strike. thousands of public employees say they'll walk off their jobs this week as parliament prepares to vote on yet another round of austerity measures. wrnss in yemen's capital say government troops killed at least five people when they opened fire on pro democracy demonstrators. sunday's violence left eight dead and more than 50 wounded. the surge in violence is blamed on al qaeda and the muslim brotherhood. a revolutionary forces commander was killed in sirte in the front line on sunday. many fear the anti-gadhafi fighters are losing the earlier momentum in the battle for moammar gadhafi's birthplace. those are the headlines from cnn, i'm zain verjee. "world business today" starts right now. good morning from cnn london. i'm charles hodgson. this is "world business today." the top stories on monday, october 17th. stocks rise as investors pin their hopes on a solution to europe's dead woes. a crisis of olympic proportions, how the 2004 athens games put greece on the road to financial ruin. and getting from a to bin liberia. just watch out for the own coming traffic. >> if you run into an on coming train, you just take yours off the tracks. a trip on the so-called liberia express. bp agreed to a multi billion dollar settlement with an dharka who will pay bp $4 billion. the announcement sent bp share price up a short time ago that stock was up about 5% in london. t bp and anadarko jointly owned the well. as part of the settlement anadarko will transfer 25% in another well to bp. bp said the agreement did not represent any admission of liability from either party. let's get straight to what's moving the stock markets. occupy wall street protesters are still angry at corporate greed. eu leaders are promising decisive action. investor confidence clearly boosted on the hopes of a deal. the clear part of the -- the key part rather, of the greek dead write-down is a 50% to 70% haircut, and just compare that with the july plan which called for just 21%. we'll hear more on that later. in terms of stock markets, here is where we are in terms of europe right now. just a moment ago, up by about 1.4% in the case or 1.3%. and the sooufr rick smi up by nearly 1%. the common theme here is we are seeing gains for banking stocks and for some commodity stocks. in asia today that positive sentiment coming out of europe has been reflected on the markets in monday's trading. stocks rose on the hope of a resolution to the debt crisis as well as on the back of positive retail sales data from the united states on friday. energy and financial stocks were among the biggest winners as well as mining companies. in australia rio tinto gained 2.4% after announcing plans to sell 13 aluminum businesses. one stock that went the other day and spectacularly was olympus. its share plummeted by nearly 24%. the outgoing ceo michael wood ford said he raised concerns of high prices and advisory fees paid by acquisitions before he joined the board. that raises concerns that the company could be subject to investigation by regulators and maybe even prosecutors. let's have a look now at wall street and actually again we look like we're going to be seeing tradings beginning the week in positive territory. after a choppy trading week last week, investors got back to where they started the year on friday. the dow rallied 166 points, nearly 1.5%. that's a gain of nearly 5% for the week. the nasdaq jumped more than 1.75% on the day, more than 7.5% on the week. standard & poor's had nearly the same percentage gain on friday with a week's gain of just about 6%. in terms of monday's trading, today the 17th of october, markets look set for opening gains when that all begins in about 5 1/2 hours' time. here is where we are in terms of pre market action, gains fairly scant by comparison with what we're seeing on europe. up by around about a third of a percent, a little more for the nasdaq composite. a deal has been struck to create north america's largest natural gas pipeline operator. kendall morgan agreed to buy el paso for more than $21 billion in cash and stock. now they're looking for profits, u.s. earnings season is under way after disappointing result from jpmorgan last week. now we have citibank, and that's due to publish its third quarter earnings before the opening bell on wall street later today. during an interview with cnn's fortune's andy ser va, they sounded confident that citibank is going in the right direction. >> i think over all the bank is doing well. this is a fundamentally different company than it was three years ago, and we'll be sharing a lot more information on that during our earnings call, but we've de-risked the bank. we had one of the smallest portfolios of any of the large banks in the country. we have enormous financial strength we've built up. 25% of our balance sheet today is in cash or government securities or liquid securities. this is a -- for a balance sheet our size, that's a lot of cash. the most important thing though is that we're back to the basics of banking. >> wells fargo reports its own third quarter earnings at the same time as citibank in a little under four hours' time. both lenders expected to post a hefty jump in profits. g-20 finance chiefs wrapped up a meeting in paris with a promise they will take, as they put it, all necessary actions to stabilize global financial markets. so as a solution to europe's debt crisis finally on the offing? emily rubin joins us now. the markets seem to see more in that than i've seen. it would be absurd if they said we'll take unnecessary ones or won't take the one that is are necessary. >> we certainly heard that sort of language before. you're right. why are the markets reacting positively. it's a good question and one to which there doesn't appear to be var clear answer. the fact is that no really new details for people to get