this is business live from bbc news with jamie robertson and sally bundock. the boss of the world's biggest mining firm glencore has said that 2017 was a stellar year as a strenghtening global economy boosts demand for raw materials and commodities. live from london, that's our top story on wednesday 21st february. glencore says profits for 2017 came in at $14.76 billion — that's 44% more than a year earlier. also in the programme.... south korea signs trade deals with central american nations. is this a back door to trade war with the us? that is how the market started off,

all of them down. the asian markets we re all of them down. the asian markets were looking healthy earlier that they are taking their cue from the us, which had a bit of a downturn. also in the programme... city life can be high on excitement but low on community spirit. we'll be meeting the man who's putting the community at the core of social networks. today we want to know: do get in touch. hello and welcome to business live. the boss of the world's biggest mining firm glencore has said that 2017 was its best ever. it follows strong results from its rivals bhp billiton and anglo—american earlier this week. all of them are benefitting from the improved global economy. glencore says its adjusted profits

for 2017 came in at $14.76 billion that's 44% more than a year earlier. shareholders will be pleased to see that the company is recommending that they get $2.9bn in dividends. that's way above the minimum. and rising commmodity prices also helped net debt fall 31% to $10.67 billion. that puts the company in a stronger position for the future. but challenges lie ahead. the democratic republic of congo is key to gelncore's position as a key supplier of metals to the electric car industry. but the government is looking at new laws limiting how much of profit these firm can take out of the country. with me is paul renken, senior geologist and mining analyst for vsa capital ltd.

well done for getting here. thank you for being on the programme. glenn caught coming out with a very familiartune, it glenn caught coming out with a very familiar tune, it would seem. a bit ofa familiar tune, it would seem. a bit of a sweet spot for them at the moment. profits are up with a nice increase in dividend and they are reducing their debt. what would you make of their figures? they are pretty good figures from what i was able to review. a little bit better than expected, i would say, at this point in time. it was definitely the right time to have curtailed some of that production from africa during 2015 and 2016 in order to make the market balanced in those commodities. touching on the issue of the democratic republic of congo and a new law which could affect their business. nothing was said about that. i guess it is difficult to comment when they do not know what the government may decide.

there have been comments by other companies which also have issue with the government on this particular situation about potential changes to tax rules. that would be changes which would be retro active, even to agree the contracts that were signed yea rs agree the contracts that were signed years ago. we are definitely concerned. give me an idea about how cool this is to the mining industry generally and glenn caught in particular? cobalt is something that is crucial to the battery chemistry is, particular with having a long, charge life. you are talking about electric vehicles there. the car industry is so headed in that direction. do they see that as being a really important part of business in the next few years? they have geared to their business in particular for these battery materials. it is notjust cobalt,

within glencore you see a lot of zinc production and copper production. all of this is part of the electrical vehicle revolution. we all know with commodity markets, they are very cyclical, and good times do come to an end. how long are they in this window enables the expansion profits going up question does that mean now is the time for them to really invest? it is. if the auto industry is right in its prognosis as to how quickly consumers will pick up electric vehicles. that will depend on individual nations, as well as individual nations, as well as individual auto—makers as to how well the vehicle fell. thank you very much indeed. thank you for coming in. that is my concern. stuck in the countryside in the uk with nowhere to plug in. i do not have an electric car yet though. maybe you could just stick it into your mains,

couldn't you ? if could just stick it into your mains, couldn't you? if you need one. you have your own electricity supply, i presume. if you are on a journey, say going to scotland or something. anyway, let's move on, shall we? let's take a look at some of the other stories making the news. shares in the world's biggest retailer walmart has seen its biggest one day fall in more than 30 years. shares closed down more than 10% atjust over $91; after the company reported disappointing online sales figures for the christmas period. walmart says it going to try and drive more traffic to its main website as it tries to fight off competition from amazon and others. sydney airport says profits are up as more people than ever are using the transit hub. profits for 2017 came in atjust over us $940m. a record 43.3m passengers used the airport with the number of international passengers up more than 7% thanks to strong demand from china and india in particular. the government announced plans to build a second international airport for the city.

