12/03/2014 World Business Report

demonstrations last year. Those are the latest headlines from

BBC World News. Now for the latest financial news with Sally and World

Business Report. On a mission to gain much needed

financial support. The Prime Minister of Ukraine heads to

Washington. The first pay increase in six years.

Japanese companies strike a landmark deal with unions.

Welcome to World Business Report. I'm Sally Bundock.

Also in the programme, G4S reveals its results for the full year. We

will assessed how tarnished the company has been after some

embarrassing setbacks. Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy

Yatsenyuk, is arriving in Washington today to meet President Obama. He

has called on Western nations to defend Ukraine against Russia - a

nation he says ?is armed to the teeth and has nuclear weapons.''

Obama will show he supports the new Ukrainian leader, but what can the

US and its Western allies actually do to help the near bankrupt

country. Michelle Fleury is in New York.

The symbolism of this meeting is clear. The White House stands behind

this man. Economist and lawyer Arseniy Yatsenyuk who is now at

Ukraine's interim Prime Minister and Washington support for him comes at

a crucial time. Not only are the people of Crimea poised to vote on

whether to join Russia, his government is in talks with the

International monetary fund for desperately needed rescue loans. The

economy has been in recession since 2012. They have high fiscal

deficits. Beyond words though, what action is the US proposing? There is

financial aid in the form of loan guarantees and attempts to isolate

Russia. But the options there are limited according to Professor

Timothy Fry. Financial sanctions have not proven to be very

effective. There is not a lot of trade between the US and Russia. The

Obama administration played down reports that Moscow might cut gas

supplies to the Ukraine or other parts of Europe in retaliation

against US led sanctions. Your map any disruption to Russia's energy

shipments to Ukraine and Europe is a lose, lose situation for everyone,

that Italy for Russia. It is also resisting calls to disrupt the

market longer term. Showing the limits of American foreign policy

has -- there is little the US can do in terms of economic measures to

help Ukraine which is why the tone and nature of resident Obama's

meeting with Ukraine's interim Prime Minister would be so important.

G4S the largest security company in the world has had a terrible time in

the past few years. That plummeted after it failed to provide enough

staff for the London Olympics. Scandals have followed both in the

UK and abroad. In a few hours' time we'll see just how much damage

they've done to the firm's bottom line, when G4S announces its annual

results. The firm will also explain how it's reforming itself. Jeremy

Howell reports. With only weeks to go before the

start of the 2012 London Olympics, G4S announced it could not recruit

enough staff to guard the event. The army had to be called in instead.

Then it emerged that G4S had been overcharging the UK government for a

electronically tagging prisoners on parole. Many were found to be dead

or overseas or back in prison. The company has since been hand from

bidding for the UK government contracts. Work normally worth one

half billion dollars per year. The reputation of G4S has suffered a

broad as well. Last month it is alleged that G4S security staff used

iron bars and rocks to counter a protest at Australia's detention

centre in puppy New Guinea. G4S has admitted it has been failing to plan

for all the risks involved when it takes on the security projects. Risk

has been some area that has not been focused on and clearly this is

something that has been clear in the last few years. The new management

has instigated a new position as a head of risk which is set to address

the fall down as they have had over the last number of years. G4S now

has a new chief executive and head of risk. The UK government is

installing its own representative here at corporate headquarters to

make sure the firm carries out all the reforms it has promised. It is

important that the government -- government around the world to have

reliable G4S because when it comes to private management of prisons and

detention centres and security for big events, there are very few other

firms in the world big enough to do the work.

Toyota has agreed to $26 while Honda and Mitsubishi are offering $19 per

month from the 1st of April. Electronics giants Hitachi and

Panasonic have both settled on $19 and the steel sector are offering

similar increases. This is big news in Japan because it is the first

increase in six years. And you pay will land in people 's wallets at

the same time the government introduces an increase in its sales

tax. Many are arguing to what extent will work as feel better off? The

sales tax going up is the first move in that direction for a long time as

well and that was a very politically and popular move to increase sales

tax but it is, of course, part of Shinzo Abe's reform programme which

is known as Abenomics. We will be following this story. It is after a

long period of talks with unions. Let's talk about another company in

Japan that is becoming very well known.

Troubled Japanese Bitcoin exchange Mt Gox has been given some breathing

space and won temporary bankruptcy protection in the US. A judge in

Dallas, Texas, agreed to protect the firm's assets and temporarily halt

two US lawsuits while bankruptcy proceedings occur in Japan. The firm

filed for bankruptcy in Japan in February after losing about 473

million dollars worth of customers' bitcoins to what it says was a

hacking attack. Italy's biggest bank Unicredit has

announced plans to cut 8,500 jobs. The announcement came after the

group posted a record loss of $19 billion dollars for the final

quarter of last year. The massive loss was due to writedowns on bad

loans and past acquisitions. It's a move by the bank to clean up its

balance sheet ahead of upcoming European bank stress tests. Shares

in Unicredit actually rose, as the bank said it does not need to embark

on a capital increase. Two of China's biggest internet

companies have been picked by the government to help set up private

banks. Alibaba and Tencent have been chosen for a pilot project to set up

five banks owned completely by private companies. It's part of

China's move to further open up its financial sector.

The US congress has launched an investigation into the US car giant

General Motors over why it took them nearly a decade to recall 1.6

million faulty cars which have been linked to 13 deaths. The carmaker

has admitted employees knew about the defect as early as 2004 but only

announced the recall of six models affected last month. The recall and

the related investigations are the first major challenge for the new

chief executive, Mary Barra. That show you the market. In Asia we

are seeing significant losses again. Hong Kong and South Korea are all

falling by quite a margin. Most are agreeing that again, concerns are

that China are continuing to hammer these markets like a black cloud.

There are fears it will see slow growth. We saw losses on Wall

Street, that never bodes well for the morning after in Asia. And as

you can see, the yen has strengthened a bit. That is all from

me now. See you soon. Many thanks to Sally for that.

Chinese teachers are being brought to England to give masterclasses in

maths in an attempt to raise standards in English schools. Up to

sixty English-speaking teachers from Shanghai will be taking part in an

exchange programme. Shanghai's pupils have achieved the highest

maths results in international tests, while British pupils lag

behind.