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Quest Means Business
Greece Asks for Breathing Room; Greek Debt Guarantees; European Markets Fall; Spanish Bond Yields Rise; US Fed Minutes; Market Reaction to Fed Minutes; Quiet Markets; Apple-Samsung Court Battle Goes to Jury; Pound at Three-Month High; Fall From Football Grace; Premier League Pitfalls
Aired August 22, 2012 - 14:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
RICHARD QUEST, HOST: Give me room to breathe. Greece pleads for time, not money.
The Fed minutes are out. We're looking for clues to see if stimulus is on the way.
And in the hands of the people. The jury retires in the Apple-Samsung showdown.
I'm Richard Quest, midweek, and I mean business.
Good evening. Greece is going cap in hand to Europe once again, not for money, this time time and understanding.
The prime minister Antonis Samaras is hoping to win a reprieve from austerity from European leaders, and tonight, both the German chancellor Angela Merkel and the euro group head, Jean-Claude Junker, say they will not cut a deal, at least not before the troika's austerity report is complete.
Join me over in the library and you'll see a day's developments. It may be the end of August, but things are are really heating up now as we head towards September. First of all, the Greek prime minister. He says all we want is a little room to breathe.
This, of course, refers to the $14 billion in cuts planned over two years. Mr. Samaras wants a two-year extension, and he's specific in saying more time does not mean more money. He's meeting Chancellor Merkel and President Hollande of France, but of course today's meeting is with Jean- Claude Junker of the euro group.
Now, Jean-Claude Junker has basically said last chance for Greece. He says to restore credibility, there can be no reprieve until the troika report. And there must be evidence that at least the bailout plan is on track.
As for Angela Merkel, no solutions this week. She will meet the Greek prime minister and, again, says they need to wait for the troika.
So, the attention, if you like, is on Greece. But the players are all saying that nothing can really happen until there is proof -- proof -- that Greece is making the changes necessary. That's the scenario under which Antonis Samaras says he can personally guarantee Germany will get its money back from Greece.
Joining me now from Athens is Petros Christodoulou, the deputy chief exec of the Bank of Greece. He joins me from Athens. The prime minister says he doesn't want money, he wants time. But of course, if he gets time, that will delay everything else, so ultimately, time does involve more money by definition.
PETROS CHRISTODOULOU, DEPUTY CHIEF EXECUTIVE, BANK OF GREECE: Well, that is correct to an extent. But he is aware that he will have to come up with this money.
QUEST: So, are you saying that if he gets the extra two years, the financing gap that will have be breached in that period, where will the money come from?
CHRISTODOULOU: Well, this will give Greece the time to smooth the transition path, put these finances in place, put some private -- start the privatization program and accelerate it. And by the end of the program, it will eventually come up with a new source to, if you like, field the financing gap until -- for the extra two years.
QUEST: The truth is, sir, that there will be this gap. Revenues won't have started to come in. There will be longer before deficit targets are met, and that money will have to come from somewhere. And probably more money from the troika.
CHRISTODOULOU: I think that the prime minister has made it very clear today in advance before he travels abroad that asking for time credit does not mean money credit. So, he's not going to look for extra money, and I think that in order not to be misunderstood, he has put that forward that prompt.
QUEST: Private economists still say the mathematics don't add up. That even if all this plays out as the troika hopes, and you'd admit, surely, that the -- the reform and restructuring is not on track as much as you would like, but the mathematics doesn't add up.
CHRISTODOULOU: Well look, you have to appreciate we are two years into the program, we have -- which is usually at the bottom, at the trough of the -- if you like, the people are very tired. There is fatigue in the system. And also, we are -- the program is off track because of the extended election season that we have had.
QUEST: Right.
CHRISTODOULOU: And now we are racing to catch up.
QUEST: How much off track to where you should be do you believe Greece is at the moment?
CHRISTODOULOU: I would not endeavor -- I would not try -- look, first of all, I'm not in the government. As you know, I'm in the private sector now. So I -- it is difficult for me to gauge a number.
One thing I will tell you: we have a prime minister who is a pragmatist. He is a business-trained prime minister. He's a Harvard MBA, he's a doer, he's very much a proponent of being -- the state being a referee in business, not being a player in business.
And we have seen him in action in areas where he had to roll up his sleeves and get engaged. We have a very -- example of a steel company that had been on site for a very long time, and a few leftist activists had closed it off and people could not go into work. He eventually took it up onto himself to dissolve it, and eventually reopened -- the factory.
QUEST: OK. So, if we pull the strands together, we've got Junker, we've got Merkel, we've got all these talks coming together. And then, in the midst of it, last week we had the Finnish foreign minister saying that preparations need to be made -- or were being made or should be made -- for a Greek exit from the euro.