the battle to control the market for the computer chips which power smartphones is heating up. america's qualcomm has increased its bid for dutch rival nxp semiconductors to around $44bn. it comes as qualcomm tries to see off a hostile takeover bid from fellow us firm broadcom which is worth an estimated $103bn. south korea has signed free trade deals with five central american countries — costa rica, el salvador, honduras, nicaragua and panama. the deals aren't worth a huge amount, but could offer an alternative route to trade with the united states, dealings between the us and south korea have not been back great lately. first, leisha sa ntorelli is in singapore. just explain the logic of this deal,

please. it will open important new markets for south korea and its auto sector and electronics sector all stand to benefit. talks have been going on for a while. the trade packs will eliminate duty on about 95% of all goods and services traded between south korea and these five countries. the south korean government also forecasts it will give a big boost to economic growth over the next decade and create at least 3000 jobs, important given they have a very young population, all looking forjobs and it is a political problem for them. seoul has said it is an important avenue for them to a given concerns over increasingly protectionist trade policies. thank you very much indeed. let's have a look at the markets. that is the australian market. the hang seng is moving up but the dow had a

slightly weak day. let's have a look and see what the details are about what is going on. that is how we have opened. all of the markets are down a little bit. let's see what is on wall street today with joe miller. on wednesday, the federal reserve will release minutes from its last rate—setting meeting held at the end of january. at the time the committee decided to keep the rates steady at 1.5%. the central bank is widely expected to raise interest rates again in mid—march. but the language in the minutes will be closely scrutinised by wall street and any signs of increased enthusiasm for further or higher rises in 2008 teams could send the stock market spiralling again. elsewhere, satellite television company dish network is expected to report a drop in revenue and profits and it is increasingly suffering from the popularity of streaming services like netflix, to which

younger, cash—strapped consumers are flocking. joining us is jane sydenham, investment director, rathbones investment management. we are talking the markets. it has been really dominated by the big mining companies were saying what we expected, they are having a really good time right now and making lots of money. we would expect that. a lot of them are listed in london on the ftse 100 and lot of them are listed in london on the ftse100 and a lot of them are very attractive to pension fund managers. some of the dividends are quite substantial, so that is attractive. to a large extent, they are reflecting the fact that world economic growth is good. demand for basic commodities will be higher when there is more economic activity. everyone has been telling us, the global economy is set for a good year in 2018. i have been

reading quite a lot of people are saying, actually, we are not going to get that smooth round we have had for the last 18 months and things will be more volatile, even though we have the gross. there is often a mismatch between economic growth and stock market performance. that's move stock market performance. that's m ove u pwa rd stock market performance. that's move upward trajectory we had was exceptional. markets are usually much more volatile. it lasted a long time. it lasted an incredibly long time. it lasted an incredibly long time. it lasted an incredibly long time. it is natural to see more volatility. we have seen a change in terms of an increase in inflation and rising interest rates. there are more questions that investors need to resolve which will probably make markets more volatile. what are you watching in particular right now? i feel like we are in february, having had that massive volatility very recently. people are repositioning themselves a little bit.|j recently. people are repositioning themselves a little bit. i think it is all about where there is value, relative to the growth is that

investors are looking for. there are some areas that have performed so well they are very expensive. that is where investors were thinking, perhaps i need to take money out of those areas. there are not that many areas that have been growing strongly and there is always a trade—off between strong growth and a high price for that growth. that is what everyone is trying to resolve at the moment. do stay around for that we'll be talking about the newspaper headlines at the end of the programme. still to come... drawing communities together. we meet the man who's on a mission to build up neighbourhood spirit — via his social network. you're with business live from bbc news. lloyds bank has posted pre—tax profits for last year of £5.3 billion, up 24%. that is the first year as a fully private enterprise. joining us now is laith

