it said britain was "playing with fire" in accusing moscow of carrying out the attack. in response, britain said its actions stood up to any scrutiny and likened russian requests to take part in the investigation to an arsonist investigating his own fire. a court in south korea is expected to deliver a heavy punishment to the former president in one of the nation's biggest corruption scandals, which could see herjailed for 30 years. and this story is popular on bbc.com prince charles and the duchess of cornwall taking a stroll along the beach at the gold coast. the royal couple, on a tour of australia after opening the commonwealth games, saw a demonstration of a rescue drill by young lifesavers. that's all from me for now. stay with bbc news. and the top story here in the uk: the five—time world darts champion, eric bristow, has died at the age of 60. the professional darts corporation said he'd suffered a heart attack at an event in liverpool.

now on bbc news all the latest business news live from singapore. beating expectations of. south korea's samsun issues forecasts for a bigjump in korea's samsun issues forecasts for a big jump in first—quarter profits to. and 84 members around the world with the common goal of the linkup infrastructure in asia. will look at how china's initiative is gearing two years on the. —— faring two yea rs two years on the. —— faring two years on. welcome to asia business report. was told samsun electronics which is forecasting a 57% jump in its operating profits of the year to

nearly 15 billion dollars. the actual results will be announced later this month. samsung did not elaborate on the guidance, many a nalyst we‘ re elaborate on the guidance, many analyst we're attribute the jump to strong demand for its memory chips potentially how that offsetting and potentially how that offsetting the slowdown in the smartphone sales. earlier i asked a technology a nalyst sales. earlier i asked a technology analyst how long samsung can keep relying on its chips division for growth. 2018 is still going to be a good market. there has been steady price increase, if you look at memory for example, which is the biggest. some of the other computers have not scaled to the capacity as much as samsung, they have been aggressive. 2018 onwards and 2019 week expect the growth to definitely decline in the future. obviously you got the business but you have the management and obviously samsung

heir walked free from jail in february, has that had any impact on the strategy going forward? in the last two quarters they have done pretty well. if you look at all of the semiconductor investments which he did when he was at the helm of things, i think that is what was really driving samsung's revenue right now. i am sure he will be back in action soon and will be inch —— instrumental in driving them forward. later today we will learn the fate of the former president. seoul court is set to deliver a verdict, which could see herjailed forup to 30 verdict, which could see herjailed for up to 30 years. she became the first president in korean history to be impeached from office following a bribery scandal that involved samsung as well. the sentencing will begin around 2pm, around 6am, it will be televised live. president

trump has proposed an additional $100 billion in tariffs on china. the us president is proposing to triple the import duty in response to what he labelled as china's and fair retaliation against those initial us tariffs. meanwhile, back —— beijing has launched a wto challenge against the proposal and has now requested for consultations with us officials. as china and the us lock horns both in public and behind closed doors, many investors remain nervous about whether we are headed towards and other global trade war. 0ne headed towards and other global trade war. one of them is the asian infrastructure investment bank, or aiib, it was set up by china two yea rs aiib, it was set up by china two years ago as an alternative to the world bank. it has approved more than $4 billion in funding for infrastructure projects around asia.

so how worried is the bank if the world's two biggest economies are engaged in a trade war? is a question i posed earlier. engaged in a trade war? is a question i posed earlierlj engaged in a trade war? is a question i posed earlier. i am more worried about the impact on the welfare of all countries rather than on aiib because as the asia infrastructure investment bank we invest in all kinds of connectivity, not just trade invest in all kinds of connectivity, notjust trade but invest in all kinds of connectivity, not just trade but activity of people to services. to water, to electricity. we connect countries in terms of their energy trade. so i don't we will be as much directly affected, i think in the end all countries will recognise how much trade benefits them and that nobody gains from a conflict. as a multilateral development bank, we know aiib is an important vehicle to fulfil china's ambitions towards the one belt, one road initiatives. how do you convince people that it is

not simply a public institution aimed at pushing forward china's interests 7 aimed at pushing forward china's interests? aiib was initiated by china but ton invited many other countries tojoin china but ton invited many other countries to join the. 57 countries decided to become founding members of aiib in the negotiation in 2015. they formed an international treaty that established aiib as an international organisation, so aiib is not a chinese bank, victory is a genuine international organisation that was owed initially by its 57 founding members who have agreed on the rules of international. where the rules of international. where the rules of who decides and how decisions are made are very clearly established according to the law. china holds 25% of our shareholding capital and of the vote, but the 75% are held by other asian, european and other countries. in fact, because that international

multilateral governance has worked so well over the last two years, any other countries have decided to join aiib, so today we have 84 approved member countries, almost all of asia, almost all of europe and many latin american, african countries, canada and other countries from around the world. in other news, india's central banks has banned banks and regulation financial times from dealing with quebec currency. the reserve bank in india said it has made the decision it is of what it describes as the associated risk with digital currencies and it has been critical of crypto currencies, including bitcoin in recent months. the right to broadcast indian cricket on television and digital platforms over the next five years has been sold to star india. the broadcasting giant put in a manhattan 45 million dollar bid for the rights, it controls all cricket

