cnn london. libya's interim leadership is giving civilians until thursday night to leave the gadhafi stronghold of bani walid. many have been streaming out of town. . a western diplomat tells cnn an official from oman is on his way to tehran to help the negotiatings in the case against two hikers sentenced for spying in iran. iran's judiciary says it is considering a request to set bail in the case. this seems to contradict previous statements by the hingers' attorney and iranian president mahmoud ahmadinejad. pakistani disaster officials say flooding has killed at least 2 3 people in southeast pakistan in recent weeks. the u.n. says 300,000 people have been forced from their homes and into temporary camps. officials say 80% of the cash crops are damaged or destroyed in the province. british lawmakers are asking whether social media contributed to the extent and intensity of the riots that left london smoldering last month. representatives from facebook and twitter will answer questions in a parliamentary hearing on thursday. those are the headlines from cnn, the world news leader. i'm monita rajpal. "world business today" starts right now. hello and welcome to westbou "world business today," i'm andrew stevens in dalian. and i'm nina dos santos. these are the top stories on thursday, september 15th. >> ubs says an unthorauthorized trade has cost a $2 billion loss. >> investors get their appetite back as europe pulls together on the greek debt crisis. and three years to the day, since lehman brothers imploded, we ask the imf how much has changed in the banking sector. let's get straight to the markets. investors have appeared to have voted with their wallets this morning, following wednesday's reissuances from france and greece that they will stand behind greece on its own problems. france and germany on the issues surrounding greece. the message from the german chancellor, angela merkel, the greek prime minister, papandreou and nick has sarkozy, following a conference call is that greece will not be forced out of the you'rio. that's lifted stock markets around the world. one stock that is taking a pounding that we should mention, listed on the zurich smi. there's a stock in focus today, ubs. this is the swiss investment bank. they reported a loss of around $2 billion. it's blaming that on unauthorized trading. share prices down almost 6% on the back of that very news. traders will have theirize focused on two economic indicators, key ones. mainly the euro zone's con kumar price index, inflation figgs and latest employment figures. we had employment numbers out in the kingdom yesterday showing the amount of people across the uk who are out of work stands above 2.5 million. it will be interesting to see what the message for the euro zone is later on today. given the skittishness among investors right now as we speak, both of those two economic statistics, when they come out, could have more of an impact on the markets, more than usual because we are considerably worried about the situation vis-a-vis greece. let's go back to company news and more on that $2 billion loss at swiss bank ubs. they've discovered a loss by unauthorized trading by a trader in its investment bank. the matter is still being investigated, it says. it may mean a third quarter loss in 2011. on the telephone live from london, good morning, ralph. >> good morning. >> what do you make of this news? it's a bolt out of the new for ubs, isn't it? we're talking about one of t the -- >> yes, it is. we've been on the phone all morning trying to find out more details. it's still sketchy. one of the traders made a mistake or went against the trading positions of ubs, an excessive amount of risk and didn't hedge against that risk. that's what resulted in this. ultimately 2 billion, while it is a very, very large number, ubs has in fact recovered sufficiently since the crisis to make sure that this isn't going to severely hurt the company as a whole. >> how much of a problem is rogue trading in some of these biggest banks? one would have thought companies like ubs, for instance, that are based in switzerland, a notoriously safe place for wealthy people to put their money would have better checks and balances in place to prevent something of this scale happening, ralph? >> surprisingly, this happens on a fairly regular basis, probably on a weekly basis. however, by no means do we ever have this kind of number. the problem comes down to time. verification of traders' activities requires somebody else to look at the actions before they're actually initiated. in a market where you measure times in fractions of a second, in most cases that's not an option. we put a tremendous amount of trust in these traders but they are ordered to hedge against their trades. and in this case, we think he simply didn't do that. >> okay. ralph silva will be joining us later on in the show. we'll have more coverage of the ongoing situation at ubs as we get more information about it. andrew? interesting insight into the world of trading, that realtime trading where you get those sort of trades, as ralph was saying, more unusual than you might think. here in asia, pretty good numbers around the region. let's start with tokyo, the nikkei up by 1.8%. no coincidence those numbers came on the back of improving manufacturing confidence. that was up for a fiven consecutive month in september and does show you how manufacturers are getting back on their feet following that march tsunami. a lost people saying it would take longer than it has for japan's manufacturing sector to recover from that. it does not seem to be the case. in australia, the benchmark not far behind, the numbers we saw on the nikkei. up by more than 1.5%. here in hong kong, it was up more modest, a gain, and in shanghai, just down the road from here where we are, the index slipping back by a 0.20%. nina. u.s. markets look set for a slightly higher open when they begin trading on thursday. the early indications in the premarket action show us we could see some of the markets starting out the day to the tune of about 0.25% higher to 0.5% higher. it has a number of hours to go before the u.s. markets get trading and some of the news surrounding some of the world's biggest investment banks like, for instance, ubs' statement today, also the ongoing concerns about the euro zone could potentially affect these markets. going to a break. we'll be back in a second. welcome back, live from dalian in northeastern china and london. you're watch be "world business today." >> the greek debt saga is building up to another climactic moment. in their conference call on wednesday, the french, german and greek leaders committed to keeping greece on its feet and also inside the euro. that sets the stage for a euro zone's finance ministry meeting on friday. the u.s. treasury secretary, tim geithner will be attending. that's a sign that washington is increasingly concerned over europe's apparent failure to deal with its debt crisis. own wednesday the ec chief jose manuel barroso -- apart from that clear message, what came out of the european policymakers discussions on wednesday and most specifically, what came out of the conference call between angela merkel, nicolas sarkozy and papandreou? el elinda, is it enough