khalaf, senior analyst, at hargreaves la nsdown. just tell us, are we now back on track? is this back to the good old days of lloyds from precrisis days? lloyds has been on a long recovery but it has recovered quite strongly. as you say, a landmark achieved last year, which is back in private hands finally, after the government bailouts during the financial crisis. the numbers are all looking pretty good. income rising profits rising, and costs under control. a bumper pay—out coming to shareholders as well post a lot to like with the numbers. there are still bills to pay for ppi. is that anything as we should worry about in terms of extraordinary costs? ppi is the main one. that has been ticking overfor a long time. what we had

last year, a new deadline was introduced of august 29 and that has prompted more people to claim. there was a prompted more people to claim. there wasa campaign prompted more people to claim. there was a campaign fronted by arnold schwarzenegger, run by the sca, which has also encouraged people to claim more and lloyds has had to put more money aside. as we move towards the claims deadline in august of 2019 they will probably tweak back a little bit. the other thing is the uk economy. it is so plugged in that any shocks to the uk will be keenly felt by lloyds. things are plain sailing at the moment because we have record levels of employment and loans are not going bad. thank you for that. this is the boss of lloyds. he told the today programme on radio 4 that lloyds came through with a strong recovery over the last few years will do it pointed out his base salary has

climbed to £1.2 million and his remuneration package increased by some 11%, to £6.42 million. is he worth that? he has brought lloyds back to normality. send us your thoughts. you're watching business live — our top story. boom time for the mining sector. the boss of the world's biggest player glencore says 2017 was a stellar year, as a strengthening global economy boosts demand for commodities. a quick look at how markets are faring. that is how things are standing right now. let's get the inside track on a social network which aims to bring neighbours closer together. nextdoor aims to encourage social interactions with those in your community. it is now actively used in more than 185,000 neighbourhoods in the us, uk, germany, and the netherland. the start—up now has a valuation

of over a billion dollars but will it end up as the next facebook or the next myspace? 0ur colleague rachel horne met up with the ceo and co—founder, nirav tolia, and began by asking him how it all got started? the founders of the company had heard of these amazing experiences growing up in neighbourhoods that we re growing up in neighbourhoods that were strong and supportive and really felt like communities, a as we became adults and we got older and thought about buying homes and starting to have children, we realised that while technology had improved our lives in so many ways, we didn't feel close to the communities in which we lived, we didn't know our neighbours. in fact when we started the company in america, almost 30% of americans could not name a single neighbour by name. so, this notion of bringing back a sense of community to the neighbourhood and using technology, which is a thing that we are so passionate about in silicon valley, that was an easy match to make and we we re that was an easy match to make and we were lucky that no—one had done

it before. how does it work? it is easy to use and it is free, come to the nextdoor website and download the nextdoor website and download the nextdoor website and download the nextdoor app and you enter your address and before you know it you will be connecting with your neighbours and making the neighbourhood betterfor neighbours and making the neighbourhood better for everyone involved. there are some things about nextdoor which make us different from other social networks. when you join you have to verify your address, we need to make sure that you actually live in the neighbourhood and we need to make sure that the conversations that ta ke sure that the conversations that take place are happening between real neighbours. this is not a place for fake news or fake accounts, it isa for fake news or fake accounts, it is a place for real neighbours to make genuine connections and to talk about the things which matter in the real world. the other big difference with nextdoor is that the conversations are private. the things you talk about you will not find them indexed in the google search engine, you won't be sharing them on social media. is free for users but how do you make money on it? we think there is a huge opportunity not just to it? we think there is a huge opportunity notjust to connect neighbours to each other but also to

