in syria. these rikts are set to show demonstrations in dara last friday. although cnn cannot verify when the video was shot. an estimated 1,500 people are unaccounted for in joplin,h. nearly 100 volunteers are working to reunite family and determine who's really missing. the volcanic eruption in iceland that's disrupted air traffic in europe is finally ending. the ash cloud thrown up from the volcano is drifting east and dissipating and most of the airports closed are re-opening. those are the headlines. i'm zain vergee, "world business today" starts now. good morning, from cnn london and welcome to "world business today." i'm nina dos santos. and good afternoon from cnn hong kong, rhyme andrew stephens. the top stories this thursday, may 2 th. sony's bad run continues. it's now forecasting a profitable year ahead. even that outlook fails to impress. dominique strauss-kahn is now under house arrest at this luxury new york townhouse. >> i'm a leader by temper and attitude and professional experience. i'm also a person that can reach out and reach consensus. >> and business leader, lawyer, minister and mother, christine lagarde tells us why she's got the right resume to head up the imf. >> so plenty to come on today's jam-packed show. let's start out with the european markets and how they're faring, recovering quite a bit of ground after the heavier losses we've seen earlier in the week. the gains we've seen in the first hour or so, ftse 100, void by banking stocks and the hedge fund group, mann group. that company coming out with its results, lifting its stock. we have metals and mining companies lifting it as well. the laggard is the zurich smi at the moment. the pound almost flat, 1.63 against the yen, up a fraction 81.92. a bit of recovery in the currency markets, meaning the dollar is going back down again as risk seems to be coming back into the market. we saw that in asia as well, nina. more so is the emerging markets in this part of the world, recovery in most of the markets today. australia up 1.65%. you were talking about metal stocks going up. same thing here. bhp billitan up. the hang seng up by 0.67%. shanghai, down 0.25%. the nikkei up by 1.5%. in tokyo, canon's stock price up by 5.77%. the tap neesz office equipmentmaker rico says it will slash thousands of jobs. the company will cut 10,000 jobs, 10% of the work force, as it launches a three-year restructuring process that sent the share price up. it usually does when they talk about getting rid of staff. ricoh up by 4.1% this year. the share price by almost 30%. they definitely needed to do something. we've also got figures coming out after the close in tokyo. we knew not to expect anything great from sony's earnings. the company confirmed it lost $3.2 billion for the year to the end of march. but with that announcement came a prediction of return to profit in the coming year. albeit significantly less than expected. let's look at those numbers in more detail now. kyung lah joins us from tokyo. they are predicting a return to profits but a disappointing return, kyung. >> reporter: a bit of a disappointing return, in part because what we're hearing from the sony's earning presser which just began a few moments ago, andrew, let's look back on what's happened this fiscal year. sony is saying what they found was a loss. it is primarily a noncash loss. it doesn't have impact on cash flow. many of the experts will agree on that. part of some of the damage to sony is what did happen on the earthquake. that they do believe that even most of it will be covered by insurance. looking ahead to the forecast, the upcoming fiscal year. they do anticipate that the earthquake will continue to cost this company about 1.83 billion u.s. dollars. but if we could stress something, the real elephant in the room here, andrew, it is what has happened with sony and it's hacking. the hacking of its play station network and its curiosity network many of the play station network users are fuming over this time gap when sony actually learned about the hacking and when it started to actually communicate with the players. so because of that time gap, there's a bit of user anxiety and anger out there about how to treat sony as a network moving forward. if they want to put their credit cards in the hands of sony. sony has to figure out now how to make it up to the user. in part, this is financially important for this company. this, andrew, is what the company is considering in using one of the key pillars to succeed in the future. >> interesting it's become such an important part of sony, now it's online operations and how a string of it was pushing back before, saying we were quite quick, relatively alerting the customers to what had happened. that's not washing very well, kyung. if you look at what sony will be doing over the next year to try and get if back to profits, is it expecting big things from its bread and butter businesses, i guess you can put it? tvs and electronics stuff? >> yes, if you look at what they announced today, some of the details, what they're looking forward to is selling more lcd tvs and also relying on its network, content. this diversity as far as movies but also playstation network. what sony is looking