he was arrested wednesday after turning out what to be fake explosives from undercover officials. amanda knox s attorneys begin closing arguments today. the american student was convicted of killing her roommate, meredith kircher. world business today starts now. good morning from cnn london, i m charles hodson. and good afternoon from cnn hong kong, i m andrew stevens. welcome to world business today. the top stories this thursday, september 29th. vote yes to say the euro. angela merkel takes the eu rescue package to the german parliament. while politicians rangel over the future, normal people are faced with radical new cuts. and can the kindle fire set the tablet market ablaze. okay. we ll start with the markets. we ll start with the asian markets today. a bit of a change here. we want to show you these pictures straight away. the hang seng index was closed for trading today. this is the reason. this is the result of typhoon nesat. it brought with it pr
a result of volcanic ash in the flight. but some have experienced severe problems in the past including total engine failure. that was over a volcano in indonesia. all four engines went out. the captain got them started but it was critical for a few minutes and the passengers who had to wait for engines to start. it goes to show you how difficult the situation could be. it also goes to show you how little we know exactly how much ash in the atmosphere can affect these planes. let s continue the theme. meteorologist jen delgado has been tracking the plumes. she joins us now from the cnn center to tell us where the volcano ash may be heading in the day s ahead. good news. as i show you this gravgs we re going to show you the volcanic
storm. our meteorologist jen delgado joins us from the cnn weather center. jen, how is it looking now? we still have watches and warnings across parts of the midwest. of course, we talked about the stormed that happened earlier in the week but according to the national weather service it looks like based on doppler imagery we look like a possible tornado touched down in arkansas. anywhere we re seeing in red we still have a tornado watch in effect. that s for parts of arkansas and missouri. if i take you over to this, we have a report that one person died. it s a rural town, but based on the imagery, the national weather service has told cnn it looks like this area may have suffered widespread damage, the tornado roughly one mile wide is what they re reporting. of course, we have to wait until tomorrow before the national weather service goes back out and surveys the damage to find out whether or not it was a tornado that touched down. i ll tell you this. it looks like base
martin savidge. back to you. meteorologist jen delgado joins us from the world weather center. a very slow process with the river actually cresting in several parts, right along the mississippi river. we are expecting today the river to actually crest in vicksburg. later on this morning and we re talking about 17.4 meters, that s roughly around 57 feet, incredibly high. record levels up and down the mississippi river. it looks like it will stay that way, cresting at least for the next five days. it s going to be dangerously high through many parts along the mississippi river. as we talk more about vicksburg and how it s been affecting the region, how widespread this flooding is. if you want to get an idea of the area affected, we re talking roughly the size of italy. 200,000 square kilometers. typically right along vicksburg, the mississippi river is roughly around 1 kilometer. well, because the flooding is so bad and so widespread, we re
syria s president and his cronies. new sanctions as the u.s. calls for an end to the security crackdown. waiting for water levels to fall, for thousands of people forced out of their homes by the mississippi floods, life becomes a waiting game. and the disaster that rocked an economy to its foundations, japan sinks back into its third recession in a decade. dominique strauss-kahn has resigned as head of the international monetary fund to focus on clearing his name. his decision follows charges he tried to rape a hotel maid in new york. strauss-kahn denies the allegations but since he was arrested on saturday, he s come under increasing pressure to step down. one european minister said he should reflect on whether he was damaging the imf. just a few hours ago, strauss-kahn said this in a letter to the imf board, quote, i deny with the greatest possible firmness all the allegations against me. i want to protect the institution i have served with honor and devotion. and i