What next for China's giant tech companies? Ed Butler speaks to China watcher Richard McGregor at the Lowy Institute in Sydney about why China's leaders have clipped the wings of Jack Ma, the country's most famous business leader and founder of the tech giant Alibaba. Chinese tech sector analyst Rui Ma argues that closer regulation of China's giant tech companies will be good for competition, while Rebecca Fannin, author of Tech Titans of China, worries about the impact on innovation. Eswar Pras...
May 06, 2021•18 min•Transcript available on Metacast The car industry is preparing to go fully electric sooner than you might imagine - and not just because of the climate crisis. Justin Rowlatt speaks to Bjorn Annwall, head of Volvo Cars in Europe, about why his company is one of a string of major carmakers to rush out plans in recent months to electrify their business. They intend to stop selling internal combustion engine cars as soon as 2030. What's driving it is the rapid improvement and collapsing cost of the batteries at their heart, accord...
May 05, 2021•18 min•Transcript available on Metacast Millions of Indians risk being knocked back into poverty by the current explosion in coronavirus infections. Rahul Tandon hears from Radhika, who abruptly lost her job in Mumbai when India went into lockdown last year, and has since struggled with thoughts of suicide. Newspaper columnist Sandip Roy discusses how Covid threatens to strip many self-identifying middle class of their sense of comfort and security. Meanwhile, many women who run their own businesses face ruin, according Renu Shah, who...
May 04, 2021•18 min•Transcript available on Metacast It could be the biggest shake-up of corporate taxation in history. But can President Biden's push for a minimum global rate succeed? He wants multinational companies to pay a rate of at least 21%. The proposal is likely to face opposition from smaller economies. Tech consultant Pamela Newenham explains how Ireland's low tax regime has helped to transform the country's capital. Others say the proposal doesn't go far enough. We hear why from Nobel prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz. We also h...
May 03, 2021•18 min•Transcript available on Metacast A “once in a generation investment” is what Joe Biden offered the American people this week. He presented his American Jobs plan and American Families Plan to Congress to mark his first 100 days in office. Can he deliver? Also, will business travel resume once the pandemic has ended? Airlines and hotels are dependent on business travel - but now that so many people have adapted to virtual meetings, will frequent fliers ever want to get back to the departure lounges? And why do cities change thei...
May 01, 2021•50 min•Transcript available on Metacast More men have considered cosmetic treatments during the pandemic. Has spending more time at home staring at ourselves in video conferencing made us more worried about our appearance, and have the pressures of ageism in the workplace also had an impact. Ed Butler speaks to psychologist Helena Lewis Smith, and Past President of the American Association of Plastic Surgeons Dr Alan Matarasso about just what’s motivating men to make more changes. Plus, he tries a treatment for himself. (PHOTO: Ed But...
Apr 30, 2021•18 min•Transcript available on Metacast The US president announces a massive spending plan for the US economy, with trillions of dollars earmarked for jobs and infrastructure. But is it too ambitious for Republicans to support? Ed Butler speaks to Ryan Heath, senior editor at Politico, and Gordon Hanson, professor of urban policy at Harvard Kennedy School. Hundreds of billions of dollars are also planned for the US's creaking healthcare system. Carer Sharon Tosten and democrat Debbie Dingell explain why it's needed. (Photo: US Preside...
Apr 29, 2021•18 min•Transcript available on Metacast What’s in a name? It’s something that Shakespeare’s Juliet pondered. But what’s in the name of a city? And what are the economic and social costs for a city which opts to change it’s name? Lots have done so down the years – New Amsterdam became New York City and Istanbul became Contantinople. Last year, the residents of Asbestos in Canada choose a new name for their city. And back in February, the South African city of Port Elizabeth became Gqeberha. Matthew Davies speaks to Christian Martin an ...
Apr 28, 2021•17 min•Transcript available on Metacast Why fly when you can videoconference? After a year of Covid lockdowns, that's the question many business executives are asking themselves. Manuela Saragosa speaks to one frequent flyer, Juliette Kayyem, who says that after a year of being grounded, she now thinks more about time with her kids, not to mention the carbon footprint of all her air miles. And she's not the only one - business travel consultant Scott Gillespie says corporate travel managers across the planet are now using the opportun...
Apr 27, 2021•18 min•Transcript available on Metacast How are small island tourist destinations like the Caribbean island state of Antigua and Barbuda coping with the shutdown of global travel? Manuela Saragosa speaks to the Antiguan Minister of Tourism Charles Fernandez about the innovative steps his country took to continue welcoming holidaymakers from North America and Europe last year, while keeping them safely contained within their own beachside bubbles. The pandemic has been devastating for the travel industry more generally, according to He...