at is what they've been working on, turning around this antiquated company. the sony walkman was a long time ago. they're trying to diversify and update. it's a process ongoing. many analysts say it's been successful internet leadership of howard stringer. the question will be how long will stringer stay on the job and can sony continue what it has started this last ten years? >> i think i have one of those walkman's kicking around the house. they might be worth a bit to some collector. thank you, kyung lah. dominique strauss-kahn has a new place to stay while he's under house arrest in new york. he moved from an apartment to a luxurious townhouse in a pricey part of lower manhattan. while he waits for his trial to begin, he won't want for much it seems. we're told the townhouse has four bedrooms, a hot tub and movie theater. if he gets bored he won't be able to open out when he feels like it. accord together terms of the $6 million bail agreement, strauss-kahn is only allowed to leave his residence on six hours' notice. mean while, the race to replace strauss-kahn is certainly intensifying. the bookies favorite is this woman, we're talking about christine lagarde. she's the french finance minister and could be the first ever female chief of the imf. jim bitterman sat down with ms. lagarde to ask her what she might bring to the imf's top job. >> i tell you what i bring, i think, to the fund if i was elected. i'm a lawyer by background. and i have that set of legal skills. i'm a leader by temper and attitude and professional experience. i'm also a person that can reach out and reach consensus. i'm a person that expects others to shine and bring their talent to resolving problems. on the top of which having been 25 years in private practice and having led a very large institution, although in the private sector, baker mckenzie, one of the largest law firms in the world, i've been the minister of finance for france for the last four years. you know, we've traveled the tempest, not too badly. the crisis did not hit france as hard as it hit other countries. >> in your announcement, why did you emphasize you were bringing your expertise as a lawyer and enterprise but also as a woman. what was the point of that? >> i made the point about my gender, because number one, women represent about half the population of the world if not a little more. and it's okay to actually be able to not represent but come from that majority which is often a minority. so i'm not suggesting that i should have any special favor but i will certainly bring my skills as a woman as well as a mother, too. >> will you do anything to change gender equality at the imf? >> wherever i've been, whether as chairman of baker mckenzie or minister of finance for the last four years, i've always tried to improve the gender ratio and the situation that women have in their work life so that it can help them just express their tall zblent four of the last ten directors of imf have been from france. does it seem like a likely prospect they'd turn yet again to france? >> as i declared candidacy i would hope that would be the case. i hope it's also done on the basis of merits, comparing talent in respect of circumstances. and certainly in an open and transparent process, which is what we've advocated. my president has stated yet again at the time when the managing director stepped down. >> do you feel like the organization has an image problem after dominique strauss-kahn? >> i will really commit to stay for the entire duration of the term. i know it's a frustration on the part of the staff of the imf that work is undertaken, projects have begun and the director has to go for whatever reason. my commitment would be to actually stay throughout the term. >> christine lagarde and the other contenders in the running to replace strauss-kahn will no doubt be a talking point at 9 latest g8 summit which kicks off today. the french prime minister or president nicolas sarkozy is hosting the two-day event in deauville in northern france. security is tight as leaders from eight of the world's most powerful and largest economies sit down to discuss an array of pressing issues, most notably, a multibillion dollar aid plan to support countries like asia and tunisia. emily reuben joins us now. good morning. >> good morning, nina. the g8 is meeting. as questions grow about how relevant the organization is. china and india are not a part of the summit. the french finance minister christine lagarde is now officially a candidate and has the support of key european countries. and the european commission. but the job's not entirely in the bag for her. the u.s. hasn't yet said who it will support, the french president nicolas sarkozy is hoping to security support from the u.s. president barack obama at the two-day summit. and the bric nations have criticized the unwritten rule that the leader must be from europe. the question is whether they can coalesce again a single candidate to represent them. let's look at the european debt crisis. the imf's position is to top up the bailout funds but how are able greece, ireland and portugal to pay back their staggering debt? some are calling for the dealts to be restructured. yesterday, restructuring was described as a horror. there's the u.s. economic policy for the g8 members to get their teeth into. they want to warn that america could default on bonds, social security or medicare. and then, of course, there's a discussion of aid to tunisia and egypt. the leaders of both those countries are at the g8, negotiate with them for aid to help their transition to democracy. nina, there's certainly a lot to get through in the next two days. >> yes, absolutely. especially after obama's visit to the united kingdom and ireland over the last two or three days. emily reuben, thanks very much for that. after the break, 1,300 kilometer line of severe storms on wednesday threatened to bring fresh destruction to the u.s. midwest. after the break we'll show you new dramatic pictures of the terror that thousands of people have faced. the sheer devastation these storms have caused is now running into the billions of dollars. coming up, we'll look at the financial cost of nature's wrath. stay with us. 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>> wind speeds of what, around 200 miles an hour plus. >> you're talking 322 kph, 200. that's what we saw for the tornado that pushed through joplin, ef-5, the highest. >> extraordinary. jen, thanks very much for that. >> you're welcome. >> jen delgado at the weather center. >> you're welcome. we've been showing you pictures of the funnel clouds as they tear through the u.s. what would you be doing if you saw a tornado bearing down on you. take a look at this. everyone is going about their normal day, disregard warning signs to begin with. when they look outside, there's no ignoring the massive storm. that's when they quickly make their way to the back and just in time. this is what happened to the shop moments later. incredible footage. there's no audio. the noise must have been absolutely terrifying as well. but you can see there, just how quickly this happens. and just how devastating an impact something like a storm with a 320 kilometer an hour wind is going to have on a town or a city in the u.s. nina? >> absolutely shocking pictures, aren't they, andrew? everything seems to be whirling around the computer screen there. all tolled, more than 500 americans have died in severe weather this spring, making the most deadly tornado seas innocent united states since lack in 1953. it's also taking a huge financial toll. catastrophe risk models estimate the insured losses of $1 billion to $3 billion just in the tornado deaf state city of joplin, missouri. the kind of figures we're dealing with here. they also estimate the tornado damage from a series of storms in april in the southern u.s. will probably also cost between $3.7 billion and $5.5 billion. american airline is feeling the pinch as well. it's had to take 65 american and american eagle jets out of service on wednesday and that's specifically related to storm damage, andrew. >> yes. just incredible. it continues, too. as the oecd wraps up its 50th anniversary making in paris, the head of the organization tells us what he's making of the global recovery when we come back. policymakers at the oecd, organization for cooperation and development based in paris wrapping up their summit in this city. more than 30 countries are members of the oecd which is celebrating its 50th birthday this week, nina. >> andrew, one thing that did come out of the oecd sum sit an assertion that the global recovery, thankfully, seems to be firmly under way. they say economic growth has started becoming self-sustaining now with trade and investment replacing economic stimulus. now, what it said was that world gdp growth was likely to be 4.2% in the year 2011. that's slower than 4.9% growth for this year, 2010 and also 4.6 growth for next year. let's talk about some of the other things that came out of the oecd meeting. they said they're expecting, as you would expect as well, slow rfry for countries like japan that were affected by that march 1 th earthquake and subsequent tsunami that's really affected the production and supply chain there. they also said they're expecting bigger than expected slowdowns in places like china. also, oil prices and european debt crises are probably likely, they say, to weigh on investors' minds and economists' minds and potentially do some damage, let's say those are the risk factors for the recovery as it gets under way. they've been urging a series of rate hikes, particularly from some of the institutions like, for instance, the ecb and also the federal reserve. they're saying they could expect rate hikes coming from the fed in the next few months or so. one of the things that was very much discussed was the long-term inflation expectations for the united states. that would be one of the reasons why the policymakers would need to lift the cost of borrowing money. they did say there's no need for euro european and interest rates and japanese interest rates to increase because of the crises we've seen in the sovereign debt mark net europe, also the economic situation with japanese gdp really falling off a cliff after the tsunami. they did say that the ecb should raise gradually as of next year. one area of concern is still unemployment right across the region. here's what