president mahmoud ahmadinejad is in pakistan for a regional summit. he joins pakistani prime minister gilani who is facing a contempt of court charge before his country's supreme court. hamid karzai is there as well, saying his government is holding talks with the taliban, a claim the taliban denies. police in thailand are seeking an arrest warrant for a fifth iranian suspect in connection with a bomb incident in the thai capital on tuesday. they're looking to detain javad, a 52-year-old man who was last seen leaving the building where the first explosion went off. four arrest warrants have been issued and three men are in custody following the blasts which blew one of the men's legs off. those are the top stories from cnn. i'm monita rajpal. "world business today" starts right now. good morning from cnnland done, i'm charles hodson. >> and a very good afternoon from cnn hong kong, i'm andrew stevens. welcome to "world business today" this friday, january -- i should say february 17th. now, rupert murdoch heads to his london headquarters as a dark cloud hangs over his sun newspaper. china's vice president hits 48d on the last leg of his u.s. tour and there's speculation of a studio tie-up. and linsanity translates into marketing madness. how jeremy lin's performance on the basketball court means a slam dunk for sports stores. the last time that the media mogul rupert murdoch jetted in here to london to deal with a crisis at his newspaper empire one of those newspapers published its final edition that very same day. that was the news of the world and that was just seven months ago. it's a long time in the newspaper business, it seems, because another scandal now engulfs his uk tabloid flabship "the sun." later today, murdoch is expected to address a newsroom full of furious journalists at that newspaper. this follows the arrest of nichb current and former "sun" staff in the past three weeks. dan rivers has the story. >> reporter: first it was phone hacking, now the latest media scannedle is about cash for stories. and whether rupert murdoch's journalist illegally bribed police officers and other officials for information. the police have recently launched raids on five journalists from "the sun" the murdo murdoch-owned sister tabloid of the now defunct news of the world which was closed amid the phone hacking scandal. >> this is disproportionate, out of control when you have the biggest police operation in the country, in its history, even bigger than the lockerbie bombings, the lockerbie pan am bombing and 171 police on this operation and expanding almost daily. >> reporter: but the lawyer who led the phone hacking action against news international thinks the police may be right to keep resources on this new growing scandal. >> we don't know how much people are being paid or what they're being paid for. it's too early to say that is a disproportionate thing. >> reporter: some journalists think buying stories can be justified, among them, paul connew. >> paying or various ways of paying public servants with a public interest, it happens and i would defend that. >> i think we can draw a line and say payment of police officers for stories can never -- can never be justified. >> reporter: but what's caused such consternation at the sun is journalists contact books and bank records have been handed over to police. >> american reuters are coming over here to drain the swamp. there's certainly dirty water in "news of the world" the danger is you throw the baby out with the bath water. you throw out the right of journalists to protect their source. >> reporter: most agree protecting journalistic sources is vital for stories in the public interest. >> the protection of sources is really what's at the heart of anger felt by those journalists at the "sun." dan rivers is joining us now from outside "the sun's" headquarters. it seems what's angering the sun people is if you like the slaughter of a sacred cow in journalism, that's the protection of sources. they feel they're being thrown to the dogs to protect the broader murdoch empire, right? >> i think that is definitely the feeling. it is a kind of a sacrilegious issue if you like for many journalists, the protection of journalistic services and the idea that their own employer has handed over sensitive contacts with people that have spoken on condition of anonymity to the police and then those contacts have been arrested along with the journalists has caused absolute fury down here. and it is going to be quite an atmosphere when rupert murdoch addresses them this afternoon. he has a difficult job. he's caught between two things, his own management standards committee that he set up to drain the swamp as the phrase has been used looking into all this, on the other hand, his own staff that are furious with the way that committee is acting. how he's going to walk that tight rope is not known. he may announce the start of the sunday sun to replace the news of the world. >> that would seem to be a fascinating option, if you'd like, attack being the best form of defense, having got rid of the news of the world, now that it's stable mate is in trouble, simply open up a separate branch of it. that really would be a good way of taking the wind out of those angry journalists' sails, would it, dan? >> it would. he's already said he's not going to close "the sun." that was the other nuclear option is to close a second news international tabloid. that seems to be unlikely. we know "the sun" is his favorite newspaper. it is his pet project. i think he would be really, really in a desperate situation if he had to close "the sun." >> it's immensely profitable, isn't it, dan? >> yes. >> it makes a lot of money. >> well, exactly. it's making money. that's the other key thing. the news of the world was closed down primarily because it had become a toxic brand and advertisers were walking out the door. it wasn't going to function commercially. that is not happening with "the sun" at the moment. as long as it's making money and it's the biggest read paper in the uk, it's likely he'll stick by it but boy is it going to be a rough meeting this afternoon. >> i'm sure he'll want a stiff drink after that. one of the interesting things is the political implications of all of this. rupert murdoch used to be fated by politicians. do you think he'll be fated these days? >> hardly a politician would want to be seen with him these days. gone are the days where he used to wander into downing street for cozy cups of tea with the prime minister. now his image has been pillared here in the uk. he's had to issue a humbling