this is —— our top story: britain's prime minister has suffered a further reverse in parliament over brexit. mps have voted to remove the option of the uk leaving the eu without a formal agreement. on thursday, parliament will vote on whether to request an extension to the process. theresa may said that unless mps backed a deal soon, the extension would be a long one. boeing has grounded its entire global fleet of 737 max aircraft. the us faa said new evidence at the scene of the fatal ethiopian airlines crash prompted the decision. and this story is trending on bbc.com. president trump's former campaign manager, paul manafort, has been jailed for another 43 months. that's on top of the 47 month sentence he received a week ago in a separate fraud case.

and the top story in the uk: the long—awaited decision on whether soldiers will be prosecuted for their part in the bloody sunday massacre will be announced on sunday. boeing ground is its entire fleet of 737 max aircraft, days after deadly crash in ethiopia. facebook and instagram are down, affecting users around the globe. good morning asia, hello world. it is a thursday, glad you could join us for this edition of asia business report. i am rico hizon. we start off the programme with boeing because it is grounding its entire fleet of boeing 737 max eight and 9s following the crash in

ethiopia. it follows the announcement from president trump that the us would not allow the aircraft to fly from its airspace. we have had a very, very detailed group of people working on the 737 eight and the 730 79 new airplanes, we're going to be issuing an emergency order of prohibition to ground all flights of the 737 max eight and the 737 max nine and planes associated with that. boeing had managed to actually convince regulators not to ground their fleet for several days, but it became increasingly difficult for them to do that in the face of some 40 them to do that in the face of some a0 countries around the world that have done just that, grounding these

737 max eight and nine plains. regulators he had said it is because of new information, this satellite imagery that shows many more similarities in the fly trajectories of both that ethiopian plane that crashed on sunday and the lion air plane crash back in october. so what is next now for boeing? this, for boeing, is increasingly difficult position of them to be in. this is not a position that any playmaker would want to be in, to have its mainjet no longer would want to be in, to have its main jet no longer allowed to be flied. now the pressure is really on boeing to find a fix and find it fast because with every passing day, this crisis is costing the —— planemaker. -- costing them money. let's move on to brexit because the uk parliament has rejected a no deal exit from the european union. the

lawmakers will meet again on thursday to determine if they should delay brexit. thank you so much for joining us, we sought the strengthening of the pound against the us dollar overnight. how is it faring in asian trade? yeah, we saw a2% faring in asian trade? yeah, we saw a 2% rally in the british pound overnight, coming off that outcome, the fact that parliamentarians in the fact that parliamentarians in the uk voted against a no deal brexit, and i think that took out some of the uncertainty surrounding the backs of negotiations. but in early asian trade, what we have seen isa early asian trade, what we have seen is a bit ofa early asian trade, what we have seen is a bit of a slippage or slight retraction in the value of the pound because i think as traders are waking up, they are digesting this information and the fact remains that legally, the no deal option is still very much on the table if the uk does not find a deal to withdraw

from the european union. —— brexit. that is why i think you are seeing some of the harder sentiments coming into play. i spoke with sarah earlier, the chief economist for europe and stand track and she told me where we should see the pound going next. we have seen it certainly really gyrating around according to whether markets have anticipated a greater risk of no deal or there could be an extension. the vote today in the uk, on thursday, will be key as well in terms of indicating the length of the extension and of course, no deal is the default option. we should remember that, just because we had the vote yesterday and parliament resoundingly rejected the idea of no deal. unfortunately, it is still the default option. we think that

overall, the sterling can probably appreciate over the course of the next few months, as and when we get more clarity and on the assumption that a deal is done. 0n the assumption that eventually a deal is done, but there are lots of gifts in orderfor us to get done, but there are lots of gifts in order for us to get to that stage. what happens if for instance, you do not get that clarity and we go into an extension with no idea of what kind of deals on the table? think that the focus is going to continue to be around theresa may's deal. -- deal is on the table. the eu have been clear that they see no scope for altering that deal. sarah there from standard chartered, and she was saying a lot of volatility expected to head for the british pound and i think that is because of the fact that there is still no clarity about what kind of negotiation we're going to get, on asian markets though, you have seen shares bump up slightly. pa rt have seen shares bump up slightly. part of that is to do with the fact

that investors are taking a bit of a sigh of relief thanks to the clarity overnight, but the realfocus sigh of relief thanks to the clarity overnight, but the real focus will be chinese data, which is coming out in the next half—an—hour. thank you so in the next half—an—hour. thank you so much for that update on the markets. —— will be the. as some of you may have noticed, facebook is suffering partial outages affecting users worldwide, notjust the main facebook but it's messenger services, instagram and whatsapp have all been disrupted. 0ur technology reported dave lee gave me the latest. the last time facebook has been down for this long, we are now more than five hours into this issue, it was back in 2008. of course, the site was a much different type of place back then. you had around 150 million users, compared to the 2.5 billion that it has now. as you mentioned, this is

affecting not just has now. as you mentioned, this is affecting notjust facebook but also whatsapp, also instagram, i am also hearing that the virtual reality platform facebook runs has also been suffering from some disruption as well. facebook is not said what the cause is, however they did rule out a particular kind of cyber attack, what is known as a distributed denial of service attack. facebook has said that is not what has happened to them, however, i do think it is important to notice in that statement they did not rule out a cyber attack of any other kind, but i guess they are still gathering what has happened and they are yet to tell the public what is exactly behind this outage. dave lee there in san francisco. tokyo's trains are known around the world for their punctuality and efficiency. it is rare for them to deviate from the schedule. mariko 0i looks at how tokyo's rail system has made it a world leader.

tokyo's rail and metro systems are a spider ‘s web of over 80 lines, which together transport a staggering 15 billion passengers a year. an electric railway company is one of the private companies which ru ns one of the private companies which runs the city's trains. around the world, you see a lot of train systems with many delays. how do you think you managed to be so punctual all the time? like other big cities, overcrowding has long been a problem for tokyo's rail system. this line was one of

the most congested in the city, but by doubling the number of train tracks, the company has managed to bring down overcrowding by over 20%. officials are also focusing on more low—tech solutions. the tokyo metropolitan government is encouraging commuters to stagger the morning arrival times to the office, offering prizes for companies willing to change their employees's commuting times. in other business news making headlines, spotterfaces apple is not playing fair when it comes to competing for music fans. the swedish music streaming company has filed a complaint against the company with european anti—trust officials, accusing apple of giving its own music service and unfair

advantage over competitors. president trump said he is in no rush to and the trade war with china, insisting that any deal would have to include protection for intellectual property. trump and chinese president xijinping are expected to meet at the end of april, but no date has yet been set. let's have a quick look at the market, the japanese market up. the hang seng up by 83. a lot of investors are awaiting that all important economic data, which will be out very soon. thank you so much for investