:00:02. > :00:09.Welcome to World Business Report. Italian bond yields soared to
:00:09. > :00:13.levels not seen since the euro was introduced as the eurozone crisis
:00:13. > :00:16.returned to the plot line. Portugal's Parliament is about to
:00:16. > :00:21.debate amendments to this year's budget as the centre-right
:00:21. > :00:26.government fight to bring the deficit and debt under control.
:00:26. > :00:36.In Asian stock markets, live there for a second trading day as
:00:36. > :00:37.
:00:37. > :00:42.investors worry about the state of the US economy.
:00:42. > :00:47.More and Italy's financial woes in a moment. First, the credit rating
:00:47. > :00:54.agency Moody's has confirmed that the US will keep its triple-A
:00:54. > :00:58.rating and avoid a default on its debt. But it has a negative a book
:00:58. > :01:04.after its rival Fitch ratings that held the US's rating with a similar
:01:04. > :01:08.warning. Standard and Poor's has been tougher than its rivals,
:01:09. > :01:13.threatening to downgrade US ratings by mid-October before makers don't
:01:13. > :01:19.come up with a plan to meaningfully cut the budget deficit.
:01:19. > :01:25.The markets have been a problem that ties by the US drama but the
:01:25. > :01:32.problems in the eurozone continue to escalate. A clear signal is that
:01:32. > :01:39.action needs to be taken. Italian bond yields have reached 6.3%.
:01:39. > :01:44.Th Thcould soon Top Spain's. The country's financial stability
:01:44. > :01:48.Committee held a -- an emergency meeting to discuss the market
:01:48. > :01:53.turmoil that has sent the Italian stock market to a 20 mud load.
:01:53. > :02:00.Later today, Silvio Berlusconi is expected to break days of public
:02:00. > :02:04.silence over the crisis but a special address on the Connor will
:02:04. > :02:08.stop joining us from Rome is the academic director of the European
:02:08. > :02:12.School of Economics. Tee mac for joining us. Or will we see the kind
:02:12. > :02:22.of structural reform from Silvio Berlusconi that markets and
:02:22. > :02:25.
:02:25. > :02:31.investors want to see? Their -- is anticipation regarding the speech
:02:31. > :02:38.of Mr Berlusconi. He is talking about reforms regarding the labour
:02:38. > :02:45.market. In Italy, we already have some reforms regarding the labour
:02:45. > :02:51.market. The investors and international markets are expected
:02:51. > :02:57.-- expected something more regarding the debt and the way we
:02:57. > :03:02.are going to use the public resources to privatise some assets
:03:02. > :03:07.and reduce the cost of the administration and other
:03:07. > :03:16.institutions in Italy in order to give a clear sign that we're going
:03:16. > :03:21.to change the way we are using public resources in Italy.
:03:21. > :03:30.difficult is it at the moment? Italy's public debt is huge. 120 %
:03:30. > :03:36.of GDP. How much room does it have to manoeuvre? In principle, there
:03:36. > :03:45.are some studies that demonstrates that public assets in Italy
:03:45. > :03:51.acquired huge. The value of these public assets can be used to cover
:03:51. > :03:59.the public debt. The problem is that in this year, no government
:03:59. > :04:04.tried to transform these assets in a way to reduce the public debt.
:04:04. > :04:12.This is time to move in this direction. The political interests
:04:12. > :04:20.is huge. Sometimes it is difficult because the public interest tends
:04:20. > :04:24.to stop any reform. Tee mac for joining us.