Now, I suspect you're going to tell me that Greece is in it and in it for good. But you'd accept, too, that everybody needs to make preparations in case something goes wrong.
CHRISTODOULOU: I can understand why some people abroad are making statements along the lines or making preparations or a plan B or, if you like, I see these as, of course, there is their own prerogative to make any preparations they feel are fit.
But I think that -- I see that more as a shot across the bow of Greece to make sure that Greece delivers on what we have promised.
QUEST: Thank you very much, sir, for joining us this evening. You and I no doubt will --
CHRISTODOULOU: Thank you.
QUEST: -- talk more about it. I think we can both agree on one thing, that September will be be an active and a lively month for everyone involved. Good to see you, Petros. Many thanks for joining us.
Now, a down day in the European stock markets. Investors' nerves over the meeting with Jean Claude Junker and the Greek prime minister sent shares lower. J-Pat, Japanese data didn't help. Trade deficit wider than expected. Look at the numbers. London did take a clobbering, as did Paris.
Germany sold $5 billion worth of two-year pay paper. Fascinating. A yield of zero. Spain's borrowing cost rose slightly. S&P says its credit rating would not be in jeopardy even though it asked for a full bailout, just defying it on the grounds of the terms that it would have been. And it warns it would be another story if Greece or anyone else were to exit the euro.
Now, we've just had the Fed minutes from the latest meeting coming through, and it -- obviously, it's four pages of quite dense type. It says many members -- he we go, let me find the quote. Many members judge that additional monetary accommodation would likely be warranted fairly soon unless incoming information pointed to a sustainable and strengthening in the pace of the economic recovery.
So, that is the clear -- here we go, I've found it, indicates a new -- "Many participants indicated that any new purchase program should be flexible to allow for adjustments in response to economic developments or changes in the assessment." This is the market as they are digesting what they said. Down 40. And just off slightly, a tad, from where we were.
So, the market is digesting the minutes from the Fed, looking to see what will happen, and we'll digest them a bit more even further.
Coming up in just a moment, the New York Stock Exchange, how they've made it -- the Fed minutes, and what they make of it. QUEST MEANS BUSINESS.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
QUEST: So, I'm plowing through page four of the Fed minutes as we continue to analyze what it says. One bit does come to clear. It says, in their discussion, the FOMC agreed that the information showed that the economic activity had decelerated in recent months to a slower pace than had expected.
Now, that would obviously be, normally, code for more stimulus on the way. Participants discussed the number of tools they might employ if they decide -- if they decided to go for more monetary accommodation, including extending the date from 2014 for accommodative situations.
The minutes have just been released. Let's straight to Alison Kosik at the New York Stock Exchange. I'm only up to page four of the minutes and I still can't quite gauge whether they or more or less in favor. We keep getting this phrase, "Many participants" believe this, "many participants" believe that.
ALISON KOSIK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Right. Right. And if you read between the lines, it is always hard to really translate what exactly they're saying. So, what I did was I looked at the markets. And the way the markets see it is that it looks more likely that the Fed may take action, if not in September, then sometime soon.
Now, once again, the Dow did come back a little bit. Now it's kind of holding steady, down 30 points. Keep in mind, not many people are trading day. It is the middle of the slow summer season.
But I'll tell you what, you look in these pages, this 12-page document of these minutes, and they show that yes, in August, Fed members were actively talking about quantitative easing, that -- and you mentioned this, Richard -- that they said additional accommodation is likely warranted soon unless the economy improves and strengthens substantially.
So, keep in mind, we are going to get one more jobs report before the September Fed meeting, Richard. If that report shows job growth that's terrific, because you remember July's report had showed more than 100,000 jobs created.
If you see more momentum, that's even -- that's maybe double or triple that, that would be substantial growth, in my opinion. My guess is, you're not going to see that, at least in the jobs report.
One other thing that you see in these minutes is many of the members are saying that additional accommodation could speed up the labor market recovery, so clearly they're in favor of more QE.
And many actually support extending their forward guidance, meaning they want to forecast the economy further into the future, but they're actually going to defer that decision until their September meeting, Richard.
QUEST: I come away -- finally, Alison, I come away from this -- these minutes, the Fed is not -- the Fed knows they've got to do something, they're just not sure when and what and, basically, how. But they know that something --
KOSIK: And in --
QUEST: -- something is likely to be needed.
KOSIK: Exactly. And the problem is is that the US is in the middle of a very bumpy recovery. You look at the good things about the economy: housing is improving, hiring is picking up, at least we saw that in July. Retail sales are improving.
But the problem is, you're getting also the other mixed signals. Unemployment is up, manufacturing is contracting. So, the Fed is getting these same mixed signals, so it's kind of muddying the water that's making this decision on whether or not an additional stimulus should be taken. It's making that decision much more difficult, Richard.
