this is bbc world news. our top story. united states president, donald trump, has put north korea back on the list of state—sponsors of terrorism. mr trump said putting north korea back on the list would trigger further large sanctions. the us secretary of state says he still hopes for a diplomatic solution to the crisis. as robert mugabe's party prepares to start impeachment proceedings against him, zimbabwe's military says there has been ‘encouraging' contact between mugabe and his former vice—president. argentina says its missing submarine — which has 44 crew on board — had reported a mechanical breakdown. a navy spokesman says sounds picked up by two search vessels earlier did not come from the submarine. they had been detected on the route it would have taken. the vessel disappeared last wednesday. that's all from me for now. stay with bbc news. and the top story here in the uk. members of the cabinet are understood to have broadly agreed that the government should increase the money given to the eu in the so—called "brexit divorce offer". now on bbc news all the latest

business news live from singapore. the us government filed a suit to block at and ts massive takeover. the future looks uncertain for a multi million dollar infrastructure collaboration. good morning, asia. hello, world. it's tuesday. glad you could join us for another exciting addition of asia business report. i am a rico hizon and we kick off the programme with some breaking news from america and the department ofjustice has filed a suit to block a megamerger

between at&t and time warner. over one year ago, at&t offered a billion dollars to take over time warner. that would create a giant with vast content and services. at&t ditto press c0 nfe re nce content and services. at&t ditto press conference and said the company is prepared to go to trial as soon as possible. —— at&tjust held a press conference. we are surprised to be here. we entered this deal with decades of clear legal precedent demonstrating how this merger would alternately be evaluated. we and this deal and the best legal minds in the country agreed it would be a proved and said these companies don't even need to compete with each other. reporters in new york explains the background. at the time the deal was announced, we we re at the time the deal was announced, we were in the midst of a presidential election. and then candidate donald trump that if he

became president he would try and block that deal. fast forward to now. in fact, block that deal. fast forward to now. infact, earlierthis block that deal. fast forward to now. in fact, earlier this month, we heard the department ofjustice had said to at&t, look, if you want this deal to come through without any regulatory pushback, you are going to have to sign off and perhaps sell off some of the assets, including cnn. at&t rejected that deal and once they did, this decision became a lot more expected. the fact that the department ofjustice is going to file a lawsuit to try and block this. in other business news, china's e—commerce giant alibaba is pushing into bricks and mortar retail. it is buying into one of the largest market operated which operates more than 400 stores across the mainland. the purchase gives alibaba a leg up in the lucrative grocery sector.

associates from china and pakistan are meeting today to discuss closer economic relations. the two have been allies since 1981 when pakistan was one of the first nations to recognise the people's republic of china. trade between the two sides and amounts to almost 13 billion us dollars annually and most of that is chinese exporter to pakistan. the latter has also been roped into china's ambitious one road initiatives which sees china investing up to 55 billion us dollars over the next five years but china has paid towards a hydroelectric dam has —— and it has been reportedly rejected by pakistan. it is facing challenges. the issue is a little more complicated. we feel that the situation is a lot more nuanced than that. number one. if you look at the nature of the project, hydropower is also

relatively controversial. there is the impact on local populations, local environment, national security. all of this is reason enough to derail the project in other countries before. more importantly, this product is specifically occurring on a piece of disputed territory between pakistan and india, namely kashmir. the project had previously failed to secure financing from the world bank and asian development bank and while that was not a block of china, pakistan likely rejected the financing, we think, due to indian and us pressure and came out by saying we will you lash refinance the project. another country counting on china's support is bit zimbabwe which seems to be in the headlines from its ongoing political crisis. joining us now is our business reporter matt morrison. both countries over the decades have had a steadfast relationship. stead fast, heartfelt, going all the way back to zimbabwe's

is independent. they have been side—by—side. china is taking a long—term view of this. i spoke to a legal person in china and that he said china's policy is to wait it out. they have a lot of money involved, including investments. they will start there and in between 2012 and 2013, they invested in 128 projects. this trend is continuing during a president between xi jinping in 2015. $4 billion of deals we re jinping in 2015. $4 billion of deals were signed and just this year, a chinese company investing in a mess of steelmaker in zimbabwe. china is zimbabwe's of steelmaker in zimbabwe. china is zimba bwe's fourth largest of steelmaker in zimbabwe. china is zimbabwe's fourth largest trading partner and they put all of this together and call in all weather friends, rain or shine. there are some clouds on the horizon in zimbabwe that china is whether when the storm. matt, from what you just said, it sounds like china dominates and controls of the chinese economy.

