:00:02. > :00:12.BBC World is. It is now time for World Business
:00:12. > :00:21.
:00:21. > :00:25.Welcome to the programme. Investors await a quarterly result from News
:00:25. > :00:31.Corporation has it tries to repair the damage from the phone hacking
:00:31. > :00:34.scandal at its British newspapers. Standard Chartered banking shares
:00:34. > :00:39.are volatile on the Hong Kong stock exchange, amid reports the bank may
:00:39. > :00:44.have to pay as much as $700 million to resolve money-laundering
:00:44. > :00:48.allegations. Pass, fears of a new food crisis as
:00:48. > :00:58.dry weather hits the fields of Russia. Drought in the US Midwest
:00:58. > :01:02.
:01:02. > :01:06.has already pushed grain prices to News Corporation, the global media
:01:06. > :01:10.giant controlled by Rupert Murdoch, releases quarterly results later
:01:10. > :01:15.today after the close of US trading. Analysts expect earnings and
:01:15. > :01:19.revenue to be down on a year ago. The main interest may be what the
:01:19. > :01:26.company says about its plan to divide itself into two publicly
:01:26. > :01:33.traded companies - one for its TV interests and the other for its
:01:33. > :01:35.publishing companies. It is being split in the shadow of the scandal
:01:35. > :01:40.over phone hacking at its British newspapers.
:01:40. > :01:46.Rupert Murdoch's British newspaper empire has yet to emerge from the
:01:46. > :01:52.scandal. Senior executives have been charged with criminal offences,
:01:52. > :01:56.including former UK boss Rebekah Brooks. Now, in a new bloke, the
:01:56. > :02:01.Church of England has sold its shares, saying News Corporation has
:02:01. > :02:08.not done enough to reform. The company's American investors do not
:02:08. > :02:11.seem to care too much about these ethical concerns. Despite all the
:02:11. > :02:15.scandals and everything that has occurred over the past quarter and
:02:15. > :02:23.12 months, News Corp has found a way to make money and that is what
:02:23. > :02:28.investors like. Increasingly, the valuable assets of the companies do
:02:28. > :02:32.not include newspapers. News Corporation's American publications
:02:32. > :02:36.include the New York Post and the Wall Street Journal. In newspaper
:02:36. > :02:40.terms they are bigger provide a lot of political cloud. As businesses,
:02:41. > :02:46.in terms of profit and loss, they are tiny in relation to the
:02:46. > :02:56.company's other media assets. Much of the series profits and revenue
:02:56. > :02:58.
:02:58. > :03:04.come from Fox Television and the movie studio Twentieth Century Fox.
:03:04. > :03:08.Despite the odd setback, all media firms like News Corp can still come
:03:08. > :03:15.to be reliable money-making machines. Unlike some of the new
:03:15. > :03:19.ones. Fox Broadcasting in a matter of three weeks made $2 billion in
:03:19. > :03:24.advertising revenue. That is more than half of what Facebook gets in
:03:24. > :03:28.a year. It is about to be split in two, its reputation has been
:03:29. > :03:38.thrashed by scandal. But for many investors, News Corporation still
:03:38. > :03:45.delivers reasonably well where it counts, on the bottom line.
:03:45. > :03:48.Some $17 billion were wiped off the value of Standard Chartered
:03:48. > :03:55.yesterday after US regulators accused the Bank of scheming with
:03:55. > :04:02.Iran to launder money. How were they doing in Asian trade? How
:04:02. > :04:06.large the shares doing? If you take a look at the Standard
:04:06. > :04:11.Chartered stock price chart, it has been a very volatile day so far for
:04:12. > :04:18.the UK lender. In early Hong Kong Trade, the share price extended its
:04:18. > :04:21.fall by another 1.3% on top of the more than 6% downturn yesterday. In
:04:21. > :04:27.midday trading on the strength of financial shares in the region, the
:04:27. > :04:32.UK lender's stock has turned around with the price now up by about 1%.
:04:32. > :04:36.Traders say investors are seen to have absorbed the bad news and with
:04:36. > :04:46.the bank denied claims that it hit $250 billion in deals with Iranian
:04:46. > :04:47.