connect them to small, local businesses, so ultimately there will be kinds of advertising on the service, but the kind which helps neighbours and support those local businesses which make their neighbourhoods vibra nt. businesses which make their neighbourhoods vibrant. what about the figures, how many people are using it? we came up with the idea in the summer of 2010 and it took us quite a while to launch nationally bubbled even in the united states, that was at the end of 2011. fast forward since then and we have over 80% of american neighbourhoods using the service. in late 2017 we had launched in the uk have about six months before that we launched in the netherlands and recently we have launched in france and ultimately we believe that globally there will be nextdoorfor believe that globally there will be nextdoor for every neighbourhood. today, almost 185,000 nextdoor for every neighbourhood. today, almost 185, 000 neighbourhoods worldwide are using the service, and we feel like we are just getting started. what do people actually use it for? all of the things you would imagine neighbours talk about. you can ask for help to find a lost pet,

you can get a recommendation for a plumber or a ba by—sitter. but you can get a recommendation for a plumber or a baby—sitter. but what really inspires us is when there are exa m ples of really inspires us is when there are examples of true human connection and community. folks who may be lonely are forming social clubs so that they can get together and feel connected. how do you define a neighbourhood, is it a whole city or is it smaller areas? it turns out that we have a set of technology tools that allow the neighbours to help us define their areas and name their neighbourhoods. typically it ranges between 500—1000 households. a lot of social networks have issues with people being abusive online — how do you prevent that happening? it is actually not for social things in general, it is the utility, it is coming together with your neighbours, it is for asking for help and providing help. because you have use your true identity and because of the community context, we don't get a lot of abuse, we don't have fa ke don't get a lot of abuse, we don't have fake news, we don't have a fake accounts. who polices the sites? the

great thing about nextdoor is that neighbours feel like these are their neighbourhoods. they feel like it is their toll. and so we don't police these things, we don't read their content. these are there spaces, we are using the technology for them. because these neighbours care deeply about their neighbourhoods, they ensure that the conversations stay civil. are you making a profit yet? not yet but in the united states we are gary generating revenue. we started that in early 2017 and it has gone very well. do you use it? hang ona has gone very well. do you use it? hang on a minute, let mejust reintroduce jane sydenham, and i don't use it but i am the odd one out because you both do? yeah, not enormous amounts but the other day we we re enormous amounts but the other day we were going to take my daughter on the school run and somebody said a

tree had gone down across the road... i never found out whether a tree actually had gone down! why do you have to do thatjust to check the trees and do you see what i mean? why not?! and you? i was looking for a cat sitter. and did you get one? i did, actually, it was really good, really useful. a local friend got in touch and the number of members is expanding. friend got in touch and the number of members is expandinglj friend got in touch and the number of members is expanding. i am not a nextdoor person but apparently it is child—care, nannies... but there is lots of local social media sites, actually. local facebook pages and, but then that is facebook and we are back to the big giant. so, this is a kind of formula. they're probably going to sell it off eventually. he had a company which he then sold on to shopping.com, so the chances are this is going to get sold on to somebody bigger. so, it may look as

though he is a small and cosy but actually, it's not, he is part of a bigger one... let's bring in the viewers. bags for your tweet, you said... big social media companies like facebook are censoring free speech, behaving like big brother, isolating you from your real—world friends. not a fan! this one says... we should do more off—line. friends. not a fan! this one says... we should do more off-line. jane sydenham, we said we would talk about this story which bbc online has got, but it is also a letter in the times newspaper today, 62 members of the conservative party saying to theresa may, the prime minister, hard brexit or no brexit... minister, hard brexit or no brexit. .. yeah, from an investment has republic this will worry investors again. —— from an investment perspective. the consequence might be more weakness in sterling as we get closer to it being done or not being done!m some ways it is not so much whether

