as search and rescue attempts continue, the focus moves 0en to who is to blame for the sinking of a giant ocean liner off the italian coast. and we'll tell you which production houses is big at the golden globes and what these awards tell us about the upcoming oscar ceremonies. first up, though, if the new year promised a new europe, well, some people could be disappointed. standard & poors last week had other ideas completely. to nobody's great surprise, this particular influential company decided to downgrade the credit scores of nine countries across the euro zone on friday. these particular downgrades apply to a large swath of central and southern europe. it is this country in the center here, france, that is commanding all the headlines today. this after france lost its treasured aaa rating. that in turn, some economists say could undermine the a aa rating of the total esfs. one country as well that's hitting the headlines, one country that will ill afford any more bailout troubles is here on the southern and eastern fringes of europe. it is, of course, greece, andrew. nina, downgrading italy and spain won't inspire confidence in a year when euro zone governments need to refinance more than a trillion dollars worth of debt but the situation is more urgent in athens where talks on a deal to write down the value of greek bonds have stalled in a dispute over the interest rate on those bonds. that raises the likelihood of a greek default and subsequent exit from a greek zone. persuading cash-strapped banks to accept what would effectively be a bigger writedown based on lower interest or coupon as it's known is not proving easy. debt repayment in march but if not agreement in the next few days could miss that end default. andrew, let's have a look at how the european markets are reacting. they've had about an hour or so to react to this. do bear in mind we already got news before that official standard & poors statement two hours before trading on market. these markets had a chance to lose stream when the reports came out while trading was under way on friday. the word on the street seems to be caution rather than all-out fear. we have tepid gains at the moment, some of markets up to the tune of 0.5%, like, for instance, the xetra dax doing slightly better than you'd expect than the cac 40. germany wasn't included in the downgrades. must also point out, one thing that will be widely watched is grease but france has a bond auction going on today. given the fact that this country has lost its aaa crown, that will be one country to watch. >> nina, a negative picture across the board here in asia-pacific. take a look at these. these are losses of today, not surprising after that downgrid. this is not big falls. if you sort of compare that with what we've been seeing over the past 18 months or so, the volatility that's been going on. not a huge reaction there, because a lot of it had been baked into the prices anyway. leading the fall today, financial stocks are worsely affected. transportation companies and exporters taking a knock as debt fears deepened. airlines were down, china southern down by 8%, air china down by 5.5%. they're triaded here in hong kong. shanghai composite off 1.6%. the u.s. stock markets are closed on monday for a national holiday. we can expect plenty of corporate earnings in the days ahead when trading resumes on tuesday. nina? >> let's go back to the topic at hand, get insight and analysis on this. standard & poors was arguably, some say, delaying the inevitable by saving this particular downgrade for euro zone countries until the new year. 2012 has a familiar plafr to it, doesn't it? because we knew on december 5th they had earmarked a number of these countries for a downgrade. it was not an all-out surprise. it was a question of when, not if. michael joins us from london. >> good morning. >> good morning. this news more or less came out friday afternoon. many people are saying it was priced to the equation, wasn't it? >> absolutely. if you look at french ten-year bond yields they're trading around the 3% level. this isn't really anything new. the concern was, i think, the focus should be on italy's rating. they were downgraded to triple b plus. >> so some of these countries could be coming down more than 1 or 2 notches. then we should also mention the implications for france in particular could be quite severe because of the bailout fund. raising money for that so-called efsf. >> that's very key. i think that's really going to shift the focus more towards germany. essentially what this downgrade has done, it's made the esfs because of the way it's structured it, a lot smaller. s&p at the weak end suggested germany might have to up its contribution to keep the current levels -- at their current levels if you like. i think the political pressure on germany will ratchet up to step up to the plate, given the fact there's a lot more pressure on france's rating now. >> then again, the greek situation has come back to the forefront. it seems the talks with creditors could collapse. do you think they will and what will be the ramifications of that? >> i think it's inevitable at some point greece will default. the haircuts being imposed on the creditors totally excludes the ecb. the ecb doesn't have referred credit to status. so i think this story with respect to the greek haircuts, still has quite a lot of room to run and run. >> okay. michael hewson joining us from c & c markets. thanks for coming on "world business today." andrew? >> thanks, nina. as the euro zone debt crisis continues to unfold, the single currency is trading close to an 11-year low against the japanese. take a look at the patent off trading we've seen over the past decade or so. the yen, steadily strengthening in recent years and further harming japanese exporters. the europe single currency is down 43% against the yen. now standing at 97.29 to the euro. elsewhere, the euro has strengthened slightly against the dollar. it's still close to a 17-month low. take a look at the numbers there. euro against the dollar. 