than 1,000 palestinians in israeli prisons. the exchange is expected to happen within the next few days. the worst floods in decades are wreaking havoc on the livelihood of thailand's people and economy. they're bracing for the next round which could reach them in days. flooding has killed at least 269 people and affected 8 million across the country. in southwestern mexico, soldiers have been deployed, tourists have been told to leave, and emergency shelters are open as a hurricane comes ashore. the category 2 storm has weakened but is still bringing rain and strong winds. weather authorities are warning boaters of possible life-threatening rip currents. those are the headlines from cnn, the world's news leader. i'm monday nemonita rajpal. "world business today" starts now. good morning from cnn london, i'm nina del santos. >> from hong kong, i'm andrew stevens. you're watching "world business today." the top stories this thursday -- wednesday, october the 12th, i should say, a win for australia's under-fire prime minister. a controversial new cabin tax in parliament as the opposition fights it every step of the way. bad news for cleanup crews in new zealand as a huge crack appears in a container ship. and as excitement builds for the rugby world subpoena finals, organizers say they've reached their ticket sales targets. without further ado, though, let's get straight to the european stock market at the moment. what we're seeing is stock markets broadly speaking lower across the region. this is largely thanks to news that slovakia has voted down plans to expand the esfs. it's the latest or the last of the 17 nations in the block to have to ratify this expanded plan. the government says it will be planning to propose a second vote on the matter at a later date. h in the uk, they're keepin their eye on manufacturing. it's keeping it suppressed when it comes to people in great britain, we currently have the unemployment figure standing above 2 million at around 10% figure for the latest three months due out in just half an hour's time, and it's expected to be higher for the seventh consecutive month. let's have a look at how all these economic factors are affecting the currency markets with news of the slovakian vote on the efsf rejecting that plan. we have the euro trading at 1.3659 against the u.s. dollar, slightly up by about .25%. also the pound up a shade as well, trading at 1.5596 and the yen flat at 76.65. let's take a look at the u.s. markets now. and the really big news in the u.s. came after the closing bell on tuesday. alc alcoa, a key dow stock and closely watched as an indicator of the country's economic health was the first company to report its quarterly earnings, and the news wasn't good. earnings coming in at 15 cents a share. but the expectation was 22 cents a share. now, that is a big miss. the company said that weak demand in europe was the biggest drag on earnings. now, traders were already cautious ahead of those results as the euro crisis continues to undermine confidence. and this is how the big three closed. the dow down a fraction. the nasdaq up by about 0.66% and the s&p breaking just about even. as u.s. markets look set for opening losses, starting trade about five hours from now, this is where futures stand in terms of the premarket action. we've got all three markets falling between about 0.25% and about 0.23% for the moment. markets in the region fell at the open before recovering is somewhat in the session. let's take a look at how they ended the day. the nikkei down about 0 .4%, hong kong markets up by another 1%. the hong kong rally continues. that's been going strongly, up by more than 12% since it hit a slow in the middle of last week. shanghai up 3.getting a big boost there. and the stocks in australia down by about 0.5%. i just want to come back to japan for a minute because one stock is sony, up 1.4% at the close. that might come as a bit of a surprise considering it's just owned up to another online security breach. sony says that hackers accessed the accounts of 90,000 users of its playstation and enter statement networks and its online entertainment services between october the 7th and october the 10th. the company says no credit card information has been jeopardized as a result of those attacks. it's locked down all the accounts that were breached, and that incident comes, of course, as another embarrassment for the electronics giant as it fights to restore its reputation which suffered a huge blow when more than 100 million user accounts were compromised in april. despite that, it's still down. it's lost about half of its value since the beginning of this year. nina. andrew, those shares may have lost quite a bit of value in japan, but in china, the national currency has been doing the opposite, it seems, with a surge against the u.s. dollar earlier this week. that's still not enough, though, for some american lawmakers to push through a bill in the senate on tuesday to punish china for what they say is currency manipulation. well, the new legislation aims to levy trade tariffs against