QUEST: All right. It's very detailed, but it does show a committee very much betwixt and between. Although the voting is still only one dissent. Alison Kosik in New York.
(RINGS BELL)
QUEST: And as the markets -- well, there you are. There is a very small judgment. Thin markets. We are seeing the lowest level of volatility in the market since about 2007. Normally, August is always quiet, but the level, some only 2 or 3 billion shares trading hands on an average day in New York, gives you an idea. Down 53 points, now, so we have given back 20 or so points.
The future design of SmartPhones and tablets rests on the shoulders of nine people. They're the jury in one of the world's biggest patent trials, and they have started their deliberations. Apple says Samsung copied the design of the iPad and the iPhone. Samsung denies it and says it's not illegal to be inspired by the competition.
Dan Simon is in -- ah! Look at that! A little bit of beside -- bedtime reading for Dan Simon in terms of the court documents.
DAN SIMON, CNN SILICON VALLEY CORRESPONDENT: Well, I was actually reading it last night, Richard. This is incredible, right here. You know what this represents? This is the jury instructions. A couple inches' worth of paper here. It's not easy reading. It took the judge a couple hours to get through it yesterday.
Right here, this is the verdict form that the jurors have to fill out, 20 pages in all, about 700 questions. So, if you think this is going to be a cakewalk for this jury, you are sadly mistaken. A lot of people think that this could take several days, maybe even a couple weeks for them to reach a decision.
I want to show you an exhibit that was shown throughout the trial. This is an Apple exhibit, and what does it show? You see an iPhone on one side of the screen, and you see a Samsung phone on the other side. Apple says right there is proof positive that Samsung ripped off the iPhone.
As you put it, Richard, Samsung is saying that this is not about copying, this is about competition. This is what consumers want, and so we didn't copy anything. That, as you put it, you can get inspiration from other companies, and that's OK.
I want you to listen now to a piece of sound from Apple CEO Tim Cook. He didn't testify during the trial, but he spoke out recently about the patent war. This was at a technology conference in Southern California. Take a look.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TIM COOK, CEO, APPLE: From our point of view, it's important that Apple not be the developer for the world. We can't take all of our energy and all of our care and finish the painting and have someone else put their name on it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SIMON: Well, part of that painting includes utility patents, and one of the things that's up for debate here is whether or not Samsung ripped off what is called the rubber band effect that you see on the iPad. You know when you get to a website, kind of flick it to the top, you get that rubber band effect?
Well, Samsung has that in some of their phones and their tablets. Apple claims that they invented that, that they have a patent for it. But Samsung's saying no, that technology existed before the iPhone and the iPad. It may not have been in a SmartPhone or a tablet, but it was there. That's just one of the things that the jury has to consider, Richard.
QUEST: Dan Simon, who will be answering those 700 questions just to get a feeling of how it feels to be in the jury. Or maybe not, as the case may be. Dan, good to see you in California. Tonight's Currency Conundrum.
(RINGS BELL)
QUEST: Which one of these is cryptocurrency? Is it Bitcoin, MoneyMate, or Net Wallet? Cryptocurrency. Someone should explain that to me first. We'll have the answer later in the program.
The pound is at three-month high against the dollar. Anticipation the ECB will soon take action on the eurozone crisis. The euro and the yen are down just a touch. Those are the rates --
(RINGS BELL)
QUEST: -- this is the break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
QUEST: As Europe's football season -- excuse me -- begins, we are looking at the business game behind the beautiful game. Just like the banking sector, new regulations are in force to stop decadent, irresponsible spending.
Though for teams that spent freely in the boom years, the damage has already been done. As Jim Boulden explains, one club neatly points this out, nearly lost it all.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JIM BOULDEN, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The gritty town of Portsmouth is as proud of its football club as any in England. It won the FA Cup, football's oldest cup competition, in 2008. And just two seasons ago, Portsmouth was in England's top tier, the Premier League.
But then, it all started to go wrong financially. Debt soared, along with player salaries. Today, Pompey, as it's affectionately called, is teetering in the third tier, run by a financial administrator appointed by the courts.
COLIN FARMERY, POMPEY SUPPORTERS TRUST: Pompey is a great example of where -- when it goes spectacularly wrong, it goes spectacularly wrong, and yes, we've certainly learned our lesson.
BOULDEN: Even its biggest supporters are only buying tickets match by match.
PHILIP HILL, PORTSMOUTH SUPPORTER: We haven't bought season tickets because we want to see who's going to own the club before we buy season tickets this year.
BOULDEN: Portsmouth went broke despite having a variety of owners and multiple suitors form the Middle East and Russia. The hope for panacea of foreign ownership did not work.
