's not the constitutional order of success but the leader. >> on the other hand lipski's temporary position won't please other finance ministers. some agree that strauss-kahn needs to go. she says the fact that he's being detained without bail could damage the imf. but others were refusing to speculate on strauss-kahn's guilt. any successor must be drawn from european ranks. this man thinks the u.s. has quite enough influence within the imf. >> i don't want to say nothing about the candidates. i repeat. i want to say something about the necessity for europe to maybe keep this position. >> it's not just the u.s. challenging europe's dominance of the imf. economists also want more of a say. china is calling for fairness, transparency of the funds' next managing director. >> it certainly does. all of the speculation will be on dsk as he spends another night in his cell at new york's rai rikers island jail. let's take a look at the counts by the u.s. county district attorney's offer. the most serious charges are two counts of criminal sexual acts in the first degree. they eefrp carry a maximum sentence of 25 years in prison. then there's also one count of attempted rape in the first degree with a maximum sentence of 15 years. meaning up to seven years in prison, one count of unlawful imprisonment, one of forceable touching. eechl carry a one-year maximum sentence and finally there's a count of sexual abuse in the third degree. the penalty there is up to three months in prison. >> so it seems the maximum penalty that strauss-kahn could be facing is 49 years in total in sentencing. reaction to these charges against the imf chief have been strongest in his own home kun aretry in france. he's a former finance minister and also until recently -- until recent days, i should say, a front-runner in the race to secede president sarkozy. >> reporter: for years he's travelled to the far corners of the state in luxury and style. if he now sits in a jail cell in new york, many who know dominique strauss can are asking two questions. can the charges against him possibly be true, and if they are, why were people unaware of this apparent darker side? the author of a bioography says he's truly surprised. his book came out days ago after two years of research. he says he cannot believe the charges against strauss can. >> he's not a violent man. he's never -- he's very quiet, very self-controlled. he's not the kind of guy that's described by the accusation now. so for me there is a mystery. >> reporter: in fact, until now what distinguished strauss can was his low-key approach to problem-solving and his intellectual charm that seduced opponents. if he used his seduction on the ladies, no one here where at least even the private person is protected by 'cause toms of law no one here seemed to mind. now the entire side is coming it. not just the tawdry tales found in police reports but from previous ins thes here that seem to go well beyond simple sexual indiscretion. many ask if there is a dark side to the imf director's personality, why was it not known and how exactly did he rise through the system without it being detected? >> the shock was the revelation that they there may have been a darker side. i mean using violence to get sexual favors. but this part, nobody talked about. nobody knew about it to tim mess majority of the lead he was a womanizer. so what. >> reporter: in a way, the most upsetting thing for many french is not the image strauss can got of handcuffs and court but the idea that he fell from so high so fast. one analyst describes it as a disappointment, in a way that part of his character could have so well been hitter finance so long. jim bittermann, cnn, paris. let's examine the speed at which this story unfolded. strauss can checked into a $3 thousand a night suite in downtown on friday afternoon. this hallway was the scene of the alleged sexual assault on the 32-year-old chamber maid that happened allegedly around noon the next day. four hours later he bounded a plane and took his seat in first cla class, but within an hour port authority police boarded the plane and detained the imf boss. around 2:00 sunday morning that's when we saw him being charged on several counts including criminal sexual act charge and also rape. by monday he had been denied bail and was ordered to reappear in court this friday. so the story continues. but that's already three days on things have unfolded pretty quickly. >> absolutely. you can understand when jim quotes the surprise in france of dominique strauss can falling so far, so fast. make sure you stay with us here with the latest on this fast-moving story. there's much more on the case on our website as well including what may be next for the imf leader plus the candidates to replace him. you can read it all on cnn.com/international. nina. there's the story of who could potentially replace strauss can is the director of the imf. of course, we've got negotiations going on about the greek bailout and portugal's bailout getting the green light earlier on in brussels. but we have some of the stock markets turning higher and that is a relief for investors because obviously we've seen five days of gains. investors are interested in what the european stock market is saying. reconstruction of the stock markets would be a recipe for disaster it seems. let's move only the world kcurrenc currencies. we were just telling you before, the iuorio took a little bit of a wobble but finally it seemed as though the euro is traiting slightly higher against the u.s. dollar. this, many investors are saying, is because of what we could see as the ecb raising interest rates a little sooner than the u.s. 1.42501 euro against the u.s. dlafrmt 1.6230 for the british pound and the yen is trading at 81.01. andrew. >> we've had a positive day in asia, nina. japanese stocks bounding back. they were badly hit by the government's bailout of tokyo electric tepco just last week which is, in turn, is