china which it sponsors, accused of keeping it at an artificially low level, but it does remain to be seen whether it will pass in the house of representatives where leading republicans have described it as dangerous. china says that the bill has got more to do with political posturing than economics and that its passage would risk further damaging already. east-west tensions of a different sort were evident in beijing on tuesday. the russian prime minister, vladimir putin, was in the chinese capital on the first day of his state visit, and he had some harsh words to say for the united states. in an interview, he accused the united states of being, and i quote here, a parasite on the dollar's monopoly position. he said, quote, the federal reserve buys the national debt only to print more dollars. but in the past, that's exactly the kind of act that they suggest us not to take. well, the visit is mr. putin's first trip abroad since he announced plans to reclaim russia's presidency. it's being closely watched for clues as to the foreign policy direction and, of course, we'll bring you more on that later on in the program. do stay with us because later on in the show, we're also going to be speaking live from beijing about a host of these different issues. now, u.s. president barack obama's $447 billion job creation package is hitting its first hurdle. the bill has been blocked in a test vote in the senate. mr. obama has repeatedly called for congress to adopt the measure. but in an unofficial tal lay, it indicates that some of the president's own fellow democrats may have joined the filibuster against it. now, still ahead here on "world business today," at breaking point. the ship of the center of new zealand's biggest maritime pollution disaster is on the verge of breaking up. we've got the latest on that and the cleanup efforts just ahead. 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seems to have regained its midas touch. it's at $13.98, trading at $1,676 this hour. let's have a look at another commodity very much in focus which has been heading in the opposite direction of late. we're taking a look at the price of crude here. at the moment, you can see crude oil on the nymex market in new york has been falling about $17 -- $0.17. welcome back live from cnn london and hong kong, you're watching "world business today." okay, turning to australia now where the country's parliament has passed the first stage of a contentious tax bill. it was a victory for this woman whose approval ratings have suffered in the leadup to the vote. and the relief was there for all to see as ms. gilad and others congratulated each other when the bill was passed. the policy still needs to be approved by the upper house of parliament, but if passed, the reg slags would force australia's biggest polluters to pay for each ton of carbon pollutions that they emit. they said australians will benefit from the tax. >> at its heart, it's simple getting big polluters to pay and using the money to help out families and pensioners and to protect australian jobs. >> this carbon tax is the central element to the australian government's strategy to combat climate change. despite its relatively small population, australia is the world's biggest greenhouse gas emitter per capita, according to research from the european commission. take a look at how it compares to the world's other major producers of greenhouse gases. take a look at where australia is at the moment, 18 tons per capita of the greenhouse gases. produced by every australian each year. the tax has been deeply unpopular with the australian people as well as the opposition. opposition leader tony abbott has found to ax the tax if he became prime minister. joining us for more is sky news political correspondent david spears. so david, it's a deeply unpopular tax in the ee laboratory rat. what's its chances of staying? >> well, it will stay for at least a few years. it's due to go through. the upper house, as you say, next month. it will then come into effect july next week. there isn't an election due until 2013. at that point, polls suggest there would be a change in government, and the opposition leader is pledging -- in fact, he said it was a pledge written in blood today to repeal this tax. however, it would take some time to get rid of it. the way the constitution works here, it's probably notingly 2015 that he'd be able to get rid of it, so we're stuck with this for a while, as unpopular as the carbon tax may be here in australia. >> just taking a step back from politics for a minute, though, as i said, david, australia is the biggest per capita emitter of greenhouse gases in the world. will this tax change that situation? >> it will change the behavior of the big polluting industry. there's no doubt about that. we're talking about a carbon price of $23 a ton of carbon that's emitted. that's the highest price in the world at the moment. and the hope from the government in australia is that other countries will start to take more action on the back of this and other developments around the