this is business live from bbc news with maryam moshiri jamie robertson. is there substance behind the smoke? e—cigarettes get a strong endorsement in the uk as their health benefits continue to divide expert opinion worldwide. live from london, that's our top story on friday 17th august. vaping is 95% less harmful than smoking cigarettes and so should be used as a way to help people quit all together, or so says a new report pubished by some british mps. also in the programme: fears over swine flu spread — the biggest pork producer in the world is temporarily shuttering some of its operations in china to try and contain an outbreak. it is looking like a mixed picture

in the markets so far. and the escalating china—us trade dispute, the plunge in the lira, and tesla's future have all made business headlines this week. we'll get into the nitty gritty with our economics editor kamal ahmed. and as the british government weighs up the health benefits of vaping — we want to know do you think e—cigs help people quit? are you worried about the health risks? let us know — just use the hashtag bbcbizlive hello and welcome to business live. we start here in the uk where there's been a major boost for the e—cigarette industry. a report by parliament's science and technology committee says vaping is far less harmful than smoking and should be subject to lighter regulation. this could mean rules being relaxed on the advertising of e—cigarettes and taxes on them being cut. which would further boost an already booming industry.

the global market was worth around $15 billion last year. that's just a fraction of the market for regular cigarettes, but it's growing fast. it's a trend big tobacco is well aware of. european market leader british american is investing more than $600 million in ‘next generation‘ vaping products and others in the industry are following. but it's a hugely controversial issue. the world health organization is urging countries to restrict the sale, promotion, and use of electronic cigarettes after a number of harmful chemicals were found in the vapour. dr ianjones, reduce—risk products science vice president at japan tobacco international and joins us from geneva. looking at e—cigarettes, how much do we know for certain? the public

health england in the uk has noted in this report, estimates on current data available, e—cigarettes are approximately 95% safer than smoking conventional cigarettes. this is based on taking a step back and looking at the entire scientific evidence around these products and coming to that conclusion, as opposed to looking at single, specific studies. they are less dangerous, do they need to be regulated as heavily? the eu, which includes the uk for the moment, still regulate pretty heavily in terms of how much nicotine they are allowed to have and in terms of how much they are advertised? e—cigarettes, certainly need to be regularised in terms of public protection perspective. but there are aspects of the current eu regulation that e—cigarettes fall under, they could be relaxed. which one? advertising, allowing

manufacturers and others to provide consumers with factual information on the products to allow them to make informed choices on the products they wish to use. that would be one area and the committee said there could be other areas such as the nicotine ltd in e—cigarettes, which is difficult to see the scientific basis. a new us product, which hasn't hit the uk or europe yet, but has a very high nicotine level and use nicotine assault which produces a very rapid nicotine high. i think it has twice as much nicotine that is allowed within the eu, do you think that sort of thing should be allowed? everything needs to be subject to a proper risk assessment. what i recommend is, there is a different to what is in

there is a different to what is in the liquid and what the consumer is exposed to in the vapour. we should be looking at what is in the vapour and what consumers are exposed to and what consumers are exposed to and taking into their bodies. this is what public health england and the uk government report today, based on the evidence, these products are in range of 95% safer. isn't there a moral question, it is addictive, no two ways about it, nicotine is addictive. you are selling something that is addictive, but let's assume it doesn't do any harm, but you are selling a consumer something which will guarantee a future return because they are addicted to the thing you are selling. is that not morally, very odd place to be and should we be allowing that, allowing people to market back? you have to look at the counterfactual here. the comparator

is the cigarette. they are legal and there are many consumers around the world who choose to smoke cigarettes. e—cigarettes and other products have come along and they provide consumers with the satisfaction they are looking for. but they are a clear to be less hazardous to use. in terms of tobacco harm reduction approach, these products sense. thank you, very much indeed. let's take a look at some of the other stories making the news. hundreds of google employees have written to the company to protest against plans to launch a "censored search engine" in china. they said the project raised "urgent moral and ethical questions" and urged the firm to be more transparent. google has not commented. all staff at chipotle's us mexican grill restaurants are to be retrained in food safety procedures, after more than 600 people who ate at a chipotle in powell, 0hio, suffered food poisoning.