forced by payouts to people at the fukushima daiichi nuclear crisis. let's take a look. as i said, they're coming back. nikkei up by 1%. hang seng half a percent. shanghai almost 1%. another development which did hold back the australian market somewhat. it's a report from moody's. moody's has cut the debt rating on the four biggest banks in australia from a a-1 to aa 2. they say the commonwealth bank and west bank have. not hugely down, but they are major constituents there so that did hold back the broader gains on the market, nina. let's move to the united states. trouble on the home front and gloom in the technology sector kept traders busy of tuesday. housing stoxx dropped by 10% and the industrial production came out as being flat. at the end of it the dow was off by half of 1% and if nasdaq pretty much unchanchd. s&p just below the waterline downtown 0.04%, andrew. >> i guess the only positive thing you can say is dow was down more than 1% in one state. more trouble for hewlett-packard, one of the heavyweights after a tricky year. they've seen plenty of challengt the top. the ceo warning management of another tough quarter that sent the firm's stock tumbling to its lowest level in two years. now hp was forced to ano, sir the quarter earnings a day earlier. these show a slight increase. le the net profit growing from 2.2 billion a year ago to $2.3 billion for the april quarter but a lower forecast for the fiscal year has done not. hp also saying it's going be spending a lot more on capital expend tur so it's going to be less money flowing back to shareholders didn't help either, but certainly a tough, tough time for hewlett-packard at the moment, nina. top stocks very much in focus. we were telling viewers about the lackluster performance of some of the indices on the other side of the atlantic. now let's take a look at how the passing could go later. today the markets look set for a strong start following the european gains we've seen so far today. this is the premarket action, a number of those markets up by about four-tents of 1%. now, heading into a break, but when we come back, there's a fix. there are indeed -- andrew, let's go back to talking about these technology companies because we're going be heading into a break. it's a fix that had gainers. it isn't working yet at least. when it's all said and done it seems as though it's not going be cheap either. we'll have all of the latest from our business analysts up after the break. to relieve all your worst eye allergy symptoms. it goes right where you need it, relieving allergy eyes in minutes. get visine-a. the most complete allergy eye drop. it isn't working yet at least. they say that the damage at the fukushima daiichi plant is worse than expected. that means the cooling reactors are changing. tepco leaders say they still expect to have the situation resolved by january, that means keeping to the timetable they announced a month ago. these crippled nuclear reactors are just part of a catastrophe that's well into its third month. the perimeters keep shifting and radiation fears to even more towns being emptied of their residences as thousands await the government's instructions. tepco's stock rads but it has plum itted 82% in the last three mon months. fro london and hong kong, welcome back. sony was forced to take the whole system off line. more than 77 million customers were breaches which involves customer's information and e-mails. what has howard stringer been saying? >> you know, it's a pretty simple maej. this hack attack is going to hurt our bottom line and saying to sony's customers, please don't leave us. at the same time he's pushing back against the critics who say sony took too long to telecom supers about the hacks. sony moved much faster than, quote, anyone we can find. on the money front, no clear figure yet, but stringer did have this to say. he said basically the charges sort of mount up but they don't match up to a number we can quantify yet because we're still investigating. meantime on the loss of consumers, they seemed to minimize it says my guess is we will not lose so many and we'll recover quickly. whether that's wishful or not remains to be seen. sony is going to be facing bills for repairing and upgrading against future hacks. the company will also take a major hit in terms of lost remember news. the network has been offline for about a month and is still not operational in some countries like japan where it's based. it's trying to stem any customer exodus by offering two free play station game, a free move weekend and a free one-month upgrade. that's being called the welcome back package. the question is are people going to want to come back after a month offline. >> you wonder how stringer is getting his confidence that people are not going to desert sony. obviously the key question to people involved is what's happened to their personal information and crucially how can he be sure that it won't happen again? >> well, andrew, while they don't have any info on credit card abuses or identity theft for now, because they don't know doesn't mean it hasn't happened. they're look at lawsuits. the security breach now is government involved as well. the white house says it will also work closely with other countries on tackling cyber crime and internet security. meantime let's take a look at the share price over the past month right here. we'll bring it up on this chart. basically april 20, right around here, is when the hack attack news came out. since then sony's share price has dropped to where we are here by about 12%. and, you know, this isn't good news happening in the past month. they dropped from about 2,500 yen to around 2,200 yen and eight days from now on may 26, solely will release their earnings and sony expects there's going to be an impact. some analysts estimate it could cost a billion dollars. >> i guess a billion dollars is something sony could handle but it's the loss of consumers which