world. so $23 a ton means that yes, the industry will change their behavior to try and reduce their carbon costs. that's the whole point of this scheme. households will be compensated for the full-on impact of this, but it is expected to reduce australia's emissions over time. but we are a big polluting economy, as you point out. we are a heavily rich source economy. that's not about to change, but this carbon tax may well change the behavior of some of those big polluting industries. >> well, certainly the opposition has been hitting hard the fact that they say this tax will impact australia's economic performance. are there any numbers to suggest what sort of impact that's going to be? >> well, yes, there are. the government, and this is independent modeling suggests that the average impact will probably be about $10 a week for most australian families. and most families will receive compensation for that. but some higher income earners will clearly be out of pocket. but it's really the industry level this is targeted at, those big polluters who will be hit by this carbon tax. they do receive some compensation but not full compensation. and that's where the government is hoping that will change their behavior because of this price impact. how exactly it's going to work, though, and this is all based on modeling, how exactly it's going to work, only time will tell. the government will be certainly hoping that other countries start to do more as well. so that australia isn't left out on a limb when it comes to preissing carbon. >> absolutely. i guess it will help the prime minister if other countries pick up this sort of emissions plan as well. david, thanks very much for that. david spears from sky news in australia. nina. andrew, staying with the southern hemisphere now, an oil spill off the coast of new zeala zealand's north island could significantly worsen in the next few days. a large crack has been spotted in the side of the damaged container ship rinna which has been leaking oil since last wednesday. there are fears that the ship could break up, spilling hundreds of tons of more oil into the already toxic water. it comes a day after the ship's captain was arrested and charged with operating the ship in a dangerous manner. maritime new zealand says that up to 300 tons of oil have already spilled from that stricken vessel. well, authorities deal with the growing crisis hundreds of volunteers and defense personnel have started mopping up oil from several of new zealand's beaches. as tvn reports, it's a very delicate process, though. >> reporter: the toxic tide is big, and this time the beach is sprayed black. >> and the other thing, the team head to the other end. >> reporter: but the orange army has arrived, hard at work to move splatters from the sand. >> it's so fine. >> reporter: the public, too, refuse to stay away. >> people have been told by the officials not to do anything but, i mean, no one's stopped me yet. >> reporter: while it's been painstakingly slow, the bags are bulging and filling fast. >> we've only been at it about two hours now and only got 150-odd bags. >> reporter: this cleaning machine is in full swing, bags, teams and gloves to move the mess. >> we'll come back later on and do another sweep. >> it's these little tiny bits. they're as small as air and they're melting into the sand. it's a good thing it's not a sunny day. if it was bright and sunny, it would probably be sinking in deeper and harder to clean up. >> reporter: as fast as the muck is being cleaned up, more is on its way. as the weather closes in, it's likely these people will be here for some time. bags are filling fast as teams make their way around the base of the mountain. >> it does make me quite teary. >> reporter: some can be saved. for others, they're beyond repair. >> we had two birds come in today that had to be put to sleep rather than saved. we had another little petrol that was so damaged, he couldn't hold his head up. there was no way he was going to make it through the process. >> reporter: while the first trio of little blue penguins are making a full discovery, new discoveries may not be so lucky. >> the ones that are coming in today are sicker which is what we expected. >> reporter: at the beach a public health warning remains in place. it's closed for fishing and swimming, but most of all people are being warned to go nowhere near the oil. now, bangkok is bracing. coming up, people are preparing for mormon soon rains after floods have already killed hundreds across thailand. stay with us. i know pleasing fans is a top priority, 'cause without the fans, there'd be no nascar. just like if it weren't for customers, there'd be no nationwide. that's why they serve their customers' needs, not shareholder profits. because as a mutual, nationwide doesn't report to wall street, they report to their customers. and that's just one more reason why the earnhardt family has trusted nationwide for more than 30 years. nationwide is on your side. the euro around 1.36 seems to be holding steady. the pound and the yen pretty much unmoved. now, this all comes despite the slovakian parliament's rejection of that bill to empower the euro zone bailout fund. it is expected to pass later this week. but it has brought down the slovakian government which has thrown a spatter in the works to try to boost out the bailout fund. welcome back. you're watching "world business today" live on cnn. now, the worst floods in decades are wreaking havoc on the livelihood of thailand's people and the country's economy. millions are bracing for the next surge of flooding that could reach bangkok within days. weeks of monsoon rains have flooded hospitals, homes and also temple sites, killing at least 269 people and affecting some 8 million across the entire country. 