broadcasting in india. technology companies in the us are feeling the heat, fallout from facebook‘s data scandal continues and that has got a lot of them reassuring their customers on the issue of data privacy. you have the recent deaths related to this self driving cars and that has called into question is the limit of international intelligent, an area which has seen billions of dollars of investment. all of this has led to a debate over what kind of rules and laws are neededin what kind of rules and laws are needed in the technology. i spoke to brad smith, the president and chief legal officer of microsoft and asked him if he is concerned about an increasing regulation. the question is always whether it if there is room for more smart regulation. we need ethical data use, ethical rules for artificial intelligence. we do believe ultimately we will need new laws and regulations, we need to

have a consensus around the ethical press. for we know what principles to put into new law, for example. but ultimately we need a world where people have confidence in the services and technology copies themselves are not going to flourish if people lack the confidence. artisoft has announced an interesting initiative, a shared initiative, which will allow for patents of design rights which come from joint work with customers to stay with those customers. how unusual is that, is that a ploy to try to obviously be different from your competitors, not have your clients are straight? it is our goal to lead the industry. we are taking a step that no other company in the technology sector has taken. 0ur pledge to customers who are using softwa re pledge to customers who are using software to change their business is that we will work with them to cope create technology and they will own the patterns and designs. will have a licence and we can improve our

platform services, but it gives them the confidence that they can work with microsoft and that they will create economic value for themselves and not just for a group create economic value for themselves and notjust for a group of technology companies. patterns and interracial property is a sensitive topic, it is unusualfor interracial property is a sensitive topic, it is unusual for it to be shared rather than held. in essence, what we are saying is that innovation will take pace in a share way. —— shared way. our engineers will work with the company —— customer, they will own it, we don't. but we get a licence we can keep our products as well. and that was brad smith, the president and chief legal officer of microsoft speaking to me earlier. us trade deficit increased to a record high in february according to figures from the us commerce department. the deficit was $57.6 billion, the largest monthly gap between exports and imports of goods and services since 2008. all of this despite a

record volume of american export. the gap was larger than analysts predicted as services rose. let's ta ke predicted as services rose. let's take a look at the asian markets because we are seeing them fairly flat at the moment, taking a lead from the us, we saw walls treat rebound from the steep losses we saw earlier this week but we have got a slightly stronger yen and that is taking a toll on the japanese exporter ‘s. and that is it for this edition of asia business report. thanks for watching. the top stories this hour: at a meeting of the security council, russia dismisses the allegation that it poisoned a former double agent living in england. a court in south korea is expected to deliver a heavy punishment to former president park geun—hye, in one of the nation's biggest corruption scandals. the government's tax

on sugary drinks comes into force on friday. the cost of some drinks goes up by as much as 24p a litre. but a number of companies have reduced the sugar content of their recipes to escape the new levy, as our health editor hugh pym explains. it's part of a government plan to tackle obesity, and supermarkets are already getting the message out there. some soft drinks prices will go up tomorrow, some won't, depending on how much sugar they contain. shoppers we spoke to were in favour. i look at every ingredient on anything i give my son, so sugar needs to be taxed, it needs to be out of our diets. i'll allow my kids not to have more sugar, to be honest, because it's spoiling them. and it's more about obesity. but even before the introduction of the sugar tax, some manufacturers and retailers have started cutting sugar in their products, so they fall below the level at which the tax kicks in. that means they won't have

to increase prices. here's how the new levy will work from tomorrow — a two litre bottle of full sugar cola will cost 48p more. companies who want to avoid it will have to remove at least half the sugar, equivalent to 23 cubes. this slightly less sugary drink will cost 36p more. to get below the tax threshold, it would need eight cubes removed. tesco and robinsons are among brands to have taken products out of the sugar tax net, so to lucozade ribena, whose factory was visited by a minister today, promising more action. the government have published a cmprehensive obesity strategy, of which the soft drinks is levy was an important element. and we've said that that isn't the end of the process, it's the beginning. and we're looking at all options, including advertising. some argue the whole idea of a sugar tax is wrong. taxes should be there to help the functioning and running of governments.

they shouldn't be there to be dictating people's choices. it's kind of straying into a sort of government overreach to some degree. reduced sugar drinks may not appeal to everyone's taste, some customers said that about irn—bru. 0thers argued the tax will hit low income families hardest. from tomorrow, the full impact will start becoming clear. hugh pym, bbc news. much more of that on our website. the green party has launched its campaign ahead of next month's english local elections, urging an end to what it calls "one—party state councils". it wants to see a green on every council in future. the party is also predicting big gains on the 3rd of may, when seats on 150 councils are upforgrabs. don't forget you can get in touch with me and some of the team on twitter. i'm @bbckasiamadera. time now for all the sports news in sport today. tiles and wallet and this is sport today live in the bbc sport centre.

coming up on this programme, defending masters champion sergio garcia it's the water four times, leaving him second from bottom after the opening round. arsenal beat cska moscow. alexander lacks at stealing a double. roger federer returning to tennis for the first time after withdrawing from the australian open injanuary withdrawing from the australian open in january due to withdrawing from the australian open injanuary due to a hip injury. hello there. welcome to the programme, where we start with news from the opening round of the masters. the men's first golf major of the year. jordan spieth is the leader after the opening round on six under par, two shots