is a whole other story. thank you. nina. britain's queen is making history in ireland. straight ahead, we'll see what her visit means for two neighboring economies with a bitter and bloody history. also coming up on the show, some fresh faces in the board room at mywardrobe.com. we'll find out who when we check in with "the boss." watching "world business today" today live on cnn. it's the second day of queen elizabeth's historic trip to ireland. it's called the start of a new era. on tuesday her majesty laid a wreath at the garden of remembrance for those fighting british rule. today begins with the queen touring the guinness house in london. then she'll attend the national wall memorial garden honoring the war dead. next it on to the site of what's known as bloody sunday. nina. >> the massive security for her trip will cost $42 million but the ireland government hopes her visit will provide a vital turn in the tourist industry. as it's reported it does have some underlying strength. >> are you asleep? oh, i think someone is looking for her bedtime story, is she? >> reporter: the story of ireland's banking crisis doesn't make for a good bedtime story. but there is good, that's the exports. the cartoons nominated by brown bag films one of the more creative samples. >> very tech-savvy culture here. people are really into technology and you know even for animation, it's -- i don't know what the secret sauce is about ireland, but it definitely -- there is a secret sauce there and it does differentiate it but it works. >> reporter: a secret sauce that's generated irish entrepreneurs like gaffney but has also pulled in internation companies like paypal who set up their european headquarters on emerald isle. pay pall has been here since 2005 but already back in the '80s you had tech giants like microsoft, dell, hp and intel investing in ireland and now you have this new wave of social media companies like facebook, linkedin and there's talk that twitter might set up its headquarters here. they're pretty much ireland's only lifeline for growth right now. one huge draw for foreign investors is the low corporate tax rate. barry o'leary heads it up to try to encourage more companies to invest here. he says pressure from more european companies to raise the corporation tax goes against the spirit of the union. >> it is, after all, the sovereign right for each country to set its own corporation rate. and we expect germanied on france to provide any type of subsidy through their industry, which they do through various ways. we respect that. that's up to them in the same way as we expect them to respect ireland's move with respect to corporation tax. >> reporter: there are around 1,000 foreign companies investing in ireland, employing some 150,000 workers. no doubt the domestic economy is temporarily crippled by the magnitude of its debts, but there's still a fair amount to smile about given the strength of its export led twin. cnn, dublin. pakistan's prime minister is in china to shore up trade and political relations. so is this being seen as a snub to the u.s.? meanwhile tough time for the u.s. wheat farmers. this year's crop even worse than expected. stay with us. hello and welcome to "world business today." i'm nina dos santos at cnn london. >> and i'm andrew stevens at cnn hong kong. under the top story the imf leader is expected to resign. he faces multiple chargeses of trying to sexually assault a made in a new york hotel. meanwhile the u.s. secretary treasurer themthy geithner says they should make way for a new director while he fights his legal challenges it. the case is, quote, very defensible. nina. >> let's see how this is affecting the trading session acrossing europe. of course, this has been one of the top stories in the financial arena and even enin the general news arena for the next couple of days. what relief we're seeing. some of these markets putting on some pretty substantial gains, up to five days consecutive losses. it's a tie-up. we kunltly have the smi in zurich, the ftse 100 and the cac 40 up. >> pretty similar story here. we've seen an increase in the last couple of days too. leading the way, nikkei in japan, a much needed rally thanks to the banks and utilities. they had a tough week last week after the bailout of the tepco. i think you can read too much into these numbers. a little bit of buying going on. nikkei up, nearly 1%. hong kong by a half. shanghai, almost 1%. there's so much, well, dubious economic news that this rally not having any legs at least at this stage. >> there is at the moment. there's a lot of concern over what's going to happen for the direction of the interest rates across the u.s. and the uk. meantime it was dominated by falling housing stocks and was a pretty grim outlook from hewlett-packard. at the end of the session the dow was off by half a per senn and the nasdaq was pretty much unchanged. ending the day just below the waterline. so a lack luster performance. the index was flat. we'll see whether the rally we're seeing in europe today continues when the u.s. markets open, andrew. >> okay. looking at dell, nina, we look to hp earlier. the two heavyweights of the pc world and mixed results for dell. we had pretty bad results coming out. dell says that its pc sales dipped in the first quarter although it still managed to build record earnings, profits up some 16% on the year to some $945 million. that forecast beat expectations. it also gave a nice pop to dell's stock in the aftersales, dell finishing up by more than 6%. compare that with hp, nina. down by more than 7%. so it goes back to what we were talking about earlier. it's looking difficult as to what's happening in the global economy. most seem to be hitting toward a more -- a less optimistic outlook. let's put it that way. >> it is. of course, you're got sony in the mix. so it seems as though a lot of investors focusing on stock trades rather than the trends. let's look ahead at the trend we