you're watching bbc news. our top story: the bbc has spoken to young rohingya girls who've become victims of sexual exploitation as refugees in bangladesh. more than 600,000 rohingya muslims have now fled over the border from myanmar, but some have been forced into the sex industry. pope francis is on a visit to myanmar. he has met the army chief. all eyes are now on how he will address the plight of the rohingya muslims. and this story is trending on bbc.com: news that prince harry and the american actress meghan markle have announced their engagement. no surprise. in an interview with the bbc, the couple spoke of how they knew from early on that they would end up together. congratulations to them. that's all from me for now. stay with bbc news. and the top story here in the uk: two pharmaceutical firms have said they'll invest more than £1 billion in the uk, creating nearly 2,000 jobs.

now on bbc news all the latest business news live from singapore with rico and asia business report. soaring to new heights cormac bitcoin is fast approaching the $10,000 mark. —— heights: bitcoin. and the dreams of turning ho chi minh in two as start—up capital. —— into. glad you could join us asia business report. i am rico hizon. the queen has done it again. even though many have warned it was a asset bubble about to burst, it soaring to new heights. —— it is an

asset bubble. it has climbed to $8,200, and gone further to $9,700. it is now approaching $10,000 us. keepin it is now approaching $10,000 us. keep in mind that in 2010, one bitcoin user famously traded 10,000 bitcoin user famously traded 10,000 bitcoin for two pizzas, which was then roughly $25. if he had those in bitcoin is, he would be a millionaire by now. earlier, i asked cedricjensen from bitspread if it would hit the milestones on.“ cedricjensen from bitspread if it would hit the milestones on. if you look at facebook, where pete market capitalisation is $140 billion, with billions of users all over the world, the bitcoin network is soon to become billions of users. —— the

market. the market capitalisation is only a third of facebook fought bitcoin. if you look at bitcoin against facebook, if you look at the share price, it is based on what? earnings per share? you are talking about valuation. but is there such a thing would be bitcoin?” about valuation. but is there such a thing would be bitcoin? i think bitcoin, the value is basically for e—commerce globally. this is of tremendous value that many people here have not realised is the best way to actually send money, if you want, or token, or value, way to actually send money, if you want, ortoken, orvalue, peerto peen want, ortoken, orvalue, peerto peer. having a website in thailand in asia, orany peer. having a website in thailand in asia, or any country where you can receive from all over the world, for your goods and services, bitcoin, that is phenomenal. but in china, they basically cancelled the trading of bitcoin ‘s. they wanted a more regulated. —— bitcoins. is that

why bitcoin has now surged to heights we have not seen before? because it is being regulated and is 110w because it is being regulated and is now legal? yes. i think the reggie leachis now legal? yes. i think the reggie leach is a good thing. we saw now legal? yes. i think the reggie leach is a good thing. we sanapan recently in june leach is a good thing. we sanapan recently injune introduce a legal bill legalising the payment, or rather it as a meanss of payment. he can now bid used anywhere injapan to pay for goods and services. but now, apart from bitcoin, there are other derivatives. could there be a downside here with more types of crypto currencies in the market?” think we are now seeing the interest in the bitcoin blockchain to increase basically its transaction rate, so the number of transactions you could do her second per minute. this is what i think people are focusing on: improving network on

capacity. that was cedric jensen from bitspread. in bali colour the airports are closed due to ash and smoke from mt agung. so far, only 40,000 have evacuated. 0fficials said more than 400 flights were cancelled on monday. more than 57,000 passengers were affected. 0n how this will affect business and industry, i am joined how this will affect business and industry, iam joined by how this will affect business and industry, i am joined by matt morrison. is it already starting to have an impact? it has. -- mat. travel is down since it started bubbling. an official said gives it that the two bali tourists to

encourage them to come back shoot to the kindness and friendliness in bali. how big is too as a? looking at the numbers, in 2016, nearly 5 million overseas visitors came to the island. australians were the largest group. if you look at that against the population in bali itself, that is only 4.2 million. so there are more tourists than there are residents. the gdp growth there last he was almost six in the quarter, compared to indonesia's 5%. so it is outperforming the rest of the country. —— was almost 6.25%. we will have to see how these cancellations affect the island further, and to put it in perspective, we have seen this before in iceland, wet they had a

