horn of africa. the united nations says it has received half of the $2.5 billion it needs to tackle the crisis. china says it is slowing down its bullet trains and stopping new construction because of an accident that killed last month that killed at least 40 people. the accident was blamed on design flaws on equipment. and syrian troop efforts are growing to end the crackdown. under scored the urgency of the situation there. those are the top stories from cnn, the world news leader. world business today starts right now. good morning cnn london. and a very good friday afternoon, from cnn hong kong. i m andrew stevens. you re watching world business today and the top stories for today, friday, august 12th, four countries go to protect their banks. a short-selling ban goes in effect today. growth slows to zero. and several reasons to celebrate. a reversal of fortune for this group, whose company just announced massive layoffs. let s get straight to the mark
and percentage gain of the entire year yesterday. for more, we want to head to steve sedgwick in london with the latest. good day to you. very good day it to you. there wasn t just one thing that sent this market up yesterday. i think it was a whole most of matters. including the fact that we could be closer to ending that stalemate, including the fact that the housing starts were the best we ve seen in six months and also the fact that across the board, we saw some really good earnings from some real big bellwethers in the u.s. corporate scene. if you can quickly apple one of those bellwethers with a blowout quarter, do you have some of those details? just amazing numbers. it really was a blowout and it sent the shares up to a new record high. the profit more than doubled to $7.3 billion. the revenue surged 82%. and it was the best quarter in
gets under way in washington this week. no word on if greg maddux is going to testify. controversy at yesterday s 4th of july hot dog eating contest. joey chestnut took the title after eating 62 hot dogs in 10 minutes. before kobayashi downed 69 hot dogs at the same time in an offsite event. he has been banned since refusing to sign the contract with the contest s organizer, major league eating. yes, it is an actual league, an actual organization. all i know, who wouldn t want to watch ufc 22,000, the calorie count, kobayashi-chestnut. we want to see it on pay purview. is the market up, down, is it pants on fire? forget the dow. our friends at politifact has a
0.5% yesterday. reversing the gains of yesterday, back down by about a half. and the australian market, up by 1. %. in currency, new zealand dollar has climbed to its highest value in several days after a cautiously optimistic budget statement from the government there. three months after the earthquake in christchurch and a huge cleanup bill, the deficit is projected to peak next year. the budget surplus may raise to 1 billion u.s. dollars, about a year earlier than expected. nina? let s move across the globe, andrew, markets in europe largely in positive trading at the moment for the second day in a row. one of the markets down, the zurich smi, down by about 0.1%. the ftse, that market up by 0.6%. the commodities traded glencore,
aftershocks, japan enters recession for a third time in a decade. as industrial output freefalls and consumers hold on to their cash. and the crumbling foundations of a failed property market. we ll look at the wreckage left behind by ireland s housing crisis. facing multiple charges of sexual assault in the united states, the managing director of the international monetary fund has resigned. dominique strauss-kahn tendered his resignation just a few hours ago in a letter to the imf. in it he writes i want to protect this institution which i served with honor and devotion and especially, especially, i want to devote all my strength, all my time and energy to provingmy innocence. in his statement strauss-kahn strenuously denies the allegations against him that alleged he sexually assaulted a maid last saturday at a new york hotel. he s still in a new york jail, his lawyers are going to court later on thursday to ask for bail. he s offering to post $1 million to stay in man