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Quest Means Business
Euro Unemployment Hits Record High; Protests Against ECB; EU Unemployment Struggles; Spanish Crisis; India Economy Slows; Struggles in South Africa; IMF Revises China's Growth Downward; BRICS Challenges; Istanbul Clashes; UK Emergency Landing Inquest; Dollar Up
Aired May 31, 2013 - 14:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
NINA DOS SANTOS, HOST: Generation jobless. Youth unemployment rises to a record level across Europe.
It's growing, but it's also slowing. India records its worst GDP in a decade.
And an investigation uncovers a crucial error on a BA plane, which led to a dramatic emergency landing.
Hello, I'm Nina Dos Santos, and this is QUEST MEANS BUSINESS.
Good evening. Well, for the leaders of Europe, it's unacceptable. For the citizens of Europe, though, it's unrelenting. Unemployment in the eurozone has once again struck another record high. This as EU leaders plan for action to get young people working again.
Well, the eurozone jobless rate rose to 12.2 percent for the month of April. That number has increased steadily every single month for the best part of two years, and the youth figure is literally twice as worrying here. Across the eurozone as a whole, 24.4 percent of people under the age of 25 are without work.
Greece and Spain have hit the highest jobless rates that they've seen across this region. Almost two thirds of young people in Greece are currently unemployed. It's 50 percent when it comes to Spain.
And that it in turn pales in comparison to countries in northern and central Europe. We're talking about places like Germany and Austria. Germany's youth unemployment rate is actually more than eight times smaller than the one we're seeing in Greece, and that just goes to illustrate how disparate these countries across the eurozone are as a monetary bloc.
Protesters in Frankfurt surrounded the headquarters of the European Central Bank in a demonstration against its economic policies. There were some small scuffles with the police outside, although the bank says that it was able to operate as normal.
Police reckoned that there were 1,000 protesters present, while the demo organizers put it at three times that number. The spokesman for Blockupy said that the state of the economy had forced them to act.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ROLAND SUESS, SPOKESMAN, BLOCKUPY (through translator): We said that we think it is legitimate to hold such events of civil disobedience because the politics of the ECB and the whole Troika is leaving the living standards for people in many countries in Europe being unbearable.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
DOS SANTOS: Well, EU leaders have promised to step up their action on the pressing issue of unemployment as of next month. What we're going to see on June the 17th is the EU vice president Olli Rehn here visiting the European parliament. What he's going to do is to present a country-by- country recommendation to create more jobs across the region.
Well, ten days later, the European Council summit will be taking place in Brussels. The council president, here, Herman Van Rompuy, says that youth unemployment must be a top priority.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
HERMAN VAN ROMPUY, PRESIDENT, EUROPEAN COUNCIL: Social and employment policies are first and foremost a national responsibility. But the European Union can and must support this fight against unemployment, and that's why I have put the fight against youth employment, as I said, together with the president of the Council of Ministers, I put it on top of the agenda of our next European Council in June.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
DOS SANTOS: Well, whatever the outcome of that summit, Angela Merkel is inviting all EU labor ministers to Berlin for further talks in July. Germany and France recently launched their New Deal, as they've called it. That's the new plan for young job seekers, and they've put around about $7 billion on the table for that this week.
Well, Spain has been at the epicenter of Europe's job crisis for several years now. As Al Goodman reports, generations of economic progress seem to be disappearing fast.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
AL GOODMAN, CNN MADRID BUREAU CHIEF (voice-over): Fernando Jerez can hardly believe how far his family's brick and tile company has fallen in Spain's economic crisis. He says business is down 80 percent. Three of his factories are closed with piles of excess stock.
"I try not to let this affect me psychologically," he says. "I've driven by here many times, and it's painful."
The fourth factory is open, but just four months a year. It used to run all year round the clock, before the construction boom went bust.
It's also been tough for other factories in Toledo province, which makes a third of Spain's bricks and tiles.
GOODMAN (on camera): As factory after factory got into trouble here, they laid off workers by the hundreds. Spain's jobless rate is 27 percent, but in this province, it's 32 percent.
GOODMAN (voice-over): Pedro Rodriguez is one of them. Starting as a teenager, he tells me, he worked 45 years in brick factories, but was laid off four years ago. He stops to get food, paying with unusual food stamps newly issued for the neediest people by the local government in Pantoja.
At home, more food arrives from another local government program. His wife has a spinal disorder that requires extensive medicines. Their grown children help out. At 60, he can't find a job.
"Young people look for jobs and are told they're too old at age 30," he says. "So, my possibilities are nil."