60 of the country's 76 provinces have been hit. a report by hsbc estimates that nearly 3.5 million hectares of thai farmland have been inundated. manufacturing has also taken a hit across the country. about 80 kilometers north of bang cog, 200 factories have reportedly been damaged as a result of the floods. so far the cumulative effect looks like this. hsbc estimates that the fourth quarter gdp could fall down to 3.9%. the finance ministry has cut its growth forecasts for the year thanks to the flood largely, it's reduced that forecast from 4% to 3.7%. at the moment, as nina says, all eyes are on the thai capital, bangkok, which is bracing for what could be very serious flooding. let's go to our jen delgado. jen, it's also parts of laso, cambodia and parts of the philippines. just on bangkok, i know the authorities there have been trying to divert the floodwaters away from bangkok. when is going to be the critical time for the capital? >> you know, really right now we are in that critical period because the capital's already been experiencing flooding. we talked about that last week. but of course, all that rainwater up towards the north has to go downstream. and the problem is so many people live right along that area. and for bangkok, we know it's roughly 15 million people live right near that area. as i show you on this photo right here, this gives you an idea how bad the flooding is. this is actually coming out of thailand near the honda plant. you see the cars are under water there. as you were saying for bangkok, the area right near there, that's the river and the tributaries. that's where so many people live that we're really worried about because of all that rainwater coming downstream when it moves into the gulf of thailand, it's going to cause many people who live in those homes to be displaced and potentially lose their homes. as i show you on this image coming from nasa, from october 2010 to october 2011, you can really see a difference in this graphic here. it's being reflected by the areas in blue, you're seeing the green in veg nation, now much of that covered, but as you said, it's not just thailand, it's also laos, cambodia, vietnam, more than 40% being inundated with water. anywhere in this blue/purple shading. this is an area dealing with water where it should not be. we're talking a 500,000 square kilometer area. we're talking about the size of spain. so millions of people are being affected. as we go through the next several days ahead, the reality is, we're going to continue to see more showers popping up there as we go throughout the afternoon. all that moisture comes through. but the other part of the story is a lot of that has been coming from tropical weather from typho typhoons, tropical storms moving in from east to west. we still have another tropical storm out there. it's been moving through parts of the philippines and moving over towards the west. as we go several days out, it's going to be moving through the south china sea, and it takes it in that westerly direction, maybe even into vietnam, areas that have already been flooded. and andrew, the problem is with this moisture coming through, that's going to make, of course, the flooding situation even worse as we go through the next several weeks. we just can't seem to get a break. as we go into november, things really start to dry out, and that drying-out period typically lasts through about march. >> i was just going to ask you, then, the rains have a few more weeks to run. >> yeah, through october. we'll see that. >> all right, jen. okay. thank you. >> you're welcome. >> jen delgado there. nina. after the break, andrew, we're going to be talking about how blackberry users have been facing a second day of service disruption on tuesday. when we come back, we'll have full reaction from disgruntled users from latin america to the middle east. stay tuned. from cnn london, i'm nina del santos. >> i'm andrew stevens in hong kong. welcome back. you're watching "world business today." let's take another look at how the stock markets are favoring halfway through the trading week, and markets off their earlier lows but still pointing downwards at the moment. this is largely -- oh, actually, excuse me, the last 20 minutes or so, they've rebounded. take a look at that. all of this rebound comes despite news that slovakia has voted down plans to