he was dubbed osama bin laden s right-hand man in europe and had been in jail since 2005. the european court on human rights stopped britain from deporting him to his native jordan because of concerns he would be tortured. a british judge says unless the government manages to deport him in the next three months, the bail conditions may be lifted. whitney houston s body has been flown to new jersey on a private jet for a funeral service later this week. a gold hearst believed to be carrying her body left teterboro airport amid type security. police say she was found under water in her hotel room on saturday. there were prescription drug bottles found in the room but no evidence of foul play. those are the headlines. i m monita rajpal. world business today starts right now. good morning, from cnn london, i m nina dos santos. welcome to world business today. these are the top stories on tuesday, february 14th. china s status as an economic power house is front and center t
finally, what the dickens was going on in the british government this week? i ll explain. first, here s my take. if you re trying to understand the recent protests against the putin regime in russia, one of the best guides is an outspoken columnist who s been writing trenchant essays in the nation s leading newspapers over the past month. political competition is the heartbeat of democracy. this author writes, noting the absence of such competition in contemporary russia. he describes the frustrations of the russian middle class, demanding political rights. today, the quality of our state does not match civil society s readiness to participate in it. on corruption, perhaps the issue that most riles the public, the author is scathing. the problem comes from the lack of transparency and accountability of government, he says. now, what makes this all deeply strange is that the author of these essays is vladimir putin. the architect, builder and chief enforcer of the system tha
now to the other big story we re following today, the death of singer whitney houston. we re learning more about the circumstances surrounding her death and we re getting reaction from her family as well. that in a moment. but first, to the investigation, cnn s casey wians is following all the developments, joining us now live from los angeles. what can you tell us? it looks like it may be quite a while before we actually get any results as to what actually killed whitney houston. according to producer stan wilson, he spoke with the los angeles coroner s office and they say the beverly hills police department has asked that a security hold be put on the autopsy results of whitney houston. that autopsy is expected to take place either this afternoon or tomorrow and there was some initial thought there could be some preliminary results released right after it happened. apparently that is not the case. the beverly hills police department again asking for a security hold on tho
keep us posted throughout the afternoon. the battle for election delegates kicking into high gear today in the state of maine. republican voters have been kaw cu caucusing there for weeks and tonight we find out the winner. let s go to shannon travis where mitt romney and ron paul are campaigning today. so what s the feeling as to how these caucuses just might turn out? yeah, i mean the feeling about how they might turn out, ron paul seems to have a bit of an edge there. you remember, fred, that while the other candidates a few weeks ago were campaigning in florida, ron paul packed up his v-neck sweaters, packed up and headed north. he s got a lot of young supporters here and libertarian supporters here. not so fast. mitt romney is saying obviously he s a favorite son of new england, former massachusetts governor, and he came here with an 11th hour appeal. today he did something for the first time appearing at a caucus site and has been very involved in republican circl
crisis in syria. it could be the most significant development since the uprising began a year ago. at this hour, it is reported that a possible peace deal is in the works. this is one that has the backing of arab states, it s a draft resolution being circulated by saudi arabia which condemned the actions in syria today. we re getting word this is making its way through the u.n. general assembly. we re trying to confirm this report. we ll have an update as soon as possible. once again, breaking news on a possible peace plan for syria. much more on this as the bottom of the hour. now to our other top story. groundhog day, failure on repeat. the president is going put out his budget on monday. we know what s in it. it s going to let the bush tax cuts expire on people make being over $250,000 a year. excuse me. impose a minimum effective tack rate on millionaires. make some cuts to medicare and run a trillion dollar deficit. it s pretty much like the budget he passed last year