FARMERY: The path that Portsmouth went down, there are probably at least four or five Premier League clubs and some in the championship as well that are probably saying, there but for the grace of God go I.
BOULDEN: To keep other clubs from following Portsmouth and Glasgow Rangers, for that matter, new financial rules are being put in place throughout European football. So-called Financial Fair Play is designed to keep clubs from building up too much debt through ages.
But given the explosive growth of television revenue, top players in Europe can earn $300,000 a week or more. And that has led to inflated wages for lesser-known players at smaller clubs. And it's not clear the new rules wills top wealthy clubs from going on buying, especially with big sponsorship deals.
TANCREDI PALMERI, FOOTBALL JOURNALIST: So, these Financial Fair Play that they're actually to equal the situation for everybody, in the next two years could just be a boomerang and actually stress even more these differences.
BOULDEN: Back at Portsmouth, those fearing the worst have only to look across the water to its local rival, South Hampton. It's climbed back into the Premier League.
MARK FRY, FOOTBALL ADMINISTRATOR, BEGBIES TRAYNOR: If you take South Hampton, which we sold three seasons ago, which was going down into division one, that's since been rebuilt. It's taken some investment, but at a modestly reasonable level. Now back into the Premier League, with a possibility to share in the great revenues that come with that.
BOULDEN: But for Pompey and its supporters, the goal for now, just surviving the coming weeks.
Jim Boulden, CNN, London.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
QUEST: Now, Crystal Palace are another former Premiership club with a cautionary tale to tell. After yo-yoing through the leagues, the club went into administration two years ago and is still now trying to get back into the top flight.
Simon Jordan was the chairman of Crystal Palace during their last years in the Premiership. He now joins me from Marbella in Spain. Simon, if you had to -- and I know this is the absolute impossible question -- if you had to put your finger on the single biggest problem for a club's finances, what would it be? Where does the core problem lie?
SIMON JORDAN, FORMER OWNER, CRYSTAL PALACE FOOTBALL CLUB: Well, I think the core problem lies in what players cost and the filter-down effect from the top league, from the elite league, being the Premier League.
Ultimately, what has happened with the massive influx of TV money over the last 20 years is it's filtered down to lesser players and lesser clubs, who are desperately trying to get out of the divisions below to be able to come to the party financially. And by doing that --
(CROSSTALK)
QUEST: But you'll never be able -- you'll never be able to go to that party, will you? The middle league or the middle clubs will never get to the league -- to the levels of the Man Us, the Chesleas, the Man Cities.
And that's the problem, because until the league reestablishes that middle level club status, you're always going to be hamstrung.
JORDAN: That's not simply true, because I don't think drawing a parallel between clubs aspiring to be in the Premier League and clubs the size of Manchester United or Manchester City and Arsenal is what we're talking about.
We're talking about clubs that are coming up from, say, the championship, which is the second tier of English football, who are staying in the Premier League. West Bromwich Albion are case in points. Swansea were case in point last season staying up. And other teams over the years have gone into the Premier League and manged to stay there.
But what the new rules in football do with the Financial Fair Play, I don't know if that's the right terminology, but what it will do is it will help owners to save themselves from their own ambition. Because football is a public domain business where you're put under immense pressure as an owner to try and satisfy the demands of fans.
And if you don't have an ambitious fan base, then you don't have an aspiring football club. If you don't have an aspiring football club, then you don't have the achievements that you want. So, it's a vicious circle.
QUEST: But you think, finally, briefly, that that circle might actually have been broken by what we're seeing at the moment by these rules? Briefly.
JORDAN: I don't think it will be broken, I think it will be a change, and a change and an evolution to try and get some better controls in place. I think people will find their way around it, but I think that everything that tries to improve the landscape and maintain the status of football clubs rather just than the well-being of players is going to be an advantage.
QUEST: Simon, good to have you on the program. Thank you for joining us from Marbella. Nice to see you there this evening.
When we come back in a moment, hopes and fears for Russia's economy. It's now joined the world's most powerful free-trade club. The view from Moscow in a moment. QUEST MEANS BUSINESS on a Wednesday.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
QUEST: Hello, I'm Richard Quest. More QUEST MEANS BUSINESS in a moment. This is CNN and, on this network, the news always comes first.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
QUEST: The death toll in Syria today is skyrocketing. An opposition group says 80 people have been killed so far today, mostly in Damascus. These Internet images seem to show government tanks rolling through smoky streets in the Nahar Eisheh district of the capital.
U.N.'s undersecretary general of humanitarian affairs says conditions in Syria have worsened over the past five months. Valery Amos said last week 21/2 million people needed aid. And video posted online appears to show civilians fleeing after an explosion in Idlib.