But Jerez sees a chance for his business through innovation. Like this new roof tile, with an air chamber that he says naturally lowers the temperature in the building. They're sturdy, and he plans to export them and the technology, too. "Saudi Arabia, Colombia, and Peru care about energy efficiency," he says, "and they're building lots of houses.
Unlike Spain. Jerez sees the future abroad and says the glory says for the brick factories here are gone for good.
Al Goodman, CNN, Pantoja, Spain.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
DOS SANTOS: Well, that was a report from Spain, and next, we're going to be going to some of the world's emerging markets, like India. Do stay with us here as QUEST MEANS BUSINESS continues on CNN.
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DOS SANTOS: Welcome back. Well, there's been an awful lot of talk about the strength of the world's BRIC economies. But a slew of tough economic pieces of news has been showing that challenges still abound for these kind of countries. Not to mention the fact that they offer very, very varied paces of growth.
First of all, let's examine India's GDP report today. Well, it posted growth of 5 percent in the year ending on March the 31st. That was actually the slowest rate in about a decade for this country. India's trying to find a way out of high inflation as well as rising interest rates, political strife, and not to mention creaking infrastructure.
Earlier, I spoke to Malika Kapur in Mumbai and I asked her what impact these GDP numbers would have.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MALIKA KAPUR, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: People are very worried about it. The figure is quite alarming, we're talking about growth across the year of 5 percent. And if we look back just two or three years ago, India was bragging of growth of 8 to 9 percent. So, this is quite a dramatic slowdown in the Indian economy, and many economists I spoke today said that they are concerned about it.
Now, how did we get into this situation? What slowed growth down so much? There are a number of factors over here. One of course is that the global economic environment doesn't help the domestic situation here in India. Then also in the domestic economy here, we have been struggling with very, very high inflation and also high interest rates.
But perhaps the biggest obstacle to economic growth here in the last year has been a series of corruption scandals that have really plagued the government. And these scandals have been in the business sector, whether it's misallocation of coal resources, corruption and graft in the telecom sector.
So, these have really been problems that have affected the government and the economy, which has reduced confidence in the business sector here and slowed growth down. Nina?
DOS SANTOS: Yes, Malika, the other thing that's been curtailing growth in India has been the blackouts. Obviously, its power system is antiquated, and that's going to continue to hamper manufacturing for this country.
KAPUR: That's a really good point. It is, perhaps, one of the biggest reasons we have seen the slowdown. Power remains a huge issue here in India. You may remember that last year we had a massive power failure, which left much of northern India paralyzed and in the dark for more than two days.
And if you look at factory output, that is seriously affected by a power shortage. If you take the case of a city like Chennai in south India, many factories there shut for a whole day a week because they simply don't have enough power.
If you look at Noida in the suburbs of Delhi, which is seen as a big business hub, even there there is a serious shortage of power, and many businesses and factories have to run on backup generators all the time. So, power is a huge concern for the Indian economy, and yes, you're right, it's one of the main reasons dragging growth down.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
DOS SANTOS: Well, South Africa has seen its currency, the rand, on the run of late. Here's the slide over the course of the last six months. Now, on Friday, the rand actually fell to a fresh four-year low of 10.3 against the US dollars. Critics point to a lack of growth strategy and continuing unrest in the mines across South Africa.
Well, GDP managed to inch up by around about a disappointing nine tenths of one percent in the first quarter, while efforts to talk up the economy by the president of South Africa, Jacob Zuma, this week have done little to help, as you can see from the chart behind me.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JACOB ZUMA, PRESIDENT OF SOUTH AFRICA: Strikes are a normal thing in a democratic country. It is only undemocratic countries where there are no strikes.
And I don't think we should take strikes as a problem, because workers are necessarily in democratic countries allowed by law, by the constitution, to go on strike. And I don't know why in South Africa, strikes should be portrayed as a big problem, but as a democratic exercise.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
DOS SANTOS: Well, one country that's buying so many of those commodities that South Africa produces is China, by now the world's second- largest economy. This week, the IMF trims its growth forecast for China to 7.75 percent. That's down from 8 percent earlier, in light of weak global demand. However, it did say that the economy in China should main robust from here on.
Well, another impact for the BRICS to consider is the effect of the weakening yen in Japan. Earlier, I put it to Citi's global head of international economics, Nathan Sheets, about the varying pace of growth and how the yen will be affecting some of these emerging markets.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
NATHAN SHEETS, GLOBAL HEAD OF INTERNATIONAL ECONOMICS, CITI: What we're seeing broadly is a softening environment for the emerging market economies. There are lots of uncertainties with the advanced economies, particularly in Europe. The emerging markets are dealing with the effects of the much weaker yen.