the outbreak was caused by bacteria that occurs when food is left at unsafe temperatures. rovio entertainment, the finnish company that makes the angry birds games, saw its quarterly profit fall $11.4m due to declining revenue from their 2016 movie. its games unit rose 6% to $74m. in february rovio lost 50% of its share price after it revised its outlook for 2018 what do you think of angry birds? i don't have an opinion. you shouldn't ask me questions like that. the world's biggest pork producer has been told to shut down a major slaughterhouse in china. it's comes after a second outbreak of swine flu among the hog herd in two weeks. monica miller is in our asia business hub in singapore. what more can you tell us about the

story? this particular case of african swine flu has been discovered about 1000 kilometres away from the first case was discovered. it has caused great concern by chinese officials byjust how far this disease might have spread across china. local authorities have decided they have ordered to temporarily close the slaughterhouse for six weeks and this comes after 30 hogs died of the illness on thursday. as a result of this outbreak, japan has cancelled imports. the un describes this as a type of swine flu that will kill most pics, and there isn't any

vaccine for them, but it doesn't affect humans. monaco, thank you very much indeed. let's have a look at the markets. they have been following wall street, less banks over the turkish lira. in european markets, we have seen them opening and they are taking their lead and they are looking pretty flat in europe right 110w. looking pretty flat in europe right now. let's look at wall street later with paul blake. well, consumer sentiment is the focus heading into friday trading here in new york. the university of michigan's bimonthly survey dates back to 19116. it aims to keep tabs on both the current attitude and the future outlook of the american consumer. that's key because consumer spending makes up about 70% of us domestic output and the mcsi, as the survey is known, is followed closely by both businesses and the government sector. the survey is conducted by phone and is the culmination of more than 500 telephone interviews that feature about 50 questions each. so what's the expectation? well, when the report is released at 10am in new york, wall street is expecting a score

of 98, putting that on a scale of 100 and the economy is not looking too shabby from the consumer's perspective. russ mould is investment director from aj bell. it is august, many of your colleagues, friends and co—workers in the city are on holiday. so i have noticed. what are you doing around here? i am keeping busy. we a lwa ys around here? i am keeping busy. we always keep calling it silly season. we have the turkish lira going down, we have had the american debt downgraded a few years ago so it is a deceptively busy month. senior people are away and junior people are people are away and junior people a re left people are away and junior people are left in charge. you can get markets moving around because people don't want to take too much risk

because the bigwigs are away. when the grown—ups come back in september what mistakes will have been made over this month? i was thinking, i will give you a couple of things to play around with, gold has fallen sharply, should it be falling? there isa sharply, should it be falling? there is a historical relationship, dollar goes up and the gold price goes down. it is more expensive to buy the theory is, fewer people want to buy it. gold hasn't been going up in the last two years. none of these relationships are perfect, but traders speculating the gold price is going down and that has reached 169,000 contracts of 100 each. lots of people are taking the view gold is going to go down. when somebody is going to go down. when somebody is pointing in one direction, you probably want to think about going

in the opposite. the same might apply to oil. people think oil is going up, but strangely, it is going down. selesele oil, buy gold. we don't give financial advice on this programme. still to come: trade tensions topped the agenda this week, with spats between the us and china and the us and turkey all heating up. we'll get the low—down from our economics editor in just a few minutes. you're with business live from bbc news. there was a record 39.2 million tourists visitng the uk last year, that's up 4% on 2016. sean farrington is in liverpool for us this morning looking at what's behind the record—breaking year for the industry. so the north—west is actually one of the areas of the uk that has capitalised on this record—breaking

year that britain has seen with visitors from abroad. liverpool, one of those places in the north—west. you've got the beatles, you've got beautiful buildings to come and see, but when people get here the weaker pound has meant they're able to spend more than maybe they plan to beforehand. india and china have seen a huge amount of growth from people visiting, but america are still the biggest spenders when they get here. we have patricia yates from visit britain. when we looked at the main trend, the weaker pound has meant it is better for trend, the weaker pound has meant it is betterforforeign trend, the weaker pound has meant it is better for foreign visitors to come here, has that been a big driver of the record growth? that and we have great connectivity and the story of great britain outside london, which has always been a great international draw. we are seeing record growth to the english regions. if you look at liverpool,

they grew by 26% in visits last year, a1% more in spend and tourism is the second biggest industry in this city. when you look at other turnarounds in this city. when you look at other turna rounds in cities this city. when you look at other turnarounds in cities around the uk, what more can they be doing if now isa what more can they be doing if now is a good time to be cashing in? think very carefully about what markets they are going for, what customers they want to attract and how they work with us to tell their story and really get that cut through in the market. tourism is a great business, a growing business but it is competitive. patricia yates, thank you very much. you have got to get your selfie now because thatis got to get your selfie now because that is big business. elon musk has said, he is not stoned when he tweeted about the telstra deal, what do you think? it is quite an emotional interview.