The British man who suffered from "locked-in" syndrome has died. Tony Nicholson recently lost a major legal battle over assisted suicide. A stroke had left Nicholson unable to move or speak. A family lawyer says he developed pneumonia over the weekend and was refusing food. Police say they will not be investigating his death.
News agencies report a safari plane carrying tourists has crashed in Kenya, killing two German tourists and two pilots. It happened in Kenya's world-famous Masai Mara wildlife reserve. The reports say three other tourists were severely injured, and there's no word yet on what caused the crash.
The Greek prime minister Antonis Samaras has met the Eurogroup head as he looks for an extension for the country's austerity program. Jean-Claude Juncker says no decision will be made before the IMF ECB and European Commission troika finishes its latest report on Greece. Mr. Samaras is to meet the German chancellor Angela Merkel on Friday.
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QUEST: It's a case that trading with Russia and by Russia will be easier. That's what the head of the World Trade Organization, Pascal Lamy, said in a CNN interview, as Russia finally gets to sit at the WTO table. It's taken almost two decades to get there.
Russia's entry marks the biggest step in trade liberalization since China joined a decade ago. And now, for the transition, as CNN's Phil Black shows us from Moscow.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
PHIL BLACK, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): This land on Moscow's southern outskirts has been farmed for close to 100 years. It was once part of the Soviet Union's experiment with collectivization, and it's named after Lenin, the man who led Russia's Communist revolution.
BLACK: The father of the Soviet state would not have wanted his country to have anything to do with the catalyst project like the World Trade Organization. For a long time, though, this farm has been privately owned and operated as a successful business. But those who run it still have big concerns about Russia joining the WTO.
BLACK (voice-over): The Lenin State Farm produces fruit, vegetables, milk and most of it helps feed the sprawling Russian capital, a city of more than 10 million people. But with Russia's accession to the WTO, this farm will soon be competing with a new wave of imported produce. The farm's director, Pavel Grudinin, says their business will take a hit but will be OK. He thinks many other Russian farms won't be.
"A lot of farms will go bankrupt, shut down and people will leave the sector," he says, "and we will be even more dependent on imports.
Grudinin says most Russian farms won't be able to compete because they're not modern and efficient. And he says they have other costs built into the production process that overseas competitors don't, like Russia's huge levels of corruption and bureaucracy.
"We should have solved our internal problems like corruption first," he tells me.
The local car industry is also predicting painful times ahead, along with every other business and sector that will soon be facing new levels of overseas competition in the domestic market. But economists believe this all can't happen soon enough.
YAROSLAV LISSOVOLIK, CHIEF ECONOMIST, DEUTSCHE BANK: I think it's one of the best things that happened to Russia's economic policy in terms of the improvement and its investment climate. And in terms of the quality of economic policy that we may expect from Russia in the coming years.
BLACK (voice-over): Economists hope that well-run farms and businesses will respond to the new pressure by becoming more productive.
It's thought that committing to the WTO's rules on trade liberalization, transparency and rule of law will make Russia more business-friendly and attractive to foreign investment. And membership might even help Russia accomplish a very difficult economic goal: to move away from its almost complete dependency on oil and gas exports.
LISSOVOLIK: I do see WTO accession as one of the most important tools for Russia to diversity its economy. And this is with regard to manufacturing, with regard to services and with regard to agriculture as well.
BLACK (voice-over): Joining the WTO is expected to trigger a significant increase in Russia's economic growth. But economists say that's only if individual farms, businesses, industries and the Russian government take advantage of the opportunities it presents -- Phil Black, CNN, Moscow.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
QUEST: I'm joined now by Jim Boulden, and with it being the summer, one of the advantages of the summer is we can always take a second or two more for a bit of reflection. Now we've been covering the life of the WTO and its predecessor, the --
JIM BOULDEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: GATT.
QUEST: -- the GATT, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade.
BOULDEN: Right. Not trade and tariffs, but tariffs and trade.
QUEST: Tariffs and trade.
BOULDEN: You got it right.
QUEST: I don't know why I can always remember that. Since the mid- `80s.
BOULDEN: Yes. I mean, I was at the Montreal GATT talks in 1988, my first trip outside of the U.S., in fact. And that was a really big deal, because what they were doing was putting together these world trade deals, and the GATT -- Uruguay round, this was called --
QUEST: It took them years --
(CROSSTALK)
BOULDEN: And it worked, eventually.
Then they said we're going to have the millennium round. And do you remember Seattle, 1999, the riots when Bill Clinton as president was trying to get the millennium round kicked off? And that was going to be something that was supposed to be very positive (inaudible) developing nation (inaudible) all went horribly wrong.