And as a result of some of these factors, global commodity markets are very soft, and that's having an impact on a number of countries, including, as you mentioned, on South Africa.
DOS SANTOS: Now, why is the yen having such an impact on the emerging markets?
SHEETS: I think that the answer is largely that the emerging Asians still have a fair amount of trade and compete against Japan. And in some sense, it kicks off a domino effect, so that Korea, Singapore, Taiwan, Malaysia, to some extent China, all compete against Japan, so as the yen depreciates, it has an effect on those economies.
And then those economies compete against a whole range of additional other emerging markets, so it becomes a chain effect, so to speak.
DOS SANTOS: Well, the reason why I'm mentioning this is because if we rewind five years or so, everybody was talking about how the emerging markets would gradually decouple from the developed markets, but given what you're saying with Japan being the main developed market in that region, it certainly doesn't seem to be happening.
SHEETS: Well, what I would say is that some decoupling seems to be in train here, but it's far from complete. And the emerging markets, on the one hand, still are dependent on the advanced economies.
But on the other hand, I think that one of the things we're seeing is that given that the advanced economies have been somewhat softer than they were five, seven, ten years ago, the emerging markets are having to depend more on their one domestic demand. And that's supporting growth, but not growth as quick as been the case in the past.
DOS SANTOS: Yes, China has often been the country of choice, let's say, for supposedly focusing on domestic demand, because of course, everybody's focusing on their own demand and their consumers. Why haven't they managed to boost domestic demand? Why is their economy still so heavily reliant on exports when they've had years to get this in order?
SHEETS: Yes, I think that for China, this is a slow and grueling process. And frankly, I think the Chinese leadership are just very, very conservative and very risk-adverse. And the idea of pursuing new economic policies, and particularly the idea of allowing their currency to appreciate against a whole range of currencies is something that they haven't been extraordinarily open to.
Now, I do believe that this new administration in China over the next five to ten years is going to really focus on strengthening consumption and strengthening domestic demand. But this is going to be a slow and challenging process.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
DOS SANTOS: Well, that's Nathan Sheets, there, from Citibank.
It's been a day of high tension in Istanbul. Riot police fired teargas and water cannons at protesters occupying a park in the city's main square. Here's the latest from Ivan Watson in Istanbul.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
IVAN WATSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: You can see here how the Turkish riot police are going after gatherings of people here in Istanbul's Taksim Square in the hear of the city. Come on over here.
Ordinary civilians being caught up in what's taking place here. An old lady knocked on the ground -- by a water cannon.
Downtown Istanbul, the commercial capital of Turkey, the largest city in this country, has really turned into a place of unrest, an explosion of anger that started with demonstrators who tried to hold a sit-in four days ago. They didn't want the park over there to be demolished and turned into a shopping mall.
Now, this place has turned into a riot zone, and it's catching an awful lot of ordinary citizens and tourists in the midst of all of this teargas and water cannons and violence.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
DOS SANTOS: We can go now live to Ivan Watson, who joins us on the telephone from Istanbul. Ivan?
WATSON (via telephone): Nina, we're -- we've taken shelter in the entryway of a Starbucks, where there are scores of riot police around here facing off against demonstrators on a number of different side streets. And armored personnel carrier --
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WATSON: There you hear teargas being fired. An armored personnel carrier just rolled up to one of the crowds of angry demonstrators. Some actually climbed on top of it in anger. And I'm joined by one of the activists here, he's a 25-year-old who works in advertising named Ilker. Ilker, can you tell us, why are you here today? Why are you protesting?
ILKER, TURKISH ACTIVIST (via telephone): We are here because they don't care our rights. We came here to protect the park. It's a national place. They don't have anything to do with our protest. They are attacking for no reason. You are opposing us claiming our rights. Government don't share people's rights. Government is intervention into people's lifestyle. We are a patient country, but they can't do that. That's it.
WATSON: All right. And there you hear from one of the activists here. Now, the mayor of Istanbul came out in a live press conference saying that at least 12 people had been injured, at least 63 detained so far. It's nightfall, and it looks like the clashes have only gotten worse, really.
And I have to be honest. In the ten years or more I've lived in this city, I've never really seen unrest in the streets on this kind of scale. There's not one political party or one union or one movement that seems to be behind this.
It does seem to be an explosion of rage, not just about park, but against what people are saying is the increasing authoritarian tendencies of the elected Turkish government, which has been in power for more than ten years. Nina?
DOS SANTOS: Alarming stuff. Ivan Watson joining us there, live from Istanbul on the telephone, also with one of the demonstrators. Thanks ever so much.
Well, QUEST MEANS BUSINESS will continue here on CNN after this short break. Don't go away.