expand the euro zone bailout fund. the country, as we've told you throughout the last half hour or so, is the last of the 17 nations across the euro zone that has to rattify this plan. the government said it will propose a second vote perhaps later on this week. that's one of the reasons the markets started on a downbeat note. we've also had here in the united kingdom unemployment figures out later on today. the number of people across the british isles claiming unemployment benefits is above 2 million. the figure is due out right about now, and it's expected to be higher for a seventh consecutive month. we've got the ftse 100 up putting on modest gains of about 0.25%. broadly speaking it's the dax that is powering ahead. here in asia, markets down at least at the open. they did recover somewhat later in the session. so let's take a look at how they did end the day. shanghai getting a much belated pop, up more than 3%. it was around 2 1/2-year lows at the beginning of the week. getting a bit of a pop, getting help after the chinese government said that they would step in to buy stocks of the big four chinese banks. that's helping. that also helped hong kong on its way. hong kong is up more than 12% since october the 5th, beginning of trading october the 5th. there's certainly a rally going on strong there. the nikkei down just about 0.4%. it was a mixed day on wall street tuesday partly because of small europe mean couldnan count on the u.s. stock market. >> caution ruled on wall street and investors were concerned about whether slovakia would pass the final vote needed. and traders say it's unusual for a country like slovakia to have such an impact on u.s. trading, and wall street has been quick to react to any signs of the day. the dow fell 16 points to 11416. the nasdaq gained 0.66%, and the s&p 500 edged up fractionally. some of the hesitation also came at the start of corporate earnings season. aluminum maker alcoa kicked off third quarter results after the close. profits for s&p 500 companies overall are expected to have risen more than 13% between july and september. but it's important to remember that many companies have lowered their forecasts ahead of earnings season. so most of those better than expected earnings results will likely because the bar has already been set so low. later this week wall street will receive results from jpmorgan chase, google and pepsico. that's a wrap of the day on wall street. i'm karina huber on wall street. new york state's comptroller expects 10,000 jobs are likely to vanish by the end of 2012, largely thanks to a sluggish u.s. economy and also substantial regulatory changes. wall street lost more than 4,000 jobs between april and august of this year. the comptroller says that job losses are likely to continue from here on. stock prices for wall street banks fell on trading in tuesday's session, andrew. >> interesting, isn't it. job loss announcements come as the obama bill while trying to new jobs gets squashed in the u.s. congress. well, it is all about jobs. democratic party senators in the u.s. say that jobs are the heart of their bill to punish china for maintaining what they say is an undervalued currency. but on a state visit to china, the russian prime minister, vladimir putin, lashed out at the u.s. for what he sees as its own currency transgressions. mr. putin is on the second day of his two-day trip to beijing, and his visit is being closely scrutinized as russia appears to be forging closer ties. let's go live to beijing. just before we get on to vladimir putin, eunice, let's talk about this currency issue because certainly china had a very strong reaction to congr s congress' plan to push this bill through. but i just wonder how much actual teeth can china show on this? because they do need the u.s. at the end of the day because the u.s. remains such an important export market, and exports are so important for the chinese economy. >> reporter: well, absolutely. experts are very important for the chinese economy, but they can show that they are very upset with this potential passage of this bill. in fact, they have hired a lobbying dream team. this is -- we've heard that they reportedly hired a washington, d.c., law firm, and they also have organized a 12-member congressional liaison team in order to better argue their position. now, their position has long been that the passage of this bill would be detrimental to the economic relationship between beijing and washington and could potentially risk a trade war. now, earlier today we spoke to -- or at a press briefing, a government spokesperson said that this bill seriously violates world trade organization rules, harms bilateral economic and trade cooperation and does not solve the economic and employment problems in the united states. it also counters the joint effort by china and the united states to promote global economic revival. he went on to say that in other words, it hurts others while not benefiting oneself. in fact, it causes nothing but damage. again, the people here very, very angry in the government. but just