1.5310. we have more debt crisis coverage still ahead. at half past the hour we're live in paris to see how france is reacting to that s&p downgrade, ahead of a crucial test on the bond market. stay with us for that. nina? >> andrew, but first, the death toll from the cruise ship disaster has risen to six. at present over a dozen passengers still remain missing. what happened and why is now the subject of a criminal investigation. in just over an hour from now we'll be hearing from the cruise ship company, costa cruises. the italian coast guard says the concordia was 4 kilometers offcourse when it struck rocks off of the island of giglio. there are some reports at that point of power outages and that the vessel was taking on water. it's thought that the captain decided that he would turn the ship around and head closer to land. by about 10:45 p.m., passengers began abandoning the listing ship. >> the ship's captain may have committed, quote, significant human error leading to the emergency. one theory about why the ship was sailing so close to the shoreline it was doing a fly-by so that passengers could wave to people on the shore. cnn asked maritime expert kim peterson of the maritime security council whether he's heard thatful fly-byes might be common practice? >> no, i haven't. i don't believe a captain or the deputy captain or staff captain in this case would be doing a sail-by so that people can wave to folks on shore. they may bring the vessel closer to see the lights of a city or what have you. i know of one ship that would occasionally divert to see volcanic activity you might see in certain parts of the mediterranean. we're getting reports back now that have yet to be substantiated that this ship was actually on the wrong side, that it was supposed to have been transiting on the east side of the island in fact was on the west side of the island where the waters are considerably shallower. this is all something the investigation is going to determine. this is an area that's very well charted. there shouldn't be surprises of this sort. there are vessels transiting this area all the time. obviously something went wrong and that was almost certainly within the bridge of that ship. >> we'll have more on the captain in just a moment's time. first, a south korean couple's honeymoon ended in a 30-hour nightmare. they're among the last passengers to be brought out alive off the ship. they talk to cnn about their ordeal. >> translator: we ran out to the corridor and looked for an emergency exit. we ran towards the exit but the body of the ship was on such a slope and it looked like we'd fall through a huge crack if we proceeded that way. we went back and forth on the side we were at. we were rescued in that corridor. as we were going back and forth in the corridor, blowing a whistle for help and shouting out, the rescuer workers found us. >> absolutely terrifying. there are many questions about how the ship ended up on the rocks. the captain has been held for questioning along with the first officer. he could face charges of manslaughter and abandoning ship. he refutes those charges and says the rocks were not on his charts. >> translator: what happened while we were moving with the tourist navigation system, there was a lateral rock projection. even though we were sailing along the coast with the choice navigation system, i believe the rocks with are not detected as the ship was not heading forward but sideways as if under water there was a rock projection. i don't know if it was detected or not. on the nautical chart it was marked as water 150 to 150 meters from the rocks. we were 300 meters from the shore, more or less. we shouldn't have had this contact. >> we'll be hearing from the costa cruise company at a scheduled press conference. 8:00 a.m. eastern standard time in the u.s. 9:00 p.m. if you're watching here in hong kong. you're looking there at live pictures of the sunken ship. we'll bring you that press conference live as it happens. we will indeed. still to come on "world business today," refusing to back down s a international pressure mounts for iran. i'm good about washing my face. but sometimes i wonder... what's left behind? 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[ female announcer ] purifying facial cleanser from neutrogena naturals. a body at rest tends to stay at rest... while a body in motion tends to stay in motion. staying active can actually ease arthritis symptoms. but if you have arthritis, staying active can be difficult. prescription celebrex can help relieve arthritis pain so your body can stay in motion. because just one 200mg celebrex a day can provide 24 hour relief for many with arthritis pain and inflammation. plus, in clinical studies, celebrex is proven to improve daily physical function so moving is easier. and celebrex is not a narcotic. when it comes to relieving your arthritis pain, you and your doctor need to balance the benefits with the risks. all prescription nsaids, like celebrex, ibuprofen, naproxen, and meloxicam have the same cardiovascular warning. they all may increase the chance of heart attack or stroke, which can lead to death. this chance increases if you have heart disease or risk factors such as high blood pressure or when nsaids are taken for long periods. nsaids, including celebrex, increase the chance of serious skin or allergic reactions or stomach and intestine problems, such as bleeding and ulcers, which can occur without warning and may cause death. patients also taking aspirin and the elderly are at increased risk for stomach bleeding and ulcers. do not take celebrex if you've had an asthma attack, hives, or other allergies to aspirin, nsaids or sulfonamides. get help right away if you have swelling of the face or throat, or trouble breathing. tell your doctor your medical history and find an arthritis treatment for you. visit celebrex.com and ask your doctor about celebrex. for a body in motion. pressure is mounting on iran. the u.s. and uk already imposed strict sanctions on all transactions with iran over concerns about the country's nuclear weapons program. but now, britain's foreign secretary, william hague, says he's confident that the european union entirely will follow suit. that in turn would be another blow for tehran. eu countries accounted for a fifth of iran's total oil exports last year, equivalent to china. iran is pushing back after earlier threats to block the strait of hormuz. iran issued a new warning to its fellow opec nations. its told them any effort to increase oil production will be seens aunfriendly towards tehran. investors are watching this closely to see what it means for the price of crude. as expected, the tensions that we have been seeing in the gulf over the supply of oil there have sent price of light sweet crude bubbling higher. it's been trending higher for the past few months. and if you look at where it is at the moment, currently just a shade under $99 a barrel. that's