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DOS SANTOS: Protective covers flew off both engines of a British Airways flight and caused a fire after maintenance staff didn't secure the latches properly. That's the verdict coming from British investigators into last week's emergency landing that took place at Heathrow Airport.
The Airbus A319 was on its way to Oslo with 80 people onboard at the time when smoke was seen coming out of the right engine shortly after takeoff. The Air Accidents Investigation Branch says that it caught fire because the covers weren't properly secured during maintenance.
Well, the plane did land safely with three people being treated for minor injuries. British Airways says that it'll support the AAIB in its investigation. And this is at the heart of the story: the engine covers. We're talking about what's known as a cowling.
This diagram from the preliminary report shows just what the covers look like when they're not properly latched up, as you can see. The red arrows point to the telltale signs that show that they need to be secured here.
A visible gap, as you can see, exists between the covers and actually the engine itself, and the latches themselves are actually at the bottom, which many people say makes them hard to see when the pilots do their walk- around to investigate the aircraft before taking off.
American investigators say that there was not only one engine on fire, but another one completely shut down at the time. The AAIB has denied those claims flatly. Earlier today, I asked Mary Schiavo, the former inspector general at the US Transportation Department what she thought really happened in this complicated case.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MARY SCHIAVO, FORMER INSPECTOR GENERAL, US DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION: Well, it's very worrisome because this problem has occurred on this particular aircraft coming out of maintenance on over 30 occasions.
So, it's very worrisome and was a very serious amount of damage -- damage to the slats, damage to the horizontal stabilizer, damage to the hydraulics, damage to the landing gear, and a cut fuel line that could have been very, very disastrous. Fortunately, it wasn't. So, it was serious damage to the plane.
DOS SANTOS: Yes. In fact, as you were saying before, this has happened on 30-odd occasions with these kind of Airbuses. And the thing is, apparently it's very difficult during maintenance to spot whether or not these covers are actually open. Do you buy that argument?
SCHIAVO: Well, no, I don't. It is difficult for the pilot to spot them on their walk-around. Remember, on the first fly of the day, the pilots have to do a walk-around and look for problems. It's very difficult, because you have to literally get down on the ground, hands and knees of your stomach, and look up under there.
But in maintenance, you have checklists, and you are supposed to check them. And by the way, Airbus had issued a warning saying you've got to make sure to check these cowling doors.
I think probably the investigation will show that people were interrupted and they ran off to do something else and didn't finish their paperwork and didn't finish their job. Someone else probably closed the books.
DOS SANTOS: Well, let's talk about those investigations, because it seems as though the British authorities are taking one line and the US authorities are saying no, it was actually far more serious than the Brits are laying on. Where do you think the truth lies at the moment?
SCHIAVO: Well, like in anything, probably between the two. It was very, very serious, and I think the final British report will say that. The AAIB will say how serious this was, because there was a lot of damage to this plane, and it could have been catastrophic.
But both engines were not out. You can see that from some of the eyewitness video, you can see it from -- one has very good sound on it, you can hear that one -- at least one engine's running normally.
Someone managed to capture exactly when the right engine, starboard engine, had the fire and probably flamed out. And the earwitnesses are important, too, so I think the AAIB is correct, the left engine was still operating normally, because they couldn't have landed in the way that they did if they had no power. So, I think the AAIB is technically correct, but it was very, very serious.
DOS SANTOS: Among the main maintenance issues, where would you rate this? Would you say that generally there's a problem with maintenance in general that we should be a little bit more stringent about certain parts of the aircraft? Where would you rate this on a scale of one to ten?
SCHIAVO: Oh, this is a ten for a couple reasons. One, this is not a mystery. This is not an unknown, and for maintenance to be this careless. This is a problem that could be solved by simply people doing their jobs. And so, I put it at the most -- very serious, at the highest level of problems.
It's when you have a mystery problem or a problem goes wrong on the plane and you can't figure out what's going on, then you can kind of understand how they could miss it. But this is number ten. Lives could have been lost because maintenance failed to shut the door.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
DOS SANTOS: In 2003, Turkey announced plans to remove a number of zeros from its lira bank notes. That was following years of rampant inflation. So, our question to you this evening is how many zeros did they actually remove? Was it A, two zeros? B, four zeros? Or C, six zeros? We'll have the answer for you later on in the program.
Speaking of currencies, the US dollar is up against the British pound and the euro yet again. It's fallen flat, though, against the Japanese yen. We'll be back in a moment's time.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
DOS SANTOS: Hello and welcome back. I'm Nina dos Santos. These are the news headlines this hour.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DOS SANTOS (voice-over): Family members have identified a Michigan woman as one of three Westerners reportedly killed in an ambush in Syria. Syrian television has reported that the three were fighting alongside rebels and were found with weapons in their possession. Well, the report said that regime forces ambushed the Westerners' car in Idlib province.