:04:24. > :04:28.Portugal's Parliament on Wednesday debates and then bent to the budget
:04:29. > :04:33.for the coming year. The centre- right fight to bring the deficit
:04:33. > :04:37.and debt under control. Legislation was drafted by financial officials
:04:37. > :04:43.to allow the state to pumped 4 billion euros into the country's
:04:43. > :04:47.banks which had been shunned by international commercial lenders. A
:04:47. > :04:53.much larger bear that is already agreed with the European Union and
:04:53. > :04:56.IMF. This week has seen another blow for
:04:56. > :05:04.the long suffering Portuguese with public transport prices going up by
:05:04. > :05:07.an average of 15%. If we spend here, we have to make
:05:07. > :05:12.cuts elsewhere. It is the same old story about the need to tighten our
:05:12. > :05:17.belts. We have tightened them so much it is getting increasingly
:05:17. > :05:22.difficult to cope. The right-of- centre coalition has blamed its
:05:22. > :05:26.predecessor for the extra spending cuts it says I needed. But the
:05:26. > :05:31.Finance Minister is submitting a corrective budget to allow for a
:05:31. > :05:35.massive recapitalisation of Portugal's banks as part of the
:05:35. > :05:37.country's 78 billion euros bail-out. The bench will that shutting out
:05:38. > :05:42.other international markets. A businesses say the reluctance to
:05:42. > :05:47.lend his deepening the recession. Economists agree Portugal's
:05:47. > :05:51.underlying problem has long been its chronically weak growth. In an
:05:51. > :05:54.interview with state television, the economy minister criticised
:05:54. > :05:57.public row of -- past reliance on public works projects. He committed
:05:57. > :06:01.the government to rolling back the patient's age that traditionally
:06:01. > :06:07.pads the state payroll and cutting spending even faster than
:06:07. > :06:12.international lenders demand. TRANSLATION: The accord calls for
:06:12. > :06:19.15% cuts in expenditure. We will try to be more ambitious and make
:06:19. > :06:23.it a target of 30%. Portugal has pledged to cut its public sector
:06:23. > :06:27.deficit from more than 9% last year. The opposition Socialist Party is
:06:27. > :06:32.committed to implementing the bail- out negotiated by its own leaders
:06:32. > :06:37.months ago. Unions are opposed to plans to loosen job protection.
:06:37. > :06:40.Protests are expected to multiply as the cuts bite. All of this at a
:06:40. > :06:50.time when officials from the UN di mare for in-town to assess progress
:06:50. > :06:53.
:06:53. > :06:57.and to decide whether to release the next ones. -- of funds.
:06:57. > :07:01.We have been talking about credit agencies and a few of the US. There
:07:01. > :07:07.is one agency that cut its downgrade.
:07:07. > :07:10.That right. It is the China's leading credit agency. They
:07:10. > :07:18.undertook a major move which none of the other global ratings
:07:18. > :07:23.agencies have done and that is downgrading US sovereign debt. They
:07:23. > :07:33.-- they lowered the rating to a single a with a negative outlook
:07:33. > :07:37.
:07:37. > :07:44.from a pass. -- A-plus. The gloomy assessment was inevitable. It will
:07:44. > :07:48.eventually lead to a further decline in its debt payment ability.
:07:48. > :07:53.This move could not just at the US but also China, the largest foreign
:07:53. > :07:59.owner of US debt with holdings worth almost 1.2 trillion US
:07:59. > :08:02.dollars. The privately held firm which was founded in 1994 to
:08:02. > :08:07.Greater Chinese companies attracted worldwide attention last July when
:08:07. > :08:14.it published its first seven credit ratings and cited growing deficits
:08:14. > :08:18.in the developed world Bank of China higher than the US and Japan.
:08:18. > :08:22.-- ranked China higher. What is going on in the Asian markets this
:08:22. > :08:28.morning? All in negative territory because of the slowdown of the US
:08:28. > :08:34.economy. Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong, Australia, all in negative
:08:34. > :08:42.territory for a second day. Wall Street shares have plunged, retail
:08:42. > :08:47.sales are falling. Thank you. Some of the Other
:08:47. > :08:53.business news: Dougal's new social their workers attracted 25 million
:08:53. > :08:57.users making it the fastest website to reach that audience size. In
:08:57. > :09:01.contrast, it took Facebook around three years to attract 25 million
:09:01. > :09:06.visitors while Twitter took over 30 months.