in electronic trading, nina. >> andrew, saudi arabia's oil minister is trying to downplay potential supply concerns. he says that saudi arabia, the world's biggest exporter, is ready and willing to increase output to meet customer demand. speaking exclusively to cnn he said that his country's extra oil reserves are big enough to boost oil exports by nearly 2 million barrels a day almost immediately. >> i believe we can easily get up to 11.4, 11.8, almost immediately, in a few days. because all we need is turn valves. now, to get to the next 700 or so be we probably need about 90 days. >> there's this concern that iran's exports at 2.2 million barrels a day could not be filled. the reality is that the kingdom can fill those exports almost straight away, sir? >> this capacity is to respond to emergencies worldwide, to respond to our customer demand. and that is really the focus, our focus is not on who drops out from production but who wants more. >> contacts and the global ramifications, let's go live to john. he joins us from cnn abu dhabi. blunt comments from the saudi oil minister. what else was he saying? >> well, it's quite interesting. it's an extraordinary declaration if you think about it, andrew. we know saudi arabia has been building up spare capacity but were not aware that it could go to 12.5 million barrels a day between now and 09 days. he's basically saying i could turn valves on and get extra. he was referring to $100 a barrel for a basket of crude nymex, north sea brent and the opec crude right now. he said this is not pointed towards iran or those who drop out of of the market. this is important for us to meet the needs of our customers around the world and send a message to the world if iran stops exporting because of sanctions that it can replace that supply almost immediately. i know there's a debate about the quality of the crude, the heavy crude versus the light sweet crude. the minister did want to say something clearly right now, that saudi arabia is prepared to act to protect supplies, especially coming through the straits of hormuz and that there are no shortage of oil for the market. it's served as a swing producer in the past and it's prepared to do so again. >> you mention the straits of hormuz. obviously is a key concern for investors as well. could they glove the strait of hormuz? >> first and foremost i asked the minister how much of your oil goes through the strait of hormuz. half goes through. he says we have alternatives, that means taking oil through pipelines across the country to the red sea and distributing there. he did say, quote, unquote, i personally do not believe the strait, if it were shut will be shut for any length of time. basically, this is a quote again, the world cannot stand for that. this is not a message only from saudi arabia but obviously coordination taking place that they do want to protect the waterways of the straits of hormuz and it sounds like this is a coordinated effort between the gulf cooperation council states, particularly saudi arabia and those in the west who suggest sanctions going forward. i had an interview with the u.n. secretary general today. that they have to abide by international laws and the straits of hormuz cannot be shut off, to transport particularly oil. >> you can hear more from join on "global exchange," 5:00 in central europe. coming up next on "world business today," the power of protest wins out in nigeria. the government slashes fuel prices. will it be enough to get workers back to their jobs? we go live after the break. [oinking] [hissing] [ding] announcer: cook foods to the right temperature using a food thermometer. 3,000 americans will die from food poisoning this year. check your steps at foodsafety.gov. the nigerian government slashed fuel prices after nationwide protests that paralyzed the country last week. president goodluck jonathan made the announcement on monday and ordered civil servants back to work. the policy u-turn comes after the government tried to remove a subsidy on fuel to overhaul the country's ram shackle infrastructure. we are joined live. nema, give us the latest. >> reporter: it's a pretty big climbdown to come down from complete deregulation. it's still far off the 65, about 40 cents the unions say they need to go back to that negotiating table. jonathan did show that he understands for many nigerians, this is about much more than just the price of fuel. this is about transparency, it's about corruption and government accountability. in that same speech he also announced his government would be taking measures to tackle corruption. this is what he said. >> this is irrevocably committed to tackling corruption, across the sectors of the economy. this will be done one way or the other, the economic adversities of the country will be held in accordance with law. >> reporter: every day of this strike, nina, the nigerian economy loses just under a billion dollars. you can understand why with that came a pretty big stick. we're seeing a huge distribution of soldiers, heavy police presence. many rallying and protest points that were occupied by protesters. union bosses say they're not going to back down, nina. >> as you were saying it's extremely detrimental to the nigerian economy. the irony about all of this, mnima, this money that was supposed to be raised from lifting the fuel subsidies was supposed to be invested in the country. it's beginning to cost an awful lot to fix this situation when eventually the unions and government does back down. >> reporter: at the moment it really seems to be a situation where the unions are saying we are always having these conversations. wait for now, we're working on the infrastructure and the economy. we don't want nigeria to lose its position as the powerhouse economy in west africa. nigerians were saying we were told this was the most transparent and democratic election, yet we're still seeing the same problems we've seen with previous administrations. if not now, then when? just to really get a context of this, because of the power issues for nigerians this isn't just about what they put in their cars, what they drive to go into work, how much they'll pay for transport or public transportation. people have to fill up generators to power their homes and businesses. this fights in every sing way in their daily lives. for now it looks like they're ready for the fight. >> many thanks for the update there. andrew, as we all know, nigeria is africa's largest oil producing nation. it's