he said how he came up with the price. it seemed a lot like better karma. that is the way to come up with these things, isn't it? that's the way i like to look at things. your're watching business live. our top story — a committee of british mps says the authorities should adopt a more positive view of e—cigarettes and give them economic incentives to help smokers give up tobacco. 0pinion remains divided about health concerns. it's friday and that means it's time to wrap up some of the biggest stories of the week — and there have been quite a few for the normally sluggish month of august. the us was at the centre of trade spats, with both china and turkey, and we of course had that shock tweet from tesla boss elon musk stating his intention to take the company private. kamal ahmed, our economics

editor, is here. it has been a busy week? it has, it is looking at how the risks are around the world. this week it has been about turkey, whether it might need to go to the international monetary fund for a bailout. that has been given rocket boosters when america launched a trade war against turkey and suggested that it was going to put big tariffs on turkish steel, for example. that led to a colla pse steel, for example. that led to a collapse in the turkish lira in the value of the currency. but what is behind this is invested confidence is moving towards america, after the very good growth number and the big, fiscal boost president trump gave to the economy. we have seen these big

tensions. that affected mexico, the south african rand and we are seeing this fragility in the market because of this notion that america is becoming very attractive to investors and emerging market economies are becoming less attractive. there is a stronger dollar at the moment but that brings problems in itself, especially for exporters. yes, donald trump might start tweeting about the strength of the dollar in his social media attempts, trying to weaken the currency. but the currency against the basket of world currencies is at a the basket of world currencies is at 3111 the basket of world currencies is at 314 month high. as interest rates are pushed up by the federal reserve and they don't rise as quickly in other mature economies like europe, likejapan, other mature economies like europe, like japan, capital flow starts moving towards america. as interest

rates go up, the death of emerging markets, to nominated in dollars become more expensive and the risk factors associated with those emerging markets grow. this isn't going to stop any time soon because we have the ending of ge, both in the us and here, will mean there are less dollars around in the market? there is less stimulation in the market and the worry is as the tide of ge comes out, what rocks will you see under the surface of emerging markets but also across europe as well. this is one of those big, trend issues we will see more of, more volatility around currencies, more volatility around currencies, more risk around the emerging economies in particular because they have taken on huge amount of debt during the easy qe years, what happens now? it is a very old story. don't borrow when interest rates are

low, then they get scared when they go up. let's talk about elon musk. he is never out of the papers for long and we have seen the tweet about taking the company private. will he paid the price for that sweet? it seems like an incredible thing to do? he has given a lengthy and emotional interview to the new york times, which is published overnight, which touches on the issue of the tweet. he said there we re issue of the tweet. he said there were no complaints from the board. he did it because he decided the company could go private because it is under so much pressure from short sellers betting the value of the company will fall on the market. but he revealed the world he lived in, 120 hour weeks, the new york times said he became very emotional in the interview, often had to stop to collect his thoughts. sounds like he is tired! there is a suggestion he is tired! there is a suggestion he is exhausted. it is the same story of these successful entrepreneurs

that face this burn—out issue. the new york times revealed tesla is looking for a number two to support elon musk in the same way may be, not the same reasons, but cheryl sam bird went into facebook to support mark zuckerberg. but eric schmidt went into google to support the there. these entrepreneurial companies that grow incredibly rapidly, need the chief operating officer feel next to them, because they then face burn—out. officer feel next to them, because they then face burn-out. how much of a one—man band, it is not a one—man band of course, but how much does it revolve around him and him alone? band of course, but how much does it revolve around him and him alone7m appears to, he is chairman and chief executive, doing 120 hour weeks and he often sleeps in the office. many would say it is not a company that is operating in a sustainable manner. thank you so much. we asked you to tweet us about the uk report on vaping and whether or not you think it

helps people to quit smoking. we'll take a look at what you have to say in a minute but first here's what the chair of the committee had to say. my my message to the nhs is take this issue more seriously. we cannot tolerate the continued death toll of 79,000 people in england alone, every year, from smoking. raping is one every year, from smoking. raping is u every year, from smoking. raping is one group to help problem smokers give up and we should be doing far more to encourage it. —— vaping. we asked you to tweet us about e—cigarettes and their health ‘benefits'. we have had charles lloyd saying, i have children and when they saw the e—cigarettes, they asked what it is and then asked if they could have them? someone and then asked if they could have them ? someone else and then asked if they could have them? someone else has said, i

believe nicotine is harmful, what you call it. russ mould is back to look through the papers. generally the feeling is, you are placing one habit with another. you are talking to somebody who has never started. it is not for me, but ican never started. it is not for me, but i can see looking at it from a business perspective, the big tobacco companies feel there is an opportunity. they want to increase their e—cigarettes sales to £5 billion. there is a push back on traditional nicotine products which have led to health problems so they feel there is something they can do and there is an opportunity. somebody has said i quit via cold turkey, the only way. a man up! some of the says people should not be able to smoke tobacco in public