apolg before a select committee. he said it was the most humble day of his life. politicians have been roundly condemning him. before, people were too scared to speak out against him and were desperately courting his newspaper's endorsements. how times have changed in the space of just a year. >> dan rivers joining us there from news international, just east of the center of london. andrew? >> that's right. you can't underestimate the extraordinary fall from grace of rupert murdoch in britain. now, one area it hasn't been so badly hit, which you may find surprising, is the share price, despite the troubles at murdoch, news corp. share price continuing to hold up well. when the guardian printed the hacking story on july 4th which led to the downfall of the news of the world, it led to a significant fall, not surprisingly, in news corp.'s stock. after losing a quarter of its value in just five weeks, news corp. stock closing on thursday at $19.01. that's up 39% on the august low back here. it's also 5% above the july fall level, charles. >> it certainly seems investors have reasonable confidence in rupert murdoch which is more you can say for his own journalists and media regulators and politicians here. let's take you on to the european stock market action starting here in europe. the global mining giant reported a 6% drop in full-year net profit but said underlying earnings rose 23% from 2010 to just over $6 billion on strong performance in its iron ore and coal business. i just want to show you, actually, there is worry still about greece, despite the fact that we have seen a runup on wall street in anticipation of the greek settlement, perhaps early next week. if you look at, for example, what's been going on on the ftse, losing a bit of confidence, same story here with the dax. again, up but not quite so sure going forward, andrew. >> yes, charles, certainly direction overall is in the right way. take a look at this, a very similar story here as far as the green arrows are concern. i heard it said this morning, charles, that the asian markets have had their best six week gains broadly for 20 years. i'm trying to check out whether that's true or not. the asia-pacific broad index was up 11% from the start of the year. it's been a booming start to 2012. investors today following wall street's lead on thursday, wall street was up on back of those upbeat u.s. economic numbers. they included things like payroll, housing starts and also consumer confidence. hong kong and tokyo, both having a good run. the hang seng up by more than 1%. they're both at six-month highs. in australia, it was all about billabong hogging the spotlight there. shares of the softwaremaker up by more than 46% at the close. that's not a bad rally, is it? the reason, there has been an $824 million takeover bid launched by the private equity group tpg group, used to be texas pacific group. billabong is not showing much interest in accepting. this could play up quite a lot, this takeover. investors loving the fact that billabong which has been struggling in recent years, is now very firmly a takeover target. one other stop to tell you about, shares of baidu are up in new york. it's china's latest search engine. fourth quarter net profits up 77% from the same time in 2010 to just over $326 million for the full-year, net profit up 88%, chinese biggest online search engine making $1 billion for the full year. certainly there's a lot of money in that space in china, charles. still ahead here on "world business today," officials in brussels and athens are scrambling to ensure a greek rescue deal is rubber stamped on monday. and the european central bank has struck its own deal to ensure protection from any negative fallout. we'll explain all in just a moment. we've had so many projected deadlines for a greek rescue plan, the news of a new one elicits understandable skepticism these days. all parties appear confident that a deal can be reached this monday, albeit with strict controls over athens to ensure repayment. the currency market is displaying caution. the euro and the pound on thursday, both weakening slightly against the dollar. exporters in japan are also taking heart from the direction of the yen. it continues to creek towards that 80 to the dollar mark. we all know that private greek bond holders are eventually due to have those bonds replaced with written down debt. what we know now is that the european central bank is set to have its greek bonds replaced with debt protected from writedowns. the lender had said this was a condition of its participation in future greek bailouts. and it can now confidently use the profit it gains to help other countries in need. but herein lies the problem. there's mounting concern that the ecb might seek special treatment when it intervenes in other sovereign bond markets. you remember it's been quite active in stabilizing demand for spanish and italian sovereign debt own others. what could happen, if they feel their risk is increasing, bond yields could rise again. in a sense, that is producing the wrong outcome. in effect it would be undoing the good work that the ecb has already done to bring those yields down and bring government a bit of relief as they try to get their finances in order. get more evidence there's clearly no quick fix to the european debt crisis. i think that's slowly sinking in for two years. one country that's all too aware of the very long road ahead is france. as the eurozone's second biggest economy gears up for this year's presidential election, juliet mann has this story. >> reporter: it's easy to find people that blame the government for their economic woes. and dismiss suggestive measures to improve the big picture, like increasing their work hours and reducing their state benefits. this former finance minister says everyone needs a reality check. starting with the government finding a way to reduce the debt burden. he takes a midterm view. >> we have to refinance our debt in europe. and in france, france will be the country in europe with the highest level of debt to be refinanced in market. so the pressure will be extremely high. we know what we have to do. it's not rocket science. >> what you're talking about is a date in the future. as we know, the markets are impatient. can they wait that long? >> unfortunately we have an example in europe, which is greece. you have two years or three-year period. it was too painful. we see what happened. for us, if we say five, six years, we will do it, i'm convinced. >> the oecd says france has re-entered recession. by angela merkel, nicolas sarkozy has