their teeth into have really emerged. one analyst i spoke to said that although they're yous strong language, there's no new detail. he thinks the markets are up simply because of strong global growth data last week. let's look at something barclay's capital said last week. the markets are up because of growth data rather than anything concrete that's come out of this weekend. >> they seem to tighten the deadline, though. that seems to be reasonably concrete. in terms of the negotiation, the arm wrestling between messrs. sarkozy and merkel, that's been going on for a long time. is there any reason to suppose that a bit of pressure will force them to get their act together by next weekend, by the eu summit? >> that pressure is double-edged, isn't it? some people in europe don't like to be told what to do by the g-20. tim geithner said when france and germany agree, big things are possible. you're right there's a different mood now. one analyst i spoke to said these don't seem to set the bar high in terms of expectation. this bar has been set very high, nothing short of solving the crisis. expectations are high, too. don't forget even though france and germany appear to have been putting together recently, france is very worried about the haircut. >> let's come on to that. what are we talking about? we had been looking at 21% haircut. some analysts said that is really only fairly marginal, about 5% to 10%. now looking at something more brutal, a haircut more along the lines by way of a haircut. i think those holding greek debt would like to have. they're facing the reality of this rather than that. >> i think they'll go for a charles hodson. most investors have had this figure of 50% or 60 pfrs in the back of their minds and they have been planning of that even though unspoken up until now. >> okay. so what do seem to be the chances of delivering on all of this? even a radical haircut it seems in all seriousness is pleasing to the markets. the euro is way up from where it was at the start of the month, for example. >> this word haircut, people have been dancing around it for many months. now it's finally at the forefront. people are accepting it's what's going to happen. along with other measures, recapitalizing the bank, there is a feeling now that perhaps the eurozone ministers are ready to make an agreement so the crisis can once and for all be resolved. >> wouldn't that be nice, emily. meanwhile let's circle back to greece which is, if you like, one of the original parts of all this. the anger is building in athens as parliament reginns to vote on more austerity cuts, can greece find a way out of its debt? but you see, with the help of her raymond james financial advisor, she had planned for every eventuality. ...which meant she continued to have the means to live on... ...even at the ripe old age of 187. life well planned. see what a raymond james advisor can do for you. what's vanishing deductible all about ? guys, it's demonstration time. let's blow carl's mind. okay, let's say i'm your insurance deductible. every year you don't have an accident, $100 vanishes. the next year, another $100. where am i going, carl ? the next year... that was weird. but awesome ! ♪ nationwide is on your side let's have a quick look at the currency markets. look at this euro, 1.3899, a shade below 1.39. and even though some people in the markets are saying we could see some resistance then, you've got to the remember that it was down at 1.31 1/2 in the last couple weeks. a lot of strengthening in the euro in the last couple weeks in response to news flow. hosting a global sports event is supposed to jump start a nation's economy. but in greece's case, the 2004 athens olympics had very much the opposite effect. they marked the beginning of a borrowing boom. today, you might say the rest is history. in fact, it's unfolding history. one tling you can say is greece is paying a hefty price. john defterios explained what happened after the olympic torch went dark. >> reporter: a half hour outside central athens lies a modern day ghost town. the near empty 2004 olympic center is a permanent reminder of the go-go days after greece's entry into the euro. securing the bid was an effort to project a modern country which is proud of its past. the games were a big boost to greece's image, but the country continues to pay a huge price today. in fact, spending was about double original expectations. that combined with low interest rates after joining the euro created a consumer spending spree and pushed off government reforms. it was almost like a perfect storm which continues to haunt the country today. greece's economy grew nearly 6% a year before the olympics and over 4% in 2004. but it was consumer-led growth with record borrowing that ran out of fuel just a few years later. >> instead of using this money to build infrastructure, to build a production base to last through the decades, we did consume the money. we bought all the mercedes, all the luxury goods, we bought this, we bought that. okay. and that's where we are now. >> reporter: at the same time basking in the olympic glow the government that came to power chose to ramp up spending. pet troes dukos deputy in the government said he was ringing alarm bells but no one was listening. >> one month after i became deputy finance minister i said i can see our cash deficit is rising sfafter than our reported fiscal deficit. >> reporter: privatization of state-run companies such as water and power were put off to protect jobs. >> the feeling at the time was, okay, it's manageable, we'll manage it next year or the year after. but the markets deteriorated very rapidly and we were virtually all caught with our pants down. >> reporter: fast forward to the autumn of 2009, after the election, george popandreou inherited a bunch of deficit which at 