:09:06. > :09:10.A shake-up of UK copyright law is expected today. At the moment, it
:09:10. > :09:15.is technically illegal to transfer content from CDs and DVDs on to a
:09:15. > :09:19.different format such as an MP3 file on a computer. The government
:09:19. > :09:23.will today scrap these restrictions and make it legal for individuals
:09:23. > :09:29.to burn copies have purchased content for other family members to
:09:29. > :09:39.use. A look at the market. Not much
:09:39. > :09:41.
:09:41. > :09:45.change from yesterday. Goodbye. News from around the UK: the
:09:45. > :09:49.Department of Health has been told to urgently reconsider spending
:09:49. > :09:54.billions of pounds it set aside for a national computer system for the
:09:54. > :09:59.NHS in England. The Public Accounts Committee says the system is
:09:59. > :10:03.unworkable and many are now coming up at their own systems which may
:10:03. > :10:07.not be compatible. It was supposed to be a revolution
:10:07. > :10:11.in the bay the NHS uses technology. The results of scans and other
:10:11. > :10:16.detail patient records going on to a universal computer system which
:10:16. > :10:20.doctors and nurses across England could save. Today's report says
:10:20. > :10:23.that will never happen and millions of pounds may have been wasted. It
:10:23. > :10:28.says trying to create a system of one size fits all has proved
:10:28. > :10:32.unworkable. The remaining �4.3 billion of the budget may be better
:10:32. > :10:37.used on other systems that do work. The Department of Health was
:10:37. > :10:42.clearly overpaying for computers, including spending �9 million for
:10:42. > :10:46.systems that have cost other parts of the NHS less than �2 million.
:10:46. > :10:54.Even the money that has produced something you can touch and feel
:10:54. > :10:58.has been spun -- spent much less efficiently there could have been.
:10:58. > :11:02.The most important thing, the detail of care record, the central
:11:02. > :11:05.purpose of this entire programme, will not now be achieved. Many
:11:05. > :11:14.hospital trusts have gone their own way with other computer systems.
:11:14. > :11:24.The government says it is already working to cut spending on NHS.
:11:24. > :11:24.
:11:24. > :11:29.Coming up, IBreakfast. All the papers mac news, business and sport
:11:29. > :11:32.and a discussion of the Trade Not many of us are willing to give up.
:11:32. > :11:41.Shows on the stage a more successful than ever. 14 million of
:11:41. > :11:51.us have attended them. All of that and a ball from 6pm this mac 6am. -
:11:51. > :11:52.
:11:52. > :11:56.You are watching BBC World news. The headlines: Egypt's former
:11:56. > :11:59.president is due to go on trial later today. He is accused of
:11:59. > :12:03.corruption and ordering the killing of hundreds of demonstrators who
:12:03. > :12:08.took to the streets to demand his removal.
:12:08. > :12:10.The UN says that Syria's president has lost all sense of humanity
:12:10. > :12:14.after a brutal crackdown by government forces claimed dozens of
:12:14. > :12:18.lives. The US has held on to its triple A
:12:18. > :12:23.rating after an agreement was reached to raise the debt ceiling
:12:23. > :12:28.and slash spending. A Washington correspondent says there is still
:12:28. > :12:31.plenty of cause for concern. Within hours of President Obama
:12:31. > :12:35.signing the Bill to raise the debt ceiling, the stock market plummeted.
:12:35. > :12:40.The figures show that consumer spending, the powerhouse behind
:12:40. > :12:44.America's economy also fell for the first time in two years. The
:12:44. > :12:49.country's sterling credit rating could still be downgraded in the
:12:50. > :12:58.months to come. Italy's PM is to address parliament
:12:58. > :13:01.in Rome amid growing fears for the It's that time where we look
:13:01. > :13:05.through all of the newspapers and stories making headlines around the
:13:05. > :13:11.world. Let's start with an image in the International Her apld Tribune.
:13:12. > :13:16.It's of a -- Herald. It's of a vandalised picture of Egyptians
:13:16. > :13:19.with Hosni Mubarak's image splattered with paint. The deposed