:04:47. > :04:50.banks for almost a decade, which is in violation of US sanctions. I
:04:51. > :04:57.wholly aspire to Emmanuel Daniel and asked him if this could be
:04:57. > :05:01.affected by these allegations. Technically not be closed today
:05:01. > :05:06.banks need to be incorporated locally in many of the major
:05:06. > :05:11.countries. In the case of Standard Chartered it is incorporated in
:05:11. > :05:18.Hong Kong and some of the south- east Asian countries. There is a
:05:18. > :05:21.way to ring-fence those businesses from what is happening in the US.
:05:21. > :05:26.There are now media reports that Standard Chartered might be asked
:05:26. > :05:31.to pay as much as $700 million to resolve money-laundering
:05:31. > :05:34.allegations. If confirmed, the settlement would match the amount
:05:34. > :05:41.that HSBC set aside last month after a Senate committee found the
:05:41. > :05:51.bank gave terraced, drug cartels and criminals access to their banks.
:05:51. > :06:00.
:06:00. > :06:05.With the US already facing its worst drought for 50 years, prices
:06:05. > :06:08.of many greens and food crops have soared on world commodity markets.
:06:08. > :06:12.Traders will be watching Russia closely today, when a newly formed
:06:12. > :06:16.commission on food security needs in response to dry weather that has
:06:16. > :06:21.halved grain yields in some areas of the country. There is market
:06:21. > :06:30.talk that Russia might respond by limiting or stopping exports, as it
:06:30. > :06:35.did to make years ago, putting prices further higher. The European
:06:35. > :06:40.Business correspondent has more. It is not a disastrous crop like
:06:40. > :06:44.the year before last, but wheat yields are half what they should be
:06:44. > :06:48.on many drought-hit Russian farms. It is the job of the new commission
:06:48. > :06:53.to take soundings today. It is the state which may decide whether more
:06:53. > :06:56.grain should be held back from export markets. Producers seem to
:06:56. > :07:04.be choosing not to sell but are holding on to the stocks were now
:07:04. > :07:14.in the hope that prices will go even higher. TRANSLATION: Now the
:07:14. > :07:18.
:07:18. > :07:27.harvest is going on we are putting that the entire global industries
:07:27. > :07:36.keeping an eye on the climate. The UN is hoping they will not be a
:07:36. > :07:40.repeat of fast food riots in places like Somalia and Egypt. India is
:07:40. > :07:44.braced for a possible shortage of animal feed. A key US government
:07:44. > :07:51.report this Friday should Quan defied the latest crop damage. This
:07:52. > :07:56.farm in Nevada last three-quarters of its farm crop. Ian Harte is
:07:56. > :08:02.managing editor of a publication that tracks commodity prices.
:08:02. > :08:06.need to see how the weather goes for the US soybean crop. Whether
:08:06. > :08:11.Russia decides to ban all but export duties on to its wheat
:08:11. > :08:16.exports. Some of these things could send us into uncharted territory.
:08:16. > :08:21.We have already seen record prices. What I think has happened is that
:08:21. > :08:26.those records are only slightly higher than the highest levels we
:08:26. > :08:31.have ever seen. We are a bit more used to this territory now than we
:08:31. > :08:35.were two or three years ago. Here in northern Europe, thanks to the
:08:35. > :08:40.summer rains, it is not so much the quantity, but the quality of the
:08:40. > :08:45.crop which is in question. Whatever the Russians decide, protecting the
:08:45. > :08:52.world's poorest from the impact of these record prices may be
:08:52. > :08:55.impossible. A quick look at what else is on the
:08:55. > :08:59.business agenda for today. The Bank of England may slash its forecast
:08:59. > :09:04.for growth of bed inflation in the UK when it presents its quarterly
:09:04. > :09:09.report later. It raises expectations that it will act again
:09:09. > :09:12.to stimulate Britain's economy. Last month the Bank restarted its
:09:12. > :09:16.programme of buying government bonds with newly printed money.
:09:16. > :09:22.Since then the figures had shown the UK is deeper in recession than
:09:22. > :09:26.previously thought. Cathay Pacific Airways has posted a
:09:26. > :09:32.loss of $120 million for the six months to June. The carrier is
:09:32. > :09:36.struggling like its rivals because of stubbornly high jet fuel prices,
:09:36. > :09:42.falling passenger yields and lower cargo volume.
:09:42. > :09:44.A quick look at the market. As you can see, they are mixed. On the