plans to boost the economy and create jobs, to make france more competitive he wants to raise sales tax and dismantle the 35-hour week. but who would vote for that. the latest polls show this socialist as the presidential front-runner. he wants to raise taxes and high government spending which could push france deeper into dead. >> the first thing i would do immediately is, of course, to put in place a commitment to go back to a balanced budget and stick to it. the longer you wait, the more painful it will be for the population. >> reporter: the far right's anti-euro marie lepenne is gaining more. sarkozy may try to make good his pledge to the french to work more, earn more. whoever wins over voters here will need a decisive plan for the economy. it's the same economic story playing out across europe to varying extremes from cash-strapped greece to italy to spain. it's infectious. in france, the presidential elections will be crucial. if the people vote for what suits their pockets now, rather than what many economists believe is the grater long-term good, the french economy could sink lower and lower. and bring the rest of europe down with it. juliet mann, cnn, paris. still to come here on "wbt" hollywood rolls out the red carpet to china's probable next leader. no wonder xi jinping is about to announce a $2 billion tie-up with a u.s. movie company. we've got all details, next. this is "world business today," live on cnn. welcome back. >> after politicking in washington and visiting old friends in the midwestern state of iowa, china's vice president, xi jinping, is now heading up hollywood as he wraps up his visit to the united states. later this friday he's widely expected to announce a multibillion dollar silver screen deal that could benefit both the u.s. and chinese film industries. ramy inocencio has been following the story for us. he joins us now. what is that deal? >> a lot of people in tinseltown are happy, even pretty animated over this deal, including china's vice president, xi jinping. this joint venture involves two chinese state owned media firms, one called the shanghai media group, another is china media capital, a fund that backs the chinese entertainment industry and the third entity is one that many people also know, the u.s.'s own dreamworks animation. dreamworks as you know, does this. >> you guys, did you see that? >> dreamworks is popular for family animated flicks like this, including madagascar and a host of other movies. this deal will be stretching over the next five years, the amount coming in at $2 billion. that's more than 10% of california's $1.9 trillion economy. the main plot of this story line centers around the construction of a brand new studio that will be based over in shanghai. its focus will be to help china's growing film, television and life stage industries. >> it sounds like it's a good deal for china, they get benefit in this joint venture. what's the other side of the equation? distribution of foreign films in china, what is it, about 20 foreign films a year are allowed to be shown in china? >> that's about right. the hope from hollywood is they'll get more access to china's moviegoers. but xi is not expected to announce an increase in those 20 movies a year right now. out of top five movies in china for 2011 it turns out four of them were from hollywood. that you cld these movies here, "transformers 3," kung fu panda 2, pirates 4 and harry potter. china's box office is expected to be the biggest in the world in the next 20 years. hollywood and other foreign filmmakers do want the profits from these china ticket stubs. china does, too. with that new studio facility in shanghai, the movie industry wants to learn the tricks of the trade on how to make better films from dreamworks and make profit from its people as well. >> that's interesting. they would dearly love to get a bigger toe hold in the china market. ramy inocencio, our asia business editor. still to come on "world business today," thrown to the wolves. that's how journalists at rupert murdoch's "sun" newspaper described their situation as an internal investigation leads to more arrests over allegations of bribery. we'll find out what's really on murdoch's mind as he prepares to meet his aggravated employees. just ahead. cnn hong kong i'm andrew stevens. >> i'm charles hodson at cnn london. a warm welcome back to "world business today." let's have another quick look at how european stock markets are moving now. we're 90 minutes into friday's trading session. so far, so good. decent gains for the paris cac currant. also for the xetra dax, clearly those markets have been downtrodden as the pendulum swings back and forth on the prospects on a deal for greece. we are told, not for the first time, there should be something sign on monday. the markets seem to be betting on that actually happening, andrew. >> they do, don't they? there's some sort of recognition that this time they will actually be a binding deal and second bailout goes ahead in greece. let's take a look at how asia was affected by all of this. and as you can see there, fairly positive, too. lighter mood about greece and a deal finally being done certainly helping the underlying sentiment. more importantly, perhaps, is those good numbers continuing to come out on the strength of the world's biggest economy. i'm talking about the u.s. economy, of course. more good jobs numbers overnight. more good numbers on consumer confidence and more good numbers on housing. it's all adding up to the u.s. economy ticking away quite nicely. if there's some sort of resolution to greece, i would hesitate to say, a line being drawn under greece but at least this current round of crisis in greece may be dealt with and you're getting that sort of pop in the markets here in asia. that's the closing bell on wall street on thursday. the markets, as i said, getting a gain from economic news. solid gains. the unemployment, the housing numbers helping to offset those investor worries about greece and overall debt crisis. let's take a look at the numbers now. at the close on thursday, the dow and the s&p both finishing up by around about 1%. look at the nasdaq, though, continuing on its merry way, up by another 1.5%, charles. >> indeed. in points terms that was up by 44 points, enough to take that index to a big milestone mark. the index closed at its highest level since the peak of the dotcom boom back in 2000. you remember we had a bit of a puncturing of a bubble there right at the start of the new millennium. but since then, here we are, we're hit something higher than peak of 2008, the