Apr 26, 2021•18 min•Transcript available on Metacast As India battles a surge in Covid cases and hospital beds become scarce, Business Weekly hears how social media is helping connect patients with medical help. Several areas of the country have gone back into lockdown. We get reaction from businesses. In Denmark, the authorities have introduced a Corona Pass, which lets the vaccinated attend various events. Our reporter looks at how well it’s working. We look at the online advertising industry as several big companies scale back their digital mar...
Apr 24, 2021•50 min•Transcript available on Metacast Filmmaker Adam Curtis questions the value of Big Data in society. In his latest BBC series, 'Can't Get You Out Of My Head', Curtis explores "Love, power, money, ghosts of empire, conspiracies, artificial intelligence – and You." Curtis spoke to Business Daily's Ed Butler about how the rise of artificial intelligence, Big Data and targeted advertising have come to shape the way we see our world and caused us to feel helpless within it. He also explains that the psychological experiments which und...
Apr 23, 2021•17 min•Transcript available on Metacast Large companies have slashed their digital marketing budget. Airbnb and Procter & Gamble made such a cut in recent years, after coming to believe the cost doesn’t necessarily translate to increased sales. They follow in the footsteps of eBay who, in 2013, announced it would cease paying for ad sponsorship on Google. Economics professor Steve Tadelis, who led eBay’s research into this, explains how they came to conclude advertising wasn’t worth it. Also in the programme, brand safety advocate...
Apr 22, 2021•17 min•Transcript available on Metacast President Biden hosts a virtual summit this week as the US seeks global climate action. But can he convince the rest of the world to go further and faster on cutting carbon emissions when the country has been out of the game for the past four years? Justin Rowlatt asks former US climate envoy Todd Stern and Isabel Hilton, founder of China dialogue. And, in a world where some countries are rolling back protections, can consensus still be found? We hear from the heart of the Brazilian rainforest, ...
Apr 21, 2021•18 min•Transcript available on Metacast In 2016 when producer Georgia first met him, Demille was a cycle courier in his early twenties, taking his company to a tribunal over better working conditions. He was fired-up, political, and excited about a case he would go on to win. For the past five years, Georgia and Demille have been meeting and recording. Demille’s story is one of being young and trying to stay afloat in the gig economy; of resilience and hope and trying to find control over his city and life.
Apr 20, 2021•18 min•Transcript available on Metacast Every day 55 million meetings take place in the United States. But just how effective are they at actually getting stuff done? British comedian David Mitchell has been investigating how the meeting evolved and the "meeting-isation" of society. (Picture: a man boring colleagues during a meeting. Credit: Getty Images.)
Apr 19, 2021•18 min•Transcript available on Metacast The US is making overtures to China about working together to save the planet. On Business Weekly, we hear what concessions each side would like the other to make as they try to put aside their diplomatic differences for the sake of the environment. We also hear from climate activist Greta Thunberg, who tells us what her vision for the future is and what she’d like to see politicians doing. As the cargo ship Ever Given remains in the Suez Canal - this time impounded by the Egyptian authorities -...
Apr 17, 2021•50 min•Transcript available on Metacast A hybrid model mixing home working with office time is being favoured by major companies. But critics worry it will create divisions in the workplace. Small business owner and columnist Gene Marks explains why managing remote workers presents such a challenge, and Darren Murph from GitLab, a tech firm of 1,300 employees and no office, tells us why having a mix of home and office work could be the worst of both worlds. Economist Nicholas Bloom discusses the risk of discriminating between workers ...
Apr 16, 2021•18 min•Transcript available on Metacast Will the US President continue with an increasingly hostile attitude towards China? Or does economic common sense demand that Washington should back off from Beijing? Ed Butler asks Diana Choyleva of Enodo Economics, and he chairs a debate between David Sacks of the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington DC and Kishore Mahbubani, a distinguished fellow at the National University of Singapore. (Picture: US President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping. Credit: Getty Images.)...
Apr 15, 2021•18 min•Transcript available on Metacast During the Coronavirus pandemic, people have been spending more time at home, and online, than ever before. This has given online scammers a golden opportunity to find new victims. And it’s worked. We’ll hear from Danielle in Illinois, who was caught up in just such a scam and lost thousands of dollars from her savings. And she’s not the only one. Craig Jones, Director of Cyber Crime at Interpol, describes the rise they’ve seen in all types of online scams during the pandemic. But why does lockd...