for a little bit of background, the proponents of this bill have for years been saying the same thing, and which is that they believe that beijing has been keeping the value of its currency low which has been harmful to american manufacturers. however, the opponent of this bill have been quick to point out that since china -- since july 2005 when china de-linked its currency from the u.s. dollar, the currency actually has preach eappreciated by 30%. so a lot of arguments on both sides, and the bill is going to be headed to the house next. a few people believe it's going to be passed, andrew, for many of the reasons including the one you pointed out which is that this trading relationship is too important to seriously disrupt. >> yeah. a lot of strong words at the moment. and speaking of strong words, eunice, vladimir putin weighing in, or shall i say wading into the argument. >> reporter: yes, that's right. vladimir putin, the russian prime minister, is here in china. he's been here for two days. and he was pointing out that the u.s. has been taking advantage of its own standing as well as the holder of the world's currency reserve. of the world's currency, the reserve currency. and what he had to say was -- he was speaking to the chinese state media. and he addressed the federal reserve's currencies saying maybe the u.s. knows better, but in the past that is exactly the kind of act that they suggested that we not take. the u.s. is not a parasite on the world's economy, but it is a pair side on the dollar's monopoly position. again, putin here in china on a trip that many observers believe really is going to pave the way for russia to strengthen its relationship here in the east after years of ties with the west. andrew? >> all right, eunice yoon joining us from beijing. nina? andrew, blackberry users around the world are experiencing a third day of service disruptions. messaging and browsing delays were reported on four continents even though blackberry maker research in motion said earlier that it had fixed the problem. well, the company hasn't said what's causing the glitches, but it has said that it's working to restore normal service as quickly as possible. all of this comes amid reports that some investors are pushing for a sale of the blackberry maker research in motion. blackberry users themselves have had quite a bit to say about these recent outages. the twitter hash tag blackberry has been getting a lot of traffic, and i want to give you an idea of some of the comments especially on twitter. amanda from spain is the first person on our chart here to comment. she's saying #blackberry it's still not working in movistar spain. it's everything, internet, echl mail, wonder if we'll get a refund for no service. one from the united kingdom, juan, he's been saying is bbm service still down? it's going to be awkward at blackberry headquarters if bbm is still down as apple launches its imessage service. a newsworthy term there. we've also heard one of the significant business leaders in the united kingdom commenting on this. this is alan sugar, lord. he said in all my years in i.t. biz, i've never seen such an outage as experienced by blackberry. i can't understand why it's taking so long to fix these kind of problems. and finally, one of the most interesting columns and our final one comes from south africa. this is from a person that calls himself on twitter as talkativej. quote, the most annoying thing is that research in motion, or r.i.m., has yet to make an apology or an effort to calm consumers down. so he's annoyed that they're not doing enough to tell people what the problem is. as i said, we're now into our third day. i can attest my own blackberrys have not been working properly for about three days now. slightly annoying for me, too. when you see the sales figures on the new iphone, it's bad timing for r.i.m., it really is. you're watching "world business today." when we come back, we meet the african businesswoman with radical ideas for women's rights both inside and outside the workplace. erything comes togeth. where there's magic. 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 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obviously that's behind the thesis. >> that is behind my principle, that it is undervalued. and because it's undervalued and i think for some women it becomes a resentful choice. and money is the currency that we use to define value of a contribution of the world. so why shouldn't we do the same for the work of bringing up children which i think is probably the most important contribution that the world should be valuing. >> so on the flip side, what's your assessment of a growing number of women, us included, who choose to work as well as having kids? do you feel that women are stretching themselves too thin, particularly working mothers? >> i don't think they are. i just think that we need to create an environment that allows women to make the choices that they want to make. if women choose to have children, they must be able to have the support structure that they're required