Green campaigners didn't like it and the globalists didn't like it. You know, trade unions didn't like it and there were people basically pounding at the door, saying, no, no, no, don't do this. And then we had the Doha Round and that still hasn't been (inaudible).
QUEST: (Inaudible) started the Doha Round -- I can't remember what year it was.
BOULDEN: 2001?
QUEST: Why don't they just kill it off?
What's the problem?
Just for viewers who weren't always familiar with the Doha, they've been at this for years, trying to sort out -- but they can't get an agreement on the basic courses.
BOULDEN: Basically for agriculture as well. The emerging market -- this is supposed to be the one that was going to help them open up their services and help lower costs in these countries where you have high tariffs. But the American companies also wanted to move in, and they seemed to be a sort of resentment.
The big question is for Russia, very quickly, it -- will they actually implement their agreement? And the E.U. came out with a statement, saying it wasn't actually very complimentary. It's saying that we will -- we need to ensure that it respects its WTO commitments, certain recent proposed legislation are at odds with WTO.
So E.U.'s already warning Russia, it took you a long time to get in the club. But this is just the beginning. You have got to actually follow through with these commitments. And the E.U.'s not convinced it will.
QUEST: I know you're not a betting man. Will they ever complete the Doha Round?
BOULDEN: I think we'll have to have a new name and a new city, and we'll have to come up with a new name for another round.
QUEST: The Boulden round.
BOULDEN: Something a little less ambitious.
QUEST: Jim Boulden. Jim Boulden, thank you very much.
When we come back, putting the muscle back into business trips. It's "Business Traveller," and you and I -- ooh, I can -- there's a twinge from the lower back as I'm doing this, even as -- ooh, Mother.
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(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(MUSIC PLAYING)
QUEST: Now if you're like me and a life on the road invariably means having to get out of routine and often trying to work out in strange gyms with strange equipment, very unsuccessfully, so you finish your business trip and you feel flabby and unfit and the whole sorry cycle of inconsistency starts up again.
Well, business travelers of the world, unite. We do not need to be downhearted. In your hotel room, you can do all sort of very basic exercises, some of which will help you keep fit for when you get home.
Oof.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
(MUSIC PLAYING)
QUEST (voice-over): Life on the road.
Airports, hotels, jet lag -- no routine. Exercise is usually the first thing to go. So our goal must be to fight that tendency.
QUEST: And this is when we put it all into practice. Time to try to keep fit.
QUEST (voice-over): I'm trying out Aqua Bells Travel Weight.
QUEST: This can't be that difficult.
QUEST (voice-over): Pop them in your case, fill them in your room.
QUEST: Well, that's close enough. I (inaudible). It's really slow to fill.
QUEST (voice-over): This takes some patience.
There are a variety of exercises to work with.
QUEST: (Inaudible), though. Provided you get the right amount of water on all of them, it's actually not a bad idea.
QUEST (voice-over): The main point is just remember, something is always better than nothing.
In that spirit, we now bring you the CNN "Business Traveller" Hotel Room Workout, with a little help from our friends.
Andrew Meyer has been training me for four years. He knows my travel lifestyle well. So he's put together a routine of exercises suited to a hotel room of any size. When you wake up, in your PJs, all in 10 minutes.
ANDREW MEYER, PERSONAL TRAINER: You're going to sit all day in a meeting and you've probably been on a plane for four hours up to 16 hours, depending how far you've flown. And your body's just stuck. It just wants to move. So (inaudible).
QUEST (voice-over): So the workout. Six simple steps.
MEYER: Firstly, let's do a squat. The thing about the squat is you're going to be in a sitting position all day. The squat is not actually to load your body up. It's actually to make muscles move.
On the pushup, actually you're squeezing your shoulder blades together, so you're not pushing forward on your shoulders, keep your head level with your back.
OK. The next one, backward lunges. This is going to really mobilize your hips. You want to be straight up (inaudible).
You lift your elbows up (inaudible). All we're trying to do here is just make sure that your muscles are moving as much as possible.
QUEST (voice-over): And the stretches.
MEYER: Sit in this position and sit down onto your glutes and feel the stretch.
QUEST: That might be a little challenging.
Mmm!
MEYER: Try and get your hip closer and get your body up nice and straight.
QUEST: I'm trying!
MEYER: And then the last exercise that we'll do, just to round everything off, you just put your foot up on the bed like that, go into a lunge position and from this position, just open up as much as you can. Lean back into it.
QUEST: So now, to do it for real. In a reasonable amount of time, allowing 10-15 minutes before you have a shower.
QUEST (voice-over): The whole routine, 10 squats, 10 pushups, 10 lunges, 10 standing rows and stretch the glutes and the hip flexors. Take a 30-second rest if needed and do the whole lot again twice, and you'll find you still have time for a shower and breakfast.