A court in Istanbul has ordered a halt to the construction in a park close to the city's Taksim Square after clashes between protesters and riot police escalated. Well, demonstrators have gathered to oppose plans to raze the park and replace it instead with a shopping center. The semi- official news agency Anadolu has said that a district court will now hear the case against those plans to rebuild.
Unemployment in the Eurozone has reached a new record high. The jobless rate now stands at 12.2 percent with almost one in four young people without work. The European Council president Herman Van Rompuy has said that youth unemployment will be top priority at the new next E.U. summit meeting when it takes place.
Football teams could be deducted points or even relegated under new antiracism rules passed by FIFA. Members of football's governing body voted 99 percent in favor of tougher sanctions. Players or officials found to have used racial abusive language or other forms of racial abuse will now face a minimum five-match ban.
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DOS SANTOS: It's been a tough week for markets stateside amid concerns that the Federal Reserve may eventually stop the monetary stimulus that we've seen. And as you can see on this final trading session of the week, that is reflective of the Dow Jones industrial average. It's currently trading down just shy of 50 points at the moment.
European stock markets also closed on a lower note. The Eurozone unemployment numbers, as you'd expect, dampen the mood for these markets.
Alongside weak retail figures, especially coming out of what's supposed to be this region's strongest economy, Germany, well, that in turn squashed hopes that domestic demand will be a driver of growth for what is Europe's largest economy and the one that everybody is expecting may help its troubled neighbors out.
Economic austerity has hit the French president's wine cellar. The Elysee Palace is now selling 1,200 bottles of wine at an auction. The money raised will be used to replenish the presidential cellar with some less expensive vintages. And anything leftover will be put into the state budget. Jim Bittermann has more from Paris.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JIM BITTERMANN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Few people on the planet know how to mix diplomacy, a state dinner and a fine wine the way the French do. So you can imagine the raised eyebrows and curiosity when the presidential palace here announced it was opening up its cellar and selling off a tenth of its seldom-seen private stash.
Hundreds turned out for the first of two days of auctioning, paying as much as four times the opening price for the right to own one of the president's collection.
In a special climate controlled cave where the wine was kept before going on sale, the expert for the auction house say the bottles on the block do indeed include some rare vintages.
Latour 1961. What would that go for?
JEAN CARLOS CASAS, WINE EXPERT: Well, for us, this is worth about 2,200 euros. Probably will be more expensive than that because of the rarity.
BITTERMANN: All right. What have we got here?
But the experts say most of the wines on auction could be found on the market elsewhere. In fact, the offering price on some was as low as 15 euros a bottle. Yet what makes these special, that is to say expensive, is that little sticker which verifies they came from the president's stock.
So will the president miss any of these?
CASAS: Absolutely not. And also you have to say economic times (inaudible), I don't think the president of the republic is going to be drinking very expensive wine.
BITTERMANN: Indeed, the wine that is sold is likely to replaced by less prestigious wines from younger, new producers.
After the round of bidding Thursday night, the auctioneers were more than pleased, having lowered the hammer on nearly 300,000 euros of sales, a tiny bit of income to help the government's dismal financial picture. And a fair amount of it came from Chinese bidders, including Fan Dongxing, who wasn't really sure how much he'd spent on presidential wine.
FAN DONGXING, WINE IMPORTER: We don't know. Sorry, we don't know. I haven't counted.
BITTERMANN: Jim Bittermann, CNN, Paris.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
DOS SANTOS: Well, still to come, what hope is there for young Greeks struggling to find work? We'll ask the woman who brought the Olympics to Athens after this.
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(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
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DOS SANTOS (voice-over): Time now to answer tonight's "Currency Conundrum" for you out there. Earlier in the show, I asked you how many viewers were removed from the Turkish lira banknotes just a few years ago. And the answer is C. It was six zeros. The revaluation agreed in 2003 led to the creation of the new lira following years of inflation.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
DOS SANTOS: Let's turn our attention away from Turkey now and toward its neighbor, Greece, because it has of course the highest rate of youth unemployment anywhere in the Eurozone these days. Almost two-thirds of people aged under 25 are currently out of work. (Inaudible) jobless crisis currently engulfing this country. Let's go over to Gianna Angelopoulos who joins us now live from New York.
And I should point out Gianna was also the president of the 2004 Athens Olympics Organizing Committee, which means that she was instrumental in bringing the Olympic Games to Athens. And she's just published a new book on that.