Apr 14, 2021•18 min•Transcript available on Metacast The world’s most famous climate activist has just turned 18 and is as uncompromising as ever. In an extended interview, Justin Rowlatt asks Greta Thunberg how she intends to continue campaigning, now that she is back in school and living under lockdown at her family home in Stockholm. Before the pandemic, the Swedish environmentalist had spent several months travelling around America in an electric vehicle lent to her by Arnold Schwarzenegger. A TV documentary crew shadowed her as she visited sc...
Apr 13, 2021•18 min•Transcript available on Metacast After becoming the most downloaded non-gaming app earlier this year, Telegram messaging app has amassed half a billion users – a quarter of WhatsApp’s and rising. Owned by the elusive Russian exile Pavel Durov, Telegram has been used to coordinate global protest movements - from Belarus to Iran and Hong Kong. It’s also been accused of tolerating the extremist channels behind ISIS and the Capitol Hill riots. But in its home country, Russia, misogyny appears to be permitted on the platform. Ivana ...
Apr 12, 2021•18 min•Transcript available on Metacast Voters in Greenland have backed a party which opposes a rare earth mining project. On Business Weekly, we ask what this means for the security of the global supply of rare minerals and hear why this project was so controversial. From the ice to the ocean, where the race to extract minerals is on. But environmentalists are concerned that deep sea mining could hurt the world’s oceans, even if they are being mined to help the environment in other ways. You may have heard of the term non-fungible to...
Apr 10, 2021•49 min•Transcript available on Metacast After the Ever Given blocked the Suez Canal last month, we ask: are container ships too big? How much bigger can they get? To answer those questions we speak to Aslak Ross, head of marine standards at the world’s largest container shipping line, Maersk. Jan Hoffman, head of trade and logistics at the UN's Conference on Trade and Development, explains that economies of scale have led to the ships getting bigger and bigger. And Evert Lataire, head of maritime technology at Ghent University, descri...
Apr 09, 2021•18 min•Transcript available on Metacast How rocks on the ocean floor could be key to the transition to electric cars. Justin Rowlatt speaks to Gerard Barron, boss of DeepGreen, a company that wants to gather rocks from the ocean floors rich in the metals essential for making electric car batteries. He tells us why this kind of mining is crucial to transitioning away from fossil fuels. Louisa Casson, senior campaigner with Greenpeace, warns of the environmental devastation this could cause. And zoologist Adrian Glover tells us how mini...
Apr 08, 2021•18 min•Transcript available on Metacast Can technology help eradicate forced labour from global cotton supplies? A confrontation continues to rise between Western powers, global brands, and the Chinese authorities over the use of forced labour and human rights abuse in cotton production in the western region of Xinjiang. Sophie Richardson, China director at Human Rights Watch, explains why transparency from the Chinese authorities over the whole cotton supply chain is unlikely to be forthcoming. With that in mind, some technology comp...
Apr 07, 2021•17 min•Transcript available on Metacast When the world of crypto currencies met with the world of art, they created what's called a non-fungible tokens or NFT. Some say NFTs could redefine what we think of as art while others think it’s just the latest crypto craze that may well end in financial losses and tears. (Picture: Artwork by Jazmine Boykins/ Blacksneakers, courtesy of the artist)
Apr 06, 2021•17 min•Transcript available on Metacast How exposing the truth at work can cost you your career. Theo Leggett speaks to whistleblowers Ian Foxley and Bianca Goodson, both of whom found it impossible to get a new job after exposing wrongdoing at their respective employers. Psychotherapist David Morgan describes the emotional toll on those who choose to expose wrongdoing, and why the majority stay silent. And whistleblower lawyer Mary Inman, partner at the law firm Constantine Cannon, argues that companies need to start seeing whistlebl...
Apr 05, 2021•18 min•Transcript available on Metacast Some of the world’s biggest investment banks have been left exposed as a hedge fund collapsed, leaving multi-billion dollar losses in its wake. Archegos Capital Management was a secretive personal wealth fund - we find out why banks like Goldman Sachs, Credit Suisse and Nomura dealt with it. We hear why a European Union ban on palm oil in biofuel has left both Indonesia and Malaysia upset and as Bangladesh celebrates its 50th birthday we ask whether the textile industry will be able to support t...
Apr 03, 2021•49 min•Transcript available on Metacast In this programme, Elizabeth Hotson looks at the art of demanding good service. From dealing with customer services to having conversations with chatbots, we’ll be giving some practical tips for getting what you want. Whilst some people love making their voices heard, Dr. Robin Kowalski, professor of psychology at Clemson University in South Carolina explains why some people’s personalities make complaining a nightmare. Meanwhile, Sabine Benoit, Professor of Marketing at Surrey Business School l...
Apr 02, 2021•17 min•Transcript available on Metacast 