spaces and neither should they be able to use e—cigarettes. do you think there is a moral issue they are selling something to which people are addicted even if it doesn't do them any harm? if i was to sell you a suite which would make you addicted to that sweet, even if it hasn't got any problems, i am addicting you to my product? those pension funds who run their money on what they would argue is an ethical line, they exclude tobacco for one of those reasons. equally, if i was a to ba cco of those reasons. equally, if i was a tobacco executive, what would i say? a tobacco executive, what would i 7 i a tobacco executive, what would i say? i would say i am providing pleasure, relaxation to people and thatis pleasure, relaxation to people and that is one of the purposes. we talk about choice, but you are not getting a choice once you are addicted. there is a version that is supposed to be less addictive. jamie found this story about youth unemployment in the us in the wall streetjournal. it unemployment in the us in the wall street journal. it has unemployment in the us in the wall streetjournal. it has hit a 52 year low, it is incredible. it is down to

just over 9%. he comes back to the issue of the us economy does seem to be performing very strongly at the moment. there are two negatives, black youth unemployment is higher at 16% and there are clear issues to be addressed. the other issue is the labour participation rate, the number of youths looking for a job is down at 61%. the all—time high was over 70%. there is a lot of slack in the system. if you look for an explanation as to why wage growth is still solo in the us, there are a lot of people out there who may not be looking because they have been discouraged. if they find an opportunity, there may be more people out there looking for work than we think. this story in the independent, apparently mi6 has been spying on brexit negotiators in the uk. i cannot say they actually have

been. i did say apparently, allegedly. industrial espionage, and sure it goes on. it is about david davies' briefcase because it wasn't secure enough. it is like a spy novel. if you think about it, there isa novel. if you think about it, there is a limited amount of time you can spend looking for weapons of mass destruction and actually, the real important stuff in most countries is getting commercial advantages. they will always look for an edge where they can get one, particularly in negotiations such as this one. great to have you there. enjoy your holiday. that's it from business live today. there will be more business news throughout the day on the bbc live webpage and on world business report. we'll see you again tomorrow. hello, it is a sunny start for many

parts of england but the further north and west you go we run into more cloud and some outbreaks of rain. that is because we have a weather system moving in to the north and the west all associated with this area of low pressure, pushing these weather fronts towards us pushing these weather fronts towards us with outbreaks of rain and as a result, quite a bit of cloud moving in. down towards eastern areas of england, central part and the midlands, there is some sunshine and clear skies. we will keep the sunshine from much of the day but fairweather cloud developing into this afternoon but the rain will continue across northern ireland, spreading into the north and west of scotland. northwest england and north—west wales, maybe showery rain into the afternoon. a breezy afternoon, particularly towards the north—west where we could see gusts, 30 to 110 north—west where we could see gusts, 30 to a0 miles an hour. temperatures similarto 30 to a0 miles an hour. temperatures similar to yesterday across northern parts, down to the south—east where

there is more sunshine. temperatures there is more sunshine. temperatures there 22 degrees. the rain will push south into northern england. they will stay damp and pretty wet across much of northern ireland, scotland on the far north of england into the early hours of saturday morning. then generally for the weekend it's going to be quite cloudy. there will be rain at times, particularly as we will see in a moment on sunday. we start off on saturday, quite wet from northern ireland through southern and central scotland, northern england seeing rain at times as well. either side of that there will be something drier and brighter with sunny spells at times across much of england and wales and feeling quite warm and humid. temperatures getting to about 23, 20 5 degrees. temperatures in the north about 17 to 19. into sunday, there will be a tropical storm manuel in and all that will do is produce

heavy rain during the day on sunday. particularly wales, northern ireland and central and southern parts of scotland. the rain will move north and east but it went reach the far south—east of england and the far north of scotland staying largely dry throughout the day on sunday. temperatures across southern areas to 25 degrees. further north, about 17,19 to 25 degrees. further north, about 17, 19 celsius to 25 degrees. further north, about 17,19 celsius an to 25 degrees. further north, about 17, 19 celsius an unsettled weekend to come. goodbye. hello, it's friday, it's nine o'clock, i'm joanna gosling, welcome to the programme. e—cigarettes should be given out on prescription to help people stop smoking, according to a group of mps. there is a danger that of the common perception of smokers in public places is that papers are treated the same as smokers again we miss an opportunity to encourage people to give up smoking. members of the science

and technology committee say e—cigarettes are much less harmful than smoking — and there's no public health reason to ban vaping in public spaces. as £10 million in funding is announced to tackle drugs and violence in england's worst prisons, we've got exclusive access