Great to have you on the show, Gianna. First of all, tell us about your book and also what you've been telling people about your experience bringing the Olympics to Athens.
GIANNA ANGELOPOULOS, ATHENS OLYMPICS ORGANIZER AND AUTHOR: In my Greek drama, in a way, I introduce -- I reintroduce Greece, a different Greece than the Greece of crisis, because I witness a different Greece with a (inaudible) attitude who cut red tape and bureaucracy and delivered on time and under budget. And that's why I'm doing that.
DOS SANTOS: For those of us who covered the Athens Olympics or at least followed it, you were the face of the Athens Olympics. I distinctly remember that myself. But the thing is Greece did deliver, but now is it paying the price?
ANGELOPOULOS: No, I don't agree with that. The Greece that's left is more than more than 400 million and the Olympics expenses were just 6.5 billion. And the thing is that most of them that were returned, like tax revenues, like tickets revenues, like TV rights, like marketing revenues and tourism, of course.
(CROSSTALK)
DOS SANTOS: Let me stop you there, though.
Do you think that people are using running tracks, football fields these days when they can't find a job?
ANGELOPOULOS: Sorry, can you repeat again?
DOS SANTOS: Do you think that people are interested in using the facilities, the Olympic facilities, the legacy of the Athens Olympic Games when realistically all they're trying to do is find a job, presumably these people aren't on the running track everyday because they're in the unemployment lines instead.
ANGELOPOULOS: The thing is that Olympics, as you know, because you covered the London Olympics as well, they had a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to add infrastructure projects. And all these projects, they're used after the Olympics.
As for the facilities, ask the London authorities. Ask Beijing authorities, Sydney and other authorities why they did include them in citizens' life after the Olympics because that's the thing that you have. When you build for the Olympics, you have to have a vision beyond the Olympics.
DOS SANTOS: So what should Greece's vision be on the Olympics be?
ANGELOPOULOS: Greece wanted to host the Olympics. We want them by merit and not by right. And it was once-in-a-life opportunity to show that we can build a model country, a can-do country, a delivering country. Show me another city who delivered the Olympics in four years instead of seven, because of lack of leadership we lost the first three years. And we've done it.
DOS SANTOS: Does it not depress you, though, that years on, that's not what Greece is going to be remembered for? Greece is going to be remembered for the protests on the streets of Athens, for having 24 percent unemployment rate, for having more than 50-60 of young people in the jobless lines. Greece won't be remembered for the Olympic Games. It'll be remembered for the Eurozone crisis.
ANGELOPOULOS: It bleeds my heart to see how Greeks save today. They sacrifice their salaries and pensions that they sold their houses and they don't have anybody to explain why and when it will end.
DOS SANTOS: So what do you think the solution is? You're in New York, presumably you're going back to Athens. People like you will be lobbying for a new Greece, a new era in Greece. When do you think Greece is going to turn the corner?
ANGELOPOULOS: When Greeks, they will decide that they can find their own role and their own power to handle the future. This is what they've done it once and I believe they can do that again.
DOS SANTOS: OK. Gianna Angelopoulos, thank you so much for joining us from New York there, who, of course was instrumental in bringing the Olympic Games to Athens those years ago.
Now still unsettled weather for Europe, for the start of the weekend, I'm afraid to say, for those of us like me who are based in Europe. Meteorologist Karen Maginnis is here to tell us all from the CNN International News Center.
Hi there, Karen.
KAREN MAGINNIS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Hi, Nina, and yes, it does look like it is going to remain very unsettled, as we have a stubborn area of low pressure. It just is kind of filtering around in the central sections of the continent. As a result, some showers, some thunderstorms and a lot of that over the last 24 hours, mostly into Germany as well as into France and northern sections of Italy.
But pretty much kind of widespread across the continent. Look at some of these rainfall totals that you can see. We saw generally speaking between 25 and just over 50 millimeters of rainfall from France into Switzerland as well as into Germany.
So what does the weekend hold? A chance for severe weather still stretching from Poland, extending on over towards Germany. We can expect some large hail as well as some gusty winds and the possibility of an isolated tornado. But also into a good portion of the eastern European continent, showers and thunderstorms are possible there.
Now you can see a cow in a field, and the field looks pretty much swollen with all that water that has materialized over the last several days. Well, here's what I was talking about, that area of low pressure, just going to shift and just kind of wrap around itself out ahead of it. That's what we're expecting the possibility of severe weather. From Germany extending all the way down into Greece.
Here's what the latest radar imagery shows us over the last 12 hours or so, some really big storms have been moving into Germany. And I saw some reports just recently out of Munich, saying that there was a thunderstorm in that vicinity.