they get their way, or whether theresa may gets her way, it is actually how long we go on having this fight within the conservative party, isn't it? if we say, ok we're going to go for a hard brexit, that isa going to go for a hard brexit, that is a certain form of clarity and one might be able to do something about it?! yes, it is the uncertainty and the constant fluctuation and investors' perceptions of where we are in that. and it looks as though thatis are in that. and it looks as though that is going to continue for quite some time. in the meantime another really interesting story in the financial times, the chief executive of lloyd's of london, who has been on this programme, i interviewed her in davos, talking about, it says here, partnerships skew the gender pay gap data — what does she mean? what she's referring to is the partnerships, the law firms, the accountancy firms, where hartness are actually technically owners of the business rather than employees. and so this is really about the gender pay gap... so, their

remuneration is not included in the data collected by those organisations and yet they're probably the highest—paid and could well be white men, i'm guessing? absolutely. and therefore this data which is being collected, which are soon companies in the uk will have to put forward, will not be a true picture? i think so. to put forward, will not be a true picture? ithink so. it is to put forward, will not be a true picture? i think so. it is going to give as an incomplete picture. some of these law firms pay their top partners substantial amounts of money, and that is the concern, as you say. but i think it is early days for the gender pay disclosure. so, all of this is going to come out, i suspect the rules will be refined as time goes on. can ijust ask you about whether the rules about disclosure gender pay gap is, is it having an effect hammered it is it having an effect hammered it is obviously getting a lot of coverage but is it actually changing behaviour? i think it will, gradually. i think the fact that companies have actually got to think

about it, research it, look at the data puddle more transparent. they have got to be accountable to their employees, so overtime, yes, ithink it will. and also, i can speak for myself and my colleagues, people are feeling more empowered to talk about it. yes. that makes such a difference. and actually feel they have a reason to bring it up. just knowing that other people are thinking about it which you feel, i am right to be worried about it, too. yes, and you can talk about it openly published is on the publico gender. i think it will make a huge difference over time. it has been great to have you on the programme, thanks the coming in. let's say goodbye, because we haven't got any other time! very polite! we are back tomorrow, see you then! good morning we had a frost this

morning across scotland and northern ireland, but with more cloud across england and wales, a prevented the frost. but it will tend to brighten up frost. but it will tend to brighten up as the day goes on, that allowed breaking up quite nicely. you can see the bright lights of the cities across europe and the uk. some cloud you noticed just feeling its way in across england and wales. those clearer skies for scotland and northern ireland, one or two mist and fog patches around in northern ireland, those will tend to disappear and we will keep the dry and bright weather for scotland and northern ireland into the afternoon. for england and wales, there could be one or two showers, but the emphasis is on a dry today, that cloud raking up from time to time. temperatures down compared to yesterday. through this evening and tonight, you will notice that there's less cloud around, so more of the uk coming through, and that means there's going to be a

widespread frost. so, a frosty start on thursday. and like today, mostly dry conditions, a few showers perhaps across the west of scotland into northern ireland. elsewhere, there will be some breaks in the cloud again to give us some bright spells, but again, those temperatures sliding down. the reason for the colder weather, well, this big area of high pressure, the scandinavian high, firmly established, creating south—easterly winds coming in from the continent. that is a colder direction at this time of year. during friday, that south—easterly wind just starting to set up and there will be colder conditions again. once again, though, lots of dry weather with some sunny spells, and temperatures at about 5—6. it is going to be getting colder as we go into the weekend. i mentioned that big area of high pressure, the winds coming in from there, and as you can see by the dark blue, very cold air, losing

further in. for the weekend, temperatures sliding down again. lots of dry weatherford weekend and by sunday, to, which is typically at about 4 degrees. just to give you an indication for next week, this is the trend, for many of us pull next week, temperatures hovering at about freezing, during the daytime. so, turning much, much colder next week. hello. it's wednesday, it's 9 o'clock. i'm victoria derbyshire. welcome to the programme. our top story today... the united nations in syria says it's deeply worried for hundreds of thousands of people trapped under a mounting government bombardment of the rebel—held enclave of eastern ghouta. we can hear the shouts and crying of women. and children.

we'll hear more from people stuck on the ground. the supreme court will rule about