to do that joyfully so that we can bring up children who are healthy, because the opposite side of that is we have children who are growing up without parents. >> raised by nannies. >> well, raised by nannies, and that createsity own problems in society. so if i had to choose, i would choose a society where women make the choice to be at home to bring up their children because they toe -- >> reporter: as a career move? >> -- their contribution will be valued. and secondly, when they go back to work, they won't be penalized. for having taken some time off to go and bring up children. so it's really an idea that needs to be embraced by society. not so much for the benefit of women, but because we recognize that creating a society where children are properly brought up preferably by their mothers would create a much healthier society, a more stable society. >> reporter: a lot of people watching this will listen to you, sort of maybe agree with you, depending where they are and who they are. and a lot of people will just write off this idea as utterly absurd. >> but the world was never changed by people who have normal ideas. the world is changed by people who have absurd ideas. >> reporter: you say you're a thought leader. what for you is going to be the biggest issue you ponder about when you go to sleep? >> i don't ponder about anything when i go to sleep. >> reporter: lucky you. i do. i think far too much. >> those are the privileges of being self-employed. you can manage your time, and you can manage your thoughts. i ponder about the growing unemployment in the world, not just in south africa. and the assumption that we will resolve unemployment by expecting companies to create more jobs is completely unrealistic. what we should be focusing on is the world economy. one is to shift our education system to encourage more people to become entrepreneurs. because that would create a much greater contribution to society. still ahead here on "world business today," fans are rushing to buy tickets to the rugby world cup finals. and organizers are smiling, well, all the way to the bank. we've got the latest from new zealand in just a moment. treat you like a policy, not a person. instead of getting to know you they simply assign you a number. aviva is here to change all that. we're bringing humanity back to insurance and putting people before policies. aviva life insurance and annuities. we are building insurance around you. aspercreme breaks the grip, with maximum-strength medicine and no embarrassing odor. break the grip of pain with aspercreme. organizers at new zealand's rugby world cup have kicked another goal. they've almost reached their sales -- their ticket sales target for the tournament. and still we have the most crucial matches to play. rugby new zealand says it's sold 1.35 million tickets worth more than 260 million new zealand dollars. alex thomas has more from the capital, auckland. >> reporter: well, the cnn team has only been on the ground here a few hours, but we thought we'd set the scene for you. we are quite literally in the center of the city of auckland. a few hundred yards away from queens street. and here we are at queen's wharf here the harbor. and this is a giant rugby ball-shaped tourism exhibition. and it's the same structure that was set up in paris four years ago, the day after new zealand were, shockingly, knocked out of the tournament by the then host france. if the same thing happened again this year, well, the heartbreak for new zealand on home soil will be almost too much to bear. so we've come further along the wharf just to show you that although it's a bit quiet now, just after 6:00 in the evening, a lot of major cities around the world, it would be absolutely packed. but at times during this rugby world cup, it's been standing room only here, mainly because of all the big screens put up so you can enjoy the matches. new zealand is still crazy about their team, even if there is a bit of a lull right now. it is a 6 1/2-week-long tournament, it's 48 hours after the quarterfinals, and there's a huge crunch match to come. people here be here watching australia, their rivals on sunday. new zealand, of course, desperate to win this rugby world cup for a second time, 24 years after winning the first ever rugby world cup. we've got the same four semifinals. and people come here to watch the matches because they can't get into the games. organizers say they are on target to hit the number of ticket sales they want. so although it doesn't feel like it's fever pitch right now, i can tell you that passion for rugby is just bubbling under the surface. alex thomas, cnn, auckland, new zealand. >> you can only guess where that passion will go if new zealand beats the wallabys on sunday. that's it for this edition. thanks for joining us. i'm andrew stevens in hong kong. >> and i'm nina del santos in london. you're watching cnn, the world's news leader. if you've just signed up for medicare or will soon, 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.

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