Well, if you are traveling it's -- looks like temperature wise, most areas are going to be at or maybe just a little bit below normal. Madrid, temperatures just a few degrees off. But if you are going in the air, traveling on Saturday, Munich is one of those airports, one of those regions where you might expect some fairly lengthy delays.
And then going into Saturday afternoon, Paris might see some extended delays between 30 minutes and 45 minutes as thanks to maybe some showers or some storms possibly moving into that region.
But the rest of the delays that we're expecting, Budapest, also into Paris and Glasgow and London, those will be minor delays, 15-30 minutes, Nina. Have a good weekend.
DOS SANTOS: Well, that's good news for those traveling over the weekend. You, too, Karen Maginnis, thanks ever so much for that.
And have a great weekend to our viewers. That's it for QUEST MEANS BUSINESS. MARKETPLACE AFRICA continues on CNN.
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ROBYN CURNOW, CNN HOST: I'm Robyn Curnow and you're watching MARKETPLACE AFRICA. Now the continent has the potential to create a $3 trillion food market by 2030, and the key, linking farmers to consumers in urban areas like here in Pretoria. Now one initiative has taken that advice seriously. And for that, we travel south to Johannesburg.
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THABANG MONAMETSI (PH): Yes, no, this going to be a good day.
CURNOW (voice-over): A Friday commute for Thabang Monametsi (ph) and his three sons.
MONAMETSI (PH): OK. Just jump in.
CURNOW (voice-over): Like most journeys through the city, there's always a chance to get stuck in traffic. Monametsi (ph) isn't fazed.
MONAMETSI (PH): From job (inaudible) plus-minus about 11 case. Here we are.
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MITCH VAN DEN BOS (PH): Yes. Welcome to the farm.
MONAMETSI (PH): One needs to always make sure that your investments are looking after all.
The way back to me, the dream was not there. I never thought I'll be able to be in a farm, looking after my cattle. But it's happening now.
You know then, when I was thinking about farming, the first thing was issues of how one is to acquire (inaudible). It's expensive, buying cattle. Obviously there is -- that's all a lot of money.
CURNOW (voice-over): And a business man from Johannesburg is now a part-time farmer.
MONAMETSI (PH): Ah, that's good.
VAN DEN BOS (PH): OK. What's the weight?
MONAMETSI (PH): Three-eight-nine.
VAN DEN BOS (PH): Three 89, OK. CURNOW (voice-over): He met Mitch Van Den Bos (ph) about three years ago and decided to invest.
VAN DEN BOS (PH): Investors must just (inaudible) a year. Then you double your capital investment in that respect.
We've got lawyers, doctors, attorneys; we've got entrepreneurs, people from all walks of life that are invested here.
CURNOW (voice-over): Like Monametsi, Van Den Bos (ph) came from a corporate background. But a childhood love of farming brought him back.
VAN DEN BOS (PH): (Inaudible) I wouldn't be here, because that board room put me where I am today. The transition from the board room to the farm. I think the board room taught me a lot of discipline and if you don't have discipline on a farm and routine, you're not going to farm successfully.
The land here, we got an acreage; we've got over 114 acreage. We've got just over 270 head of cattle here, which comprises of 27 investors that are actively involved with the herds here.
CURNOW (voice-over): (Inaudible) says he wants to give other people a chance.
VAN DEN BOS (PH): I don't want to sit in the cities anymore. They want to come the weekend; they want to get a lifestyle. And we're selling them not only a cow. We're selling them a lifestyle. They come here with their kids. They can come picnic on the weekends. They can see their cows.
CURNOW (voice-over): There's no denying agriculture is tough business. After his three years Thabang (ph) has two cows on Van Den Bos' farm far away from his dream of buying his own farm.
But Van Den Bos says if you're interested in the long term, the potential is there.
VAN DEN BOS (PH): We had the I.T. bubble. And then we got the health bubble. The next one is the food shortage. Food security, South Africa can be a breadbasket of Africa and the rest of the world.
CURNOW (voice-over): The continent has 60 percent of the world's uncultivated land, according to the World Bank. And putting that land to use is up to African farmers like Monametsi and Van Den Bos.
VAN DEN BOS (PH): But it with small, little projects like this now. Food security is definitely job security in the long run for South Africa.
CURNOW (voice-over): The ultimate investment, time, money and passion.
MONAMETSI (PH): Farming is probably going to be the business in future, maybe there might be interest at -- in the business, the -- well, my hope is that I'll grow and definitely take over from me. But I cannot push them into that. That's up to them and now we've got sports and other things. But, yes, my hope is that they take over when I'm gone.