and are we getting assurances from papandreou that merkel and sarkozy want to keep greece inside the euro zone? >> it sounds like they've got enough out of papandreou where they were always planning to come up with a statement saying they will support gross. they said very clearly they want greece in the euro zone, that the euro zone has to stick together to make this happen. this is largely speaking what this teleconference, these phone calls were about yesterday. they were very much about endorsing greece, saying europe has to work together to pull through. mr. papandreou also reassured his european partners that greece will do it's best, that it will stick to all the grems, all the pledges that it has made. this is what the government spokesperson said after the meeting yesterday. and also what we got from both the french and german side. it seems that all sides have come out of this quite reassured that something positive is going to happen which also seems to be the message they wanted to send to the market at this point. that europe wanted to send to the markets at this point, that it will work together to get greece out of this crisis. >> elinad, the reality is greece could be fashion a dangerous dilemma here. it may well default at some point. the credit default swap markets, the cost of ensuring greek debt is pricing in a near 100% chance of it defaulting and there's no frame work for that happening or indeed it being expelled from the euro zone. >> well, greece is definitely in a difficult position at this point, which the prime minister has been try to stress, saying you know, all that greece has to do -- it can only stick to the agreement, otherwise it may well default. this is what he's doing to try and do. right now to push any of the measures through, he needs to have very strong support. the measures of the greek people will have to face in order to meet their requirements, are very tough. the unions have been protesting for a long time. we've had new taxes announced just this weekend and we're looking at massive cuts in the civil sector, privatizations. it's a rough time for greece. at the moment there doesn't seem to be a clear plan "b." if this seems to be the one way that all the european leaders seem to be pushing ahead. >> jose manuel barroso has been talking about euro bonds as a potential solution to this. presumably the greeks would be in favor of that? or on the streets of athens, are people just fed up? >> people -- overall, yes, they are in favor. greece is in favor. and most people here are in favor of this whole idea of euro bonds. but what they don't understand and not quite sure what's going to happen is how greece is going to manage to implement all the measures that it has to get through. these are tough measures for people undergone salary cuts, pension cuts. it's going to be very difficult for the average greek family to really survive. austerity is very tough and people are saying they can't really face any more of this. what they want is immediate day-to-day measures for their own survival rather than long-term solutions at this point. and that they haven't really seen. elinda labropouyiou joining us for that. andrew? this is a day which will go down in infamy, because it was a day three years ago exactly that lehman brothers declared bankruptcy. we all know what happens next. first of all it was a huge shock that the u.s. government let lehmans go under. that was followed by the complete and utter loss of confidence, virtual freezing of the credit markets. which resulted eventually in effects on the real economy. we saw recessions in many parts of the world all stemming from that subprime crisis of which lehmans became a symbol in many ways and that bankruptcy certainly became a key date in the whole unfolding saga. so three years on, i sat down with the deputy managing director of the international monetary fund, zhu min. here's here in dalian, at the world economic forum. i asked him whether the banks are now in better shape than they were three years ago. >> the whole banking system today is better than the year 2008. >> how much better, though? >> it varies. it's very difficult to say. the u.s. banking, as you know, the sovereign risks pertain together banking sectors. but in the emerging market, we see the releveraging in the past 18 month, it caused some major concerns. >> are you saying that emerging economies are in danger of having their own banking crisis? >> i wouldn't say in this moment's emerging market in danger because they have a potential banking crisis. got news is they have a strong gdp growth rate and much stronger than before. their physical condition is still quite okay but they got to be very careful for this releveraging on the banking secretary zblert financial crisis of 2008 is being replaced, at least in europe, by the debt crisis of 2011. what do policymakers need to do to solve this problem? >> it's not easy to have, you know, a policy move in a region with different countries have a unified currency but not a unified fiscal policy. they will have to recognize reality. in fact, i think the european community walking very hard to try to move further but obviously with different reasons. it's not easy. >> do you think when you look at what's happening in europe now, that it can survive without a default from greece, portugal, ireland, even? >> there's a way out. it's very clear. >> what is the way out? >> the way out is to stick with the program, stick with the program, then the second issue is to maintain the safe and healthy banking systems. >> what does the imf say to the victims if you like? the people in greece who are losing their jobs, the people in spain, in portugal who are losing their livelihoods? >> we have to understand it's not an easy thing. the governments also understand it's not an easy thing. we both agree this is a necessary step to move forward. we understand that we need to enhons communications. we need to tell the people this is for the long-term, sustainable futures for themself and for the whole world. >> zhu min in dalian. interesting what zhu was talking about saying the fact that europe has to stay the course, nina, to push through this debt kris i. speaking of the banks as well. it's interesting, the head of the imf today is trying to damp down reports that there's been an internal document circulating within the imf which looks to capital requirements for the banks, the banks in europe. it turns out they may be underfunded by something like 270 odd billion u.s. dollars. this is all -- we can't get firm sources on this at the moment. christine lagarde, ms. lagarde is saying that number is being quoted in a misleading way. we can't confirm exactly what that number is referring to at the moment. certainly the imf is trying to tamp down that piece of news which is rolling around the markets at the moment, nina. >> you can imagine the banking sector very much front and center stage after news of that $2 billion loss at ubs and give whan you said, that doesn't help the situation either, does it, andrew. more on that after we come back. we will also be speaking to jennifer delgado who will have your business travelers forecast. stay with us. 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