it is china being a very big or above. we are shifting our attention to saudi arabia and investors around the world are still watching nervously to see what will happen next. an anticorru ption nervously to see what will happen next. an anticorruption crackdown has seen more than 200 people put in detention inside rear‘s luxury hotels including officials. —— riyadh. we all wondered whether the shakedown rattled riyadh. we all wondered whether the sha kedown rattled the riyadh. we all wondered whether the shakedown rattled the nerves of investors. the public prosecutor is in charge. we will wait to see this investigation that will happen. observers have described this crackdown as a seismic shock. one president is in saudi history, you must have got nervous phone calls from investors. they do come here, the majority of investors are

saying, look, this is the kind of environment we like to see and most of them because they have invested here, they know that going forward is what really matters. it is dealing with a more transparent institutional work that really matters to them. there is a sense, there is talk of hundreds of billions of dollars that could be taken in assets that are frozen in cases you have done. if that also pa rt cases you have done. if that also part of it, that you need this money? and this is the way you have decided to get it? i like to talk about russian but only in financial terms will stop it is the misuse of authority ——i like to talk about corruption corruption. it is a writ is, negligence, it is way beyond the sounds of amounts that people are talking about. i cannot comment on these amounts. we wait on the investigation to finish and i am confident that the leadership will meet the right protocol. that was saudi arabia's new economy

minister. before we go, when you go toa minister. before we go, when you go to a country and you don't speak the language? how well does the up work that can do the translation for you? these are the google pixel buds. perfectly ordinary wireless bluetooth headphones. not particularly elegant, i have to say. they have got an amazing trick. they are going to translate 40 different languages straight into your evils to help me speak hindi. what happens if the google translate app opens on the vote and will listen to somebody speaking. there are lots of people speaking. there are lots of people speaking all sorts of different land which is around the bbc so let it is a try. hi, amir. how did west ham two on the weekend? you answer there. it says tomorrow was a bad

day for us. what does it mean by that? it is not a yet. it is supposed to say yesterday was a bad day. let's see how it copes with chinese. hi, what is the thing you like best about living in london? speaks chinese. what it set back to me is, "my favourite goes to london's museums and chinatown." i kind of get the message, it is the sort of right, isn't it? speaks polish. poorly run trains in the subway. that sums it up. the best food i have ever eaten for

chicken. it is still struggling, isn't it? swahili is not its strong point. very interesting. in the markets as we pull up the asian boards, we are currently in positive territory early tuesday trading. the nikkei 225 is gaining 14%. the hung sang is up 225 is gaining 14%. the hung sang is up by 225 is gaining 14%. the hung sang is up bya 225 is gaining 14%. the hung sang is up by a fraction. the chancellor of the exchequer philip hammond will deliver his budget on wednesday — and one of the main challenges he's set himself is to boost britain's productivity. simonjack reports. the first industrial revolution saw the amount businesses could produce rocket, using machines that did the work of thousands. it was a leap in productivity that

in recent years has slowed to a crawl, and that matters. if you can increase productivity, you can pay workers more, they feel better off, and crucially they pay more tax. otherwise none of those good things happen which is why the biggest challenge for the chancellor this week is to persuade businesses to invest in the machines and the skills of the future. in order to improve it, the government outlined plans today to spend £2.3 billion on research and development, with a further £1.7 billion to improve links between cities, hoping improved connectivity will drive greater productivity. a new revolution is at hand, being driven by technology companies like google, who today opened a digital garage in manchester, a drop—in centre for those looking for digital skills. when you look at economies that are online, relative to those who are not, there is productivity boost to the businesses. there is a substantial untapped opportunity to go online. —— when you look at economies that are online, relative to those

who are not, there is productivity boost to the businesses. there is a substantial untapped opportunity to go online. still the majority of commerce and advertising is not online and yet the reach you can have when you're online is quite profound. that is where we are focused. retraining workers costs government money, money they get from tax, tax that google has been accused of legitimately avoiding. the governments make the rules and we apply those rules, and that's what we are doing. we are very much of the view that being responsible citizens within everyjurisdiction is the way we conduct ourselves. not only is the uk less productive than germany, france and italy, the north of england is less productive than the south, a gap that needs closing according to the mayor of greater manchester. i think the single biggest thing holding the north of england back and giving us a productivity challenge is our transport infrastructure or the poor quality of it because we haven't had

the investment over decades in road and rail and consequently we see more and more congestion, people arriving late for work. this is a real problem. these investments in new technology are welcome but won't spare the chancellor a productivity downgrade by the budget watchdog on wednesday that will tighten the squeeze on the public finances even further. simonjack, bbc news, manchester. full coverage of the budget coming up full coverage of the budget coming up next week. keep in touch. now it is time for sport today. see you soon. hello, i'm nick marshall—mccormack and this is sport today. this is the bbc sport centre. coming up on this programme: ready to make a splash down under.

england cool their feet before the ashes first test. brighton and stoke share the points in a tight monday night premier league contest. tributes from around the world for former wimbledon champion jana novotna who has died aged 49. hi there. wherever you are around the world, welcome to sport today. it's about time we got a bit more fuel for the fire, some stoking of the ashes. england batsmanjames vince says australia need to back up their chat two days out from the ashes first test. earlier aussie paceman josh hazlewood spoke of opening the "scars" from the 2013—14 whitewash of england. our sports correspondent andy swiss watched the teams train at the hostile ground often knicknamed the ‘gabbatoir‘. welcome to the gabba,