12.7% was almost double what was officially reported to the european union. even after a near collapse of the economy, there remains intense resistance to change. government workers at ministries charged with implementing reforms barricade offices. >> the most important thing that needs to be done is to change, radically change the bloated ineffective and inefficient and over leveraged public sector. >> reporter: the government is facing huge protests of constantly rising taxes. salaries and pensions have been cut by at least 20%, but not the size of the state. the greek people are entering a new phase of the crisis which is big on mistrust of its own government and brussels. >> this is like the 150th measure you're taking and we're not closer to salvation than three years ago. people are losing their trust. >> reporter: at this juncture the country's current finance minister says the only thing they can offer is more pain and sacrifice. it's not clear after three years of recession whether the greek people want to continue on this long marathon of austerity. john defterios, cnn, athens. >> government workers in greece have born the brunt of savage job cuts and anger over the government's austerity measures has prompted them to go on strike in droves. trade unions are pushing for a 48-hour general strike beginning on wednesday. that's all leading up to a showdown vote expected on thursday on yet more austerity measures. linda, let's start with where we are now in terms of what the union's plans are. how disruptive, what sort of an impact will they have on everyday life and on the economy do you expect over the next few days? >> we're looking at massive mobilizations both in the public and civil sector. initially the unions had calls for a general strike on wednesday, but they decided to extend that to a 48-hour strike. they're expecting a lot of people on the streets. the mobilizations have already started in some industries. we have employees even in the finance ministry who are holding their biggest strike yet which is a ten-day consecutive strike. these mobilizations at the same time as tax collectors which have also called rolling strikes beginning as of today, as you understand the government has to collect taxes. it has to show that it's doing something to help its economy. strikes like this obviously are not helping. the tax office is not even operating. and as the week continues, what the analysts have been describing here, we're looking at a very explosive mix culminating outside parliament while the vote takes place inside on thursday. the vote is on new austerity measures which will again affect a lot of people. it includes pay cuts, more pension cuts, tax increases, and all this now comes at a time where people have had to deal with this for over a year and a half. so it's a very tough time for greece. and there's diminishing support certainly for the government or its measures at this point. >> linda, it seems pretty clear that what will emerge over the next week, possibly the next two weeks will be some kind of major haircut for greek debt. how is that being perceived in greece? is it being perceived with relief on the basis that those enormous debts will now no longer have to be paid? >> it's hard to tell at this point simply because the amounts connected to the haircut are still not clear. and what the greeks are worried about is how this haircut will affect greece in the long run, whether greece will be locked out of the markets for a greater period, how this will affect them. they understand what's happening -- clearly they understand the debt greece is facing as it's facing it now is completely unsustainable. so they're looking for a solution, but they're not convinced that the haircut, until we know all the details about it, will be the best thing ahead. >> from athens, thank you very much indeed. coming up on "world business today," liberia is struggling since its civil war ended eight years ago, it's been trying to get things back on track and finding that necessity really is the mother of invention. and then, in one blinding blink of an eye, their tree had given its last. but with their raymond james financial advisor, they had prepared for even the unthinkable. and they danced. see what a raymond james advisor can do for you. yes, it was.vice was very moving, wasn't it? 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>> depend the size of the make-a-rail. it is made in different sizes. there are some that take -- the one we find ourself in, it take no less than 15. >> 15 people will get into this. >> at times even 20 person also get into this. >> is it safe? >> it's safe. >> if you come up on an on coming train, you take it off the tracks. it started in the 1990s during liberia's civil war that left the country's infrastructure in ruins. >> but you enjoy it or no? you like the work? >> no, i like the work. >> then we realize why there are not so many passengers today. >> one of the disadvantages to make-a-rail is obviously it's very open, exposed to the elements. but how it works is completely made out of wood and nails and then the wheel ts, if you like, are just ball bearings that run along the rails. >> if only the train had been on time. >> so i guess that says it all about lie beer yar, enormous challenges, a long road ahead but they'll make it anyway they can. christian purefoy, cnn, liberia. >> i don't think it will ever catch on in the subway in new york city or here in london. coming up, europe's debt crisis had quite an impact on oil prices. what might that mean for the middle east as it comes to terms with the political changes that of course have swept through the region this year. we'll take a look at that just ahead. our soreness and give out polar bear hugs. technology. 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