VAN DEN BOS (PH): Put a nice coating.
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CURNOW (voice-over): And for city farmers like Thabang, a future growth opportunity (inaudible).
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CURNOW: Up next, from tapping agriculture's true potential to making sure Africa's largest economy doesn't stumble, I speak to Trevor Manuel (ph), South Africa's planning minister, in this week's "Face Time" interview.
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CURNOW: Welcome back. Now from heading up the finance ministry to the national planning commission, Trevor Manuel's focus is firmly on the future, which is an uncertain place here in South Africa because Africa's largest and most dominant economy is slowly losing ground to Nigeria, which is why Manuel says some tough choices need to be made.
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TREVOR MANUEL, SOUTH AFRICAN PLANNING MINISTER: It's interesting to see what's happening across the continent. It's interesting to talk to people and understand the development in countries.
And I think it's not a bad place to, on the one hand, be encouraged by the speed of development across the African continent and, secondly, to understand that the perch on which we sit as South Africans is not that firm.
But other countries are moving, understanding what the nature of the challenge is. And beckoning us to move quickly, failing which we're going to lose this wonderful opportunity we have as Africa's leading economy.
CURNOW: Because the (inaudible) come out recently, saying that South Africa doesn't have more inclusive growth. There is risk of social instability. I mean, this is potentially a political powder keg.
MANUEL: You know, it's one of those points about which there's no disagreement. Whether you ask (inaudible), the general secretary of Kusathu (ph), who's --
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MANUEL: -- trade union umbrellas spoken about these rings of fire, trying to describe the young people who are not in employment, educational training or you are David Lipton (ph), deputy managing director of the IMF. There is no disagreement on this issue. The key challenge for us is to understand it and do something.
CURNOW: And how to fix it.
MANUEL: We have to fix it --
CURNOW: And the political will to do that.
MANUEL: That's what we're staring in the face. It's about making the choice. And it's not just going to be easy. There are going to be some pretty tough things that have to be done, but they must be done if we understand the importance of transforming this country on a permanent basis.
CURNOW: President Zuma's often been accused of a man who doesn't follow through on his promises in the sense that this is some hard decisions that need to be taken.
Do you think he's capable of doing it and making these decisions during his second term?
MANUEL: I think it's very important that we focus on the president, but at the same time, deemphasize the big man notion. I think all of us, as members of the executive have a role to play. We made the president look good. He makes us look good.
But I think it's also important to understand that in some sectors where trading, for instance, hang back. It's very, very difficult. You cannot transform a country like ours if you are up against public sector workers who see themselves in opposition to democracy.
There isn't a single country that has been able to take on the challenge of deep democratization as we must without having public sector workers as frontline developmental agents in this regard. And this, I think, is where the battle lies. And so trading and leaders can't be Pontius Pilate. They can't wash their hands of the responsibility. They must join in the struggle to ensure that their members are involved in this process.
CURNOW: (Inaudible) uncomfortable relationship because government has partners. DNC has partnered with the trade unions. Do you see that splintering in the years ahead?
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MANUEL: I don't see it --
CURNOW: -- cleavage?
MANUEL: I don't see a cleavage. I don't see it splintering.
I think that we must continue to appeal to the better sense of trade unions because they cannot engage in society by merely focusing on an industrial relations environment because you know, all of the services to the poor, all of the issues that deal with the inequalities that confront people in their everyday lives are services delivered by organized workers, public sector workers.
And so the trade unions must actually be with us, committed to the same value system, committed to democracy and to raising living standards of people.
CURNOW: Some Western governments, even one or two African governments, have said that their concern, in terms of their foreign policy towards South Africa, is that South Africa has to succeed.
With that in mind, the caveat that there's a potential that this democratic experiment is perhaps at risk, I mean, is that overstating it?
MANUEL: I do think we overstating the problem. You know, there are various measures of succeed. You yourself would recognize that we have been pretty successful. But I think they are challenges. And as some analyst put it to me, we were doing very well for a period when the rest of the world was kind of lagging.
Now there's much stronger competition from the rest of the world. And we must not be seen to be lagging. It's like the 100-meter sprint. You know, 40 years ago, you could do with your 9.9 seconds and be good; 9.9 seconds wouldn't get you into the race right now.
Usain Bolt is not going to think about you at 9.9; the world has moved on. And I think, in a similar way, we as South Africa must understand that we will drive the changes by better education, better public services overall, but also continuing to invest in R&D and ensure that we provide the intellectual feedstock for our industrial base.
CURNOW: (Inaudible), thank you.
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CURNOW: From me, Robyn Curnow, see you again next week.
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