QUEST: Ten minutes, 12 seconds.
MEYER: Brilliant.
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QUEST: I promise you, I now use this as part of the routine when I'm traveling all the time. If you want more details on our very simple Hotel Room Workout, this is where you can find it, CNN.com/businesstraveller. And it's not just keeping fit, it's actually just mobilizing so that you get on with the after-hours kind of plane. That's where you can find out more details about it.
The weather forecast -- I think I might have pulled something. Jenny Harrison's at the World Weather Center.
JENNY HARRISON, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Well, hello, Richard, it's nice to see you.
Weather in Europe, that's what I'm going to start to tell you about, because guess what, the same theme across much of the north, the west. More of those showers and scattered thunderstorms further to the south. And we've seen in the last few hours the little areas of cloud showing exactly that. But meanwhile elsewhere, the heat is very much still in place.
Look at these highs on Wednesday, 39 degrees Celsius. So 13 degrees above average in Zagreb, 37 in Budapest, Belgrade, Vienna 35, again 10 degrees above average. That is how warm it has been. And it's going to stay pretty warm as well, certainly in some of these locations for the next few days.
Budapest, we will again see temperatures getting on for 10 degrees above average through Friday. And then Vienna, we've got temperatures up to 34 Celsius, well above the average and also in Prague, 27 and 30 there on Friday.
So six degrees above the average. In fact, that's not it, is it? It's eight degrees above the average. But as I say, elsewhere, to the north a very unsettled pattern. We've got more of these thunderstorms across the south again, and as I say, rain showers pushing in across the northwest.
We've got some warnings in place, out we go into Thursday morning across this area of Poland in particular for some possibly some large thunderstorms bringing those strong winds and even some large hail as well.
But meanwhile, the heat really will continue in the south, which is why we could well see those thunderstorms working their way through Prague, also Prague through Poland, also across into Germany and meanwhile this low is coming in across the northwest, so really keeping that sort of cooler showery theme.
And you can see the air is a lot cooler to the north as well. You can see the green but actually a bit warmer towards the end of the week. So there's the next system coming in across the U.K. The next area of low pressure, meanwhile across the south, sunny skies, 36 in Rome, 35 in Athens and pretty nice in Paris as well, with a high of 25 this Thursday. N
ot so nice across the Caribbean. You can see this is Tropical Storm Isaac. This could well be a hurricane in the next couple of days. You can see where it's heading off towards Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, we're keeping a very close eye on that.
The winds certainly beginning to really have an impact across all of these areas and the rain is not far behind. So we're going to keep an eye on this very closely over the next few days, Richard.
QUEST: We thank you, Jenny Harrison, at the World Weather Center, and keep an eye on the good stuff and the bad, many thanks.
Juggling a career with professional relationships or personal relationships is never easy, especially if you don't like making compromises.
How the Millennials manage (inaudible).
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QUEST (voice-over): So the answer to the "Currency Conundrum" now, we asked which one of these is cryptocurrency. The answer is Bitcoin, a cryptocurrency allows you to make encrypted instant payments online bypassing centralized banks. Bitcoin has been described as the first decentralized digital currency.
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QUEST: Bitcoin and cryptocurrency is the sort of thing our Millennials would certainly understand, even if those of us over 50 aren't too en courant. When you're succeeding in work, it's easy to become married to it.
Choosing a great career over a great relationship can be hard. And for some, it takes a lifetime to realize what's more important. How do the Millennials manage it? When you have to balance relationships with career? For this week's edition, we went to South Africa.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE (voice-over): They are young and confident, educated and ambitious, born in the 1980s, they are the new generation entering the workforce, and their intent is to have it all. But can they find time for work and play? This week, the Millennials and love.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE (voice-over: Mili (ph) is a feisty single woman, who over the years has been focused solely on her career.
MILISUTHANDO BONGELA, FASHION BLOGGER: You know, I can never say no to love. My name means, you know, to (inaudible) cultivate love.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (voice-over): Although important to her, it has always taken a back step. Her last relationship was a year. Today, she's visiting a couple, friends who she admires for having an effortless relationship.
BONGELA: I really like how their relationship is. They make me want to be in a relationship when I'm with them, because they treat each other so well and but at the same time, they just themselves.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (voice-over): Mili (ph) knows what she wants.
BONGELA: It's nice to be loved and be in a relationship.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (voice-over): Finding love and working at it is entirely another matter.
BONGELA: They haven't (inaudible) and, you know, said no to being in a relationship because I was on a highway to success or I thought that, you know, it would be a distraction. But it actually added to my successes because that part of my life was taken care of, and so I want to try in another part of life.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (voice-over): That was her most recent relationship, but it didn't last long, making her believe her way of doing things isn't for everyone's liking.
