explosion near the iranian city of isfahan. the exact location has not been disclosed. it's reported it was part of a military exercise. a uranium conversion plant is located just outside that city. earlier this month a mysterious blast damaged a missile base near tehran. a woman in the state of georgia says she had a 13-year affair with republican candidate remember man cain. she made the claim in an interview with local tv channel. cain has been married for more than 40 years, marred with a lot of allegations against him. he says he knows the woman but denies the affair. this is the fifth woman to accuse him of sexual harassment or extramarital contact. i'm monita rajpal. "world business today" starts right now. hello. welcome to wbt, i'm andrew stephens in hong kong. >> i'm charles hodson in london. the top stories on tuesday, november 29th. rupert murdoch squares off with shareholders as phone hacking revelations continue to rock his leadership. stock markets in europe are stumbling after moody's puts dozens of banks across the continent on notice. the united states has ratings problems as its own as fitch sounds the economic alarm on political infighting. today is a big day for the murdoch empire and most specifically james murdoch, the son of the media magnet rupe per murdoch. the younger murdoch is increasingly seen as compromised as revelations about phone hacking at his father's giant titan of the media industry news corporation just keep on piling up. james murdoch is on the board at the parent company news corp. and that company's -- and at the company's agm last month, more than a third of the shareholders voted against his re-election. so he survived, but clearly a big revolt. the question is will he face a similar shareholder revolt today. nina dos santos is at brks squi brks's annual general meeting to test the mood. nina, does it look as if he'll survive or it will be a rerun, if you like, of what happened at the main board at news corp.? >> it may well be the latter charles. let's point out that news corporation controlled by the murdoch family owned 39% of british sky broadcasting. for that particular reason analysts are saying it's unlikely we could see too much dissent against murdoch and him not being a chair here. we have had some of the top ten investors coming out an speaking against james murdoch's re-election of british sky broadcasting. that's largely because, of course, the handling of the phone hacking scandal. we know he's been grilled in front of uk members of parliament at least twice, put on the spotted to try and, let's say, explain what kind of role or how much knowledge he had about phone hacking allegations at the newspaper groups he's run. these are tough times. the call for him to go may be growing. >> what intrigues me is what is the thinking of the share how olders likely to vet to keep him in place? he is to some degree compromised. >> reporter: first of all, we could make a clear distinction between the newspaper groups and also bskyb. we should also point out that bskyb, i'm currently in the london qe2 conference center which is wherein vesters will come to vote later today, it's not based right here. it is one of the companies at the heart of all of this scandal in the sense that news corporation had tried to buy bskyb out right and had to drop the bid precisely because of the heat it was taking from the phone hacking scandal. james murdoch has been hauled over the coals at least twice. he denied he knew anything about allegations of phone hacking being more widespread. that contradicts with what at least two of the senior former lieutenants of news corporation have said, but that is the position he's steadfastly kept at the moment, charles. >> nina, thank you very much. have blowey out here, very novemberish. whichever way shareholders vote, one thing is clear, bskyb customers don't think much of murdoch as the chairman. a survey showed out of more than 1,000 bskyb customers, 68% want the younger murdoch thrown off the board. the poll was conducted by the market research firm ugov. bskyb customers, three-quarters of those sky survivors have little or no trust in the murdoch family's ability to own or operate media in britain. but andrew, it is the shareholders that count. >> absolutely. always the shareholders and enlisted companies that count at the end of the i. certainly representations matter. the reputation of the family isn't likely to be helped by the latest twist in the phone hacking scandal. giving evidence into the behavior of the media, the singer charlotte church described how at the age of just 13 she had been swayed by the power of rupert murdoch's newspaper to make or break showbiz careers and gave up a fee of more than $150,000 for singing at the tycoon's wedding in exchange for being, quote, looked upon favorably by a powerful man and his papers. >> i also remember thinking why on earth would anybody table a favor over 0pounds. many and my0 pounds is definitely the best option. but being advised by management and certain members of the record company to take the latter option, that he was a very, very powerful man. i was in the early stages of my career and could absolutely do with a favor. >> now, rupert murdoch's news international denies any such deal was made. church also said that she was hounded by murdoch's newspapers anyway throughout her teenage years. it's been a volatile year certainly for news corp.'s stock price, especially with the plunge in august when the phone hacking scandal first at that, the stock is up by a little ove13%. charles? >> that brings us neatly on to the stock markets here in europe which have been open for 68 minutes now. we had been expecting a little bit of continuation of the powerful rally we saw on monday. you know what? we're already out of gas in terms of that. positive sentiment clearly wayning amid this morning on european banks from moody's. we'll have more on that in a moment. that's clearly been taken rather seriously by investors. in terms of the eurozone crisis, we have european finance ministers meeting in brussels later today. i suspect we already bought into the rumor and selling on the fact if it comes to the fact of them making progress in terms of them putting institutions in place and money in place to