$1.7 billion impact on the tourism industry. -- maggie throup. this is not the first time this has happened to the bali economy? if we look at 2002, when we saw the bali bombings. —— where they had. people are scared away and hopefully once these things settle down, tourists will come back. hopefully it will be soon, because brierley needs the tourism dollars. —— maggie throup. look into other news, epic of alphabet is asking a usjudge to other news, epic of alphabet is asking a us judge to temporarily pool b brakes on the upcoming trade secrets trial against uber. the californian —based firm said it was

to look into whether the company withheld information in relation to its case. it is due back in court on the fourth of september. into an armed, southeast asia's fastest growing economy saw an almost 7.5% expansion in the economy. “— almost 7.5% expansion in the economy. —— in the market. this is partly due to the area's young, skilled, and enthusiastic labour force. 0ur asia business correspondence looked at ho chi minh city. a communist country with modern ambitions. this is vietnam in 2017. it has always been an entrepreneurial nation, but this new generation is turning to technology

to broaden their opportunities. take pups worldwide. they early recognised the need for the image content worldwide. as a young girl, this woman except none, but in 2007, vietnam allowed overseas vietnamese people to come work in the country. we had to swim on our own. we are to try to find our own tables and chairs and workspace and investors and really had to convince mt agung. now there is a lot of buzz about vietnam, citing it is different, now. you know, everything will you, vietnam producers of the 150,000 engineering graduates. this useful

and energetic population is one of the key reasons why 70 people think this country could become asia's next technology powerhouse. the government built this space to link up government built this space to link up fresh talents with experienced mentors. it also has a cafe and a small to working space, but is very much a work in progress. —— coworking. does that we are trying to look at other areas like malaysia and china. but the kinds of universities and schools we have different. translation: we are trying. that is way we as the government need to help. but the gamut is not providing what the start—ups need right now: the money to scale up. for this organic grocery delivery service, that could be what makes or breaks the company. —— but the government. most of our investors come from overseas. local start—ups, even if they have a good idea, they usually don't have the right support network

to get them to the funding stage. this venture is not his foes. even start—ups in california and canada before. he is under challenging. but what keeps him and others coming here are the opportunities and be hunger to make an impact. —— he is finding it challenging. and with that, we end this edition of asia business report. it is so much for investing your time with us. i am rico hizon. see you in the next hour. goodbye for now. you're watching bbc news. our main stories: two major pharmaceutical firms have announced they are investing more than £1 billion in the uk, creating nearly two thousand jobs in london and manchester. our business editor simonjack reports. investing in new drugs isjust the kind of medicine the economy needs after the bleak diagnosis of slowing growth and poor productivity it received last week.

the government's plan to incentivise investment arrives at a time when businesses are wary of brexit uncertainty. we are the place that is going to be able to take a lead in these new industries of the future. at a time when companies are making investments and in the context of brexit, to set that out with a clarity that we have i think is all the more important. the way it's supposed to work is basically this. the government invests money in research and development. academic institutions work in partnership with business to provide skills and know—how. the government provides test beds for new products like faster trials of new drugs or public roads for driverless cars, then hey presto, private companies invest. this gene therapy company in oxford likes the approach. this new strategy is very important for business like ours. it allows us to look at what we can work on in the future, look at the grants we can get to help us expand the business and make our processes better to keep us at the leading edge

of our science. it's perhaps no surprise the government chose life sciences to be the poster child for its new industrial strategy. these are highly skilled, highly productivejobs in an industry which seems to have no problem attracting investment. most of the uk economy is not like this. the government's challenge will be to increase productivity in areas of the economy where workers are more likely to drive white vans than wear white coats. most people work in what sometimes we call the everyday economy — shops, care homes, public services as well and we think in order to boost their earning power, which is what the secretary of state said he wanted to do, we need a strategy that takes them into account. government intervention in industry has a chequered history with memories of money poured into failing companies like british leyla nd. the labour party supports government intervention and doesn't think the conservatives are intervening enough. it seems to be a repackaging of existing policies and commitment and it doesn't go to the extent we would have liked it to, to really rebuild our economy and give businesses the support they need.

will the plan work? of the two companies who announced investments today, one told the bbc it would have done it with or without the strategy and the second said it hadn't finalised the size of its investment but the life sciences industry broadly welcomed it. there have been industrial strategies before and you haven't heard the last of this one. simon jack, bbc news. mike embley will be here at 2am with more news. you can get and that with me via social media on facebook and twitter. time now for all the sports news in sport today. this is sport today, live from the bbc sport centre. coming up on this programme — vincenzo montella sacked by milan as former player gennaro gattuso takes charge at the san siro. fifa criticised for a "lack of desire" to get to the bottom of allegations of doping in football.

and tiger woods gets set to return to competitive golf for the first time since february. hello and welcome to the programme where we start with the news that milan have sacked vincenzo montella as manager. the club are seventh in serie a, 18 behind leaders napoli, with just two league victories in their past nine games. on sunday, they played out a goalless draw with torino at home. montella lasted just 17 months in charge with the former milan and italy midfielder, gennaro gattuso now taking charge. italian football journalist daniele verri says the pressure to perform for montella was enormous. i think the expectation was very high.