BONGELA: I do have to kind of tone down the (inaudible) like (inaudible) you go get her, you know, (inaudible) for myself kind of girl. I do have to tone that down and, you know, it (inaudible). It is kind of hard for me, you know, to let go of that control.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE (voice-over): Her life in the fast lane may no doubt (inaudible).
BONGELA: I don't think that it's necessarily (inaudible) but they do find me intimidating, generally, I think.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (voice-over): Mili (ph) is a regular at fashion shows in South Africa.
BONGELA: How can you (inaudible) sitting elsewhere?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (voice-over): A well-known face in fashion launches --
BONGELA (from captions): I almost wore a dress I bought at your shop in Cape Town to this event tonight. And I was actually looking for you on Twitter.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (voice-over): And the Millennial who never does anything low-key or even quietly.
BONGELA: I think (inaudible) all of them. I just think she'd like these ones more.
What are you wearing?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (voice-over): Despite her confident exterior, she knows not everything is in her control. And that scares her.
BONGELA: One thing I can say about relationships is it's the one part of life where I am feeling like inept and I'm like it's not my strong point, you know, (inaudible) my life with someone else, I think is the one area in life where I know that I've got weak at the knees from nerves, not from like any sort of love feelings.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (voice-over): Still, she knows what she's looking for, and she's prepared to make concessions.
BONGELA: To me, the most important is ambition, courage. You have to be able to go after yourself, like I've been in a relationship where I was supporting a man and I never want to be in that relationship or that kind of situation again. So you have to, you know, have ambitions and be able to look after yourself. But I like (inaudible) take risk. I like people who aren't afraid of life.
What I was going to say, so, how's it going?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (voice-over): Romance may not be knocking at her door just yet, but if and when it does, this Millennial will take note.
BONGELA: I do believe if I feel like, you know, I'm -- I've met the right person, and I'm -- I've got space for it in my life and in my heart then, yes, (inaudible) relationship. (Inaudible) I'll never say no (ph), because I don't know, (inaudible) or whatever. If the right person then, I'll have to make it work. I want to make it work.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE (voice-over): Next week on "The Millennials" --
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's quite hard to find the girl who is OK with the (inaudible) where you're somewhere for three months, somewhere for three months, somewhere for three months.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (voice-over): That was back in March. Has love finally found its way into David Lloyd's (ph) heart? Or is he still all work and no play? "The Millennials" and love, next week on CNN.
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QUEST: "The Millennials" and love, and we'll have a "Profitable Moment" after the break.
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QUEST: Tonight's profitable and fit moment, you'll know of course that we were in New York on Monday and Tuesday, and I just returned from that trip and those programs this morning, landing at Heathrow at 10 o'clock.
If, like me, you make those kinds of short trips, where many red-eye flights are involved, you'll know it is important to avoid burnout, and keeping fit on the road is not simply a question of trim and toned. The old adage, "Sound in body, sound in mind," holds true.
That half-hour of focus, of effort, of discipline, it might be something to do with using fitness or writing a journal, or merely a bit of meditation. It's our time. It sets us up for the tough day ahead. The aching muscles remind us that we've achieved something, and you might even give yourself the belief that the complete deal, wrap up the project and make the best impression with a new client.
Carving out that time for ourselves on the road, that few moments, when we can just know that it's us alone, well, your body will thank you, now and in years to come. And when you get home, like tonight, I'll be able to collapse onto the sofa with a smug smile, a cup of cocoa and a muffin.
And that's QUEST MEANS BUSINESS for tonight. I'm Richard Quest. Whatever you're up to in the hours ahead, I hope it's profitable.
The news is next.
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QUEST: The news headlines: the Greek prime minister Antonis Samaras has met the head of the Eurogroup as he looks for an extension on his country's austerity program. Jean-Claude Juncker says no decisions will be made before the IMF ECB and European Commission troika finishes its report on Greece. Mr. Samaras will meet the German chancellor Angela Merkel on Friday.
In Syria, an opposition group says 80 people have been killed so far today, mostly in Damascus. These Internet images appear to show government tanks rolling through smoky streets in the Nahar Eisheh district of the capital.
News agencies are reporting a safari plane carrying tourists has crashed in Kenya, killing two German tourists and two pilots. It happened in Kenya's world-famous Masai Mara wildlife reserve. Three other tourists were severely injured, and there's no word yet on what caused the accident.
A British man who suffered from "locked-in" syndrome has died less than a week after losing a court battle over assisted suicide. A family lawyer says Tony Nicholson developed pneumonia over the weekend and was refusing food. A stroke seven years ago had left Mr. Nicholson unable to move or to speak.
You are up to date with the news headlines. Now to New York and "AMANPOUR."
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