deal with the yet crisis. uk chancellor george osborne makes -- i'm sorry. we still had the markets up there. anyway, never mind. moody's could downgrade european banks' debt ratings and the banks in 15 european nations could be affected. moody's says it's because government support could be removed. governments may not have the cash to bail them out. these four could all be reviewed. and we're seeing a fairly sharp selloff. off by 1.6%, same story for unicredit. andrew? >> here it was all about the optimism over the past 24 hours rather than what we're seeing in europe right now. certainly we had the big pop in the dow. the s&p was up by more than 2%. huge rallies in europe yesterday. that led to a pretty strong day here across the board. the underperformer but still over 1% higher. asian exporters getting a boost, still getting a boost i should add on the u.s. retail sales number. we had black friday. also had some pretty strong cyber monday sales numbers as well. that's helping the engs porters in the region. the banks also getting a boost as well. hong kong up 1.2%. a lost o financial stocks as well. the nikkei was up 2.3%, helped by the exporters. a number out of the japanese economy as well, some conflicting numbers actually. if we look at what happened -- at what we've had -- we had household spending which was down about .4% in october compared with the same month last year. retail sales, though, were up by 1.9% in japan against a forecast of just .7%. retail sales actually double expectations. add to that, though, unemployment rising in japan. unemployment up to 4.5% from 4.1. the broad takeaway from all these numbers is the actual economic boost we saw from the reconstruction from the tsunami is slowing down in japan, charles. but still, the japanese investors or investors in japan certainly concentrating on the bigger macro picture. interesting to see if the european losses hold and wall streeters flip, i suspect we'll see negative territory once again. one reason we're seeing a better mood on the markets is action is being taken to get the eurozone back on track. european finance ministers are meeting in brussels today, tuesday, to agree on plans to bolster the bloc's bailout fund. the time for that has never been more pressing. reports say the size of the pot, the efsf is well short of the $1.3 trillion that is felt to be needed because not enough investors are interested. meanwhile, france and germany are working on a plan to keep the single currency safe. under their proposals the eu will have more control over the eurozone member's budgets and be able to impose penalties on those. this is something that's been quite welcome to the markets, one of the reasons for the rally on monday. meanwhile european council president spoke with u.s. president barack obama and the european president barroso on monday. afterwards von rompuy said he was working on roadmap for more fiscal discipline in the eurozone. back in europe or the oecd, the organization for economic cooperation and development says the european central bank should cut interest rates and play a greater role in buying up bad debt. andrew? >> charles, with the oecd actually forecasting a fall in growth for many of the european countries including the big ones, germany and france and italy in particular and a broader mild recession in the near term you can see where its concern is certainly coming from. it forecasts growth across its 34-member nation will slow, expanding by 1.6% next year, down from 1.9% this year. the oecd says confidence is sinking as people lose faith in europe's decision making. it does say things will improve only if there's quick decisive action. that's what the markets have been looking for for a long time now. the first order of business there, bulking up the eurozone bailout fund which is what we're seeing going on today. in fact, second, by allowing the european central bank to extend its balance sheet to print more money, something germany doesn't want to see. the chief economist is warning that financial shocks in europe could start a global change reaction. >> there are a number of triggers that could happen like sovereign default or major banking event. the point is not so much to trigger as the whole eu area is in trouble today and any event could trigger waves that would lead the area into depression this year, next year and 2013, but also spread its negative impact across the ocean to the united states and even hurt growth in emerging economies. >> the oecd isn't the only group ringing its hands over europe. half a would away japan's biggest invest bank has slashed exposure to european debt in several countries. ramy inocencio is looking at that story. >> those cuts cut through much of southern europe over the past three years. nomura cut its risk by 75%. take a look at the percentage cuts to specific countries. you can see the bank made its biggest reduction in italy, down by 83%, followed by spain at 62% and greece, down 43% there. the reason for that, year to date, no muir rah's share price has plunged 53%. that is as investors reduced their exposure to the investment bank. last week on november 24, its stock value hit a 37-year low and investors sold off this year because of the bank's huge losses. on november 1st, nomura posted a loss of nearly $6 million from the july to october period because of losses overseas. this was the first loss in more than two years. following the news of nomura's eurozone debt price, it closed up 2.5%. it has a long way to climb back. moody's has placed the bank on review. its rating could be lowered to just one notch above junk. andrew? >> ramy, thanks very much for that. still to come on "world business today," strong retail figures on optimism on the employment front may only offer a short-lived reprieve for the u.s. we'll tell you what fitch has to say about the health of the world's biggest economy in just a moment. and you now understand what nature's been hiding. ♪ at dow we understand the difference between innovation and invention. invention is important. it's the beginning. it's the spark. but innovation is where we actually create value for dow, for society, and for the world. ♪ at dow, we're constantly searching for how to use our fundamental knowledge of chemistry to solve these difficult problems. science is definitive. there is a right answer out there. 