29/04/2013 World Business Report

acted out of anger at politicians. Those are the latest headlines. For

this latest financial news, here is No longer a job for life - a

radical overhaul of the Civil Service in Greece is made law so

that 15,000 jobs can be cut. The baby to cost of austerity - at

the swearing-in of it easily's new Prime Minister is Mas de -- marred

by the shooting of two police officers by an unemployed man.

Welcome to World Business Report. Also in the programme - Carson

Yeung, the owner of Birmingham City Football Club - pleads not guilty

to money laundering charges. We'll have the latest.

The tough times continue in Europe. So late last night, Greek law

makers agreed to cut thousands of jobs in the civil service to Secure

another 8.8 billion euros in bailout funds. The vote clears the

way for 15,000 government workers to be fired by the end of 2014.

Approval means that Greece will receive a new range of rescue loans

from its creditors, the EU and the IMF. The lay-offs will come at a

time when unemployment has skyrocketed -- started -- reached

27% and the same legislation has also extended and are unpopular

property tax. This is an important moment for

Greece -- Greek democracy because it is the first time that that

sacred cow, the jobs for life for civil servants, has been challenged.

Never before have they been lay- offs from the public sector but now

there will be.. 15,000 to go from next year. Principally it will

breakers. -- it will be rule breakers. There will be replaced by

a younger workforce on a lower salary. This is not away to reduce

the bloated public sector but to upgrade it. There is also a

parallel process in which the public sector will be reduced by

150,000 jobs mostly by replacing one out of every five retirements.

This is something that has gone down relatively badly among many.

There was a process outside Parliament earlier in the evening

as parliament debated the ball. There was a small protest compared

to previous ones but people there who feared that they would be

earmarked for dismissal by the government was under a three-line

whip by international lenders who said that the Civil Service reform

would have to be passed in order for Greece to get almost 9 billion

euros. Critics say that this is long overdue. That the public

sector of the country has been notoriously bloated for a long time

under a client list state that emerged in the 1970s and 80s. That

is tackling the civil service jobs for life and reforming the public

sector is a long overdue. He will update us as to day

progresses with reaction. The fall- out, really, on that decision that

is -- was made law late yesterday. The move on to Italy. The bitter

costs of austerity were felt there. News bulletins who should have been

dominated by the swearing-in of a new government were dominated by

the fact that an unemployed man shot and wounded two police

officers. He was driven by frustration and anger towards

politicians. They had been warnings about increasing social tensions in

Italy which is in the middle of the worst recession in 20 years. The

new Prime Minister, Enrico Letta, is due to outline his strategy for

cutting unemployment later today. It currently stands at 11.6 %.

Nice to see you this morning. The new government is in place.

Whenever we talk about Italy and politics, we want to know about the

strength of the government. In this case? This government may be able

to pass reforms because the people who have been chosen include a

couple of technocrats. Other managers from the banks. Safe hands.

They had been chosen to get on and a greedy and work together none of

the political heavyweights can watch what is going on from the

sidelines. In the case of Silvio Berlusconi, he seems to Paul well

so he may decide to withdraw from the government which then triggers

an election and more uncertainty. In the meantime, Enrico letter will

outline his plans today to Parliament to try and fix the

Italian economy. What will he say? -- Enrico Letta. He will focus on

our unemployment. He needs to address the voters who voted for

the anti-establishment protest movement in order to try and calm

the country down. Otherwise we could have more incidents such as

the wind yesterday. I think that he has to focus on structural reforms.

To a degree, fiscal austerity. The debate is shifting in Europe at the

moment, however government debt is already close to 130 %. He spends

about 5% to 5.5% of the GDP on servicing the debt. It must

continue along that path to insure that bond yields come down and

spreads narrow in order to reduce the debt servicing costs. On the

employment front, on the unemployment front, they must be a

revision of the law passed last year. In order to reduce more

flexibility that make introduce more flexibility into the market.

Thank you very much indeed. We will keep an eye on that today as it

progresses in Italy. We move on. The owner of English

football club the Birmingham City has gone on trial in Hong Kong

today for alleged money laundering. Carson Yeung a property tycoon who

began his career as a hairdresser is accused of moving almost $100

million illicitly through bank accounts controlled by himself and

his father. He denies the charges and has pleaded not guilty.

We followed the trial in Hong Kong. Tell us more.

I hope that you can hear me. It is noisy. About three hours ago. The

prosecutor said that Carson Yeung moved and $93 million through

accounts which were connected to allegations that these were

criminal proceeds. The trial got under way today. The defence team

have put in a fresh bid to halt the trial. The judges hearing arguments

from the defence and prosecution as to whether or not that will happen.

Give us a sense of what we can expect to happen. He has clearly

pleaded not guilty - tell us what we are expecting in the near future.

When you speak to the lawyer's, they say that this will be a long,

drawn-out court case. They suggest that he will file... 25 days. The

evidence is mostly documented. Just listening to the defence team, they

say that many of those documents simply are not available. They are

no longer accounted for after a seven-year period. The defence team

was also saying that we are not expecting any... That was said

during the trial which took place behind me. Nobody is expecting a

quick result. Once again, this will highlight the issue of money

laundering in Hong Kong. OK, thank you very much. He was outside the

courtroom in Hong Kong. Apologies if you were struggling to hear what

he had to say. Clearly a very important case.

In other news: Chat apps such as WhatsApp and Apple's iMessage have

overtaken the text message as the favourite way to tap out a note to

friends, undermining the traditional SMS cash cow for mobile

operators. According to the telecoms and media consultancy

Informa, there were more instant messages being sent daily by the

end of last year than there were text messages. The apps are seen by

some as a potential challenger to Facebook's dominance in social

networking. A two-year EU-wide ban on the use

of three pesticides widely blamed for killing bees goes to the vote

in Brussels today. Last month, Britain and Germany were among the

nine countries who failed to back the ban. They argued that

scientific trials on the impact of the pesticides on these are needed

to be completed first. If the committee failed to agree free

second time, the EU Commission has warned that it will go ahead anyway.

-- for a second time. Let us look at the markets in Asia.

The main market in Japan closed today for public holidays. That is

the end of trade at the end of last week. Hong Kong is trading as is a

South Korea. You can see some of the markets there. We have all

sorts of stories. You have the gold price going up slightly, poet --

royal going down. Everyone will look ahead to the US Federal