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"wall street journal" reports facebook is offering an initial public offering that it hopes to put the company's valuation at more than $100 billion. the report also says the ipo could happen as soon as april to june of next year. welcome back. you're watching "world business today." the ratings agency fitch lowered its economic outlook from united states from stable to negative following the u.s. congressional debt committee's failure to reach a an agreement. the company's aaa credit rating remained intact. fitch's group managing director david riley joins us now in the london studio. why have you made this particular move now? >> we said we could review the u.s. aaa rating in light of the super committee. as you highlighted that failed to take some of the choices the u.s. needs to address in terms of tax and spending. our concern is they won't make any decisions until o 2013 at the earlier. we are worried if they don't put in place a credible reduction strategy, the debt will continue to rise and there's a reasonable chance we would subsequently down the u.s. >> you have maintained the aaa credit rating. why have you done that and how long are you likely to do that for if we fail to see progress? >> we've maintained it because there's still fundamental strengths of the u.s. economy. it is actually still growing which is something you can't say about europe or the united kingdom. it benefits from the global reserve currency status of the dollar. if you look at the overall level of federal debt, it's not that much higher thanks say, france or the uk. in terms of how long we're kind of waiting, post elections they need to put in place a plan. if they don't put in place a plan by 2013, then the rating will come down. >> okay. in a way, looking at the bigger picture here, the surprise is that aaa ratings have been maintained on so many sovereign debt issuers because they're all to some degree suffering stress. all these budgets are overstretched as a result of trying to spend their way out of this enormous recession that people are still dealing with. do you see in a way you ought to be making decisions a little earlier rather than now? >> i think that's a fair comment. you're right. all the major aaa sovereign governments have real structural problems, whether it be the economy or in terms of their public finances. i think one aspect is we've been trying to some extent see through the crisis has the government has.putting in place budget reforms and budget deficit measures. they start stabilizing their debt. if that happens and we still think these are amongst the best credits in the world. reading between the lines of what you just told me, it suggests to me you think actually governments will get on top of this and looking through the crisis they will come out in not particularly healthy fiscal shape, but good enough for you to maintain the aaa. is that fair? >> i think that's fair. >> that's your best guess? >> that's precisely the situation at the moment. we have a situation where obviously the range of outcomes especially within the eurozone are extremely wide. either the eurozone will be reformed and ultimately could emerge stronger or it's going to unravel. that would have implications for the sovereign ratings of all of the member states. >> sounds as if you're still fairly optimistic then briefly? >> we're cautiously optimistic if i can characterize it. >> david riley, thank you very much for joining us from fitch ratings. after decades of hosni mubarak's rule, egyptians are shaping their country's future on a second day of voting. we'll be live from cairo in just a moment. for those of us with lactose intolerance... lactaid® milk. the original 100% lactose-free milk. there's no time like the present to consider all your health insurance options. does medicare alone meet your needs? would additional coverage be better for you? well, now is a good time to take a look at an aarp medicare supplement insurance plan, insured by unitedhealthcare insurance company. get started by calling for your free information kit and guide to medicare. as you probably know, medicare only covers about 80% of your part b medical expenses. the rest is up to you. a medicare supplement insurance plan helps cover some of it. that could save you up to thousands of dollars a year in out-of-pocket costs. and you can visit any doctor who accepts medicare patients. with medicare supplement insurance, you'll find a range of plans to choose from to fit your needs and budget. there are no networks. no referrals to see a specialist. and you could get a pretty good idea what your out-of-pocket costs will be every month. plus, these plans travel with you anywhere in the u.s. don't let this time go by without considering if an aarp medicare supplement insurance plan is right for you. it's as easy as a phone call. rates are competitive. and these are the only medicare supplement insurance plans exclusively endorsed by aarp. remember, medicare doesn't cover everything. medicare supplement insurance plans help pay for some of the rest. you could save up to thousands of dollars a year in out-of-pocket costs. and you can choose any doctor or hospital that accepts medicare patients. an aarp medicare supplement insurance plan could be an option to get the coverage you need at a competitive rate. so don't wait another minute. be sure to call today. call now for your free medicare guide and information kit about aarp medicare supplement insurance plans, insured by unitedhealthcare insurance company. these are live pictures of cairo's tahrir square. egyptians are heading the the polls for the second day to select a new lower house of parliament. the candidates they elect will be tasked with drafting egypt's new constitution. the elections are the country's first since former president hosni mubarak was forced from office back in february. welcome back to "world business today," the world's news leader. the head of egypt's election committee has promised a smoother voting process today after he received hundreds of complaints on monday for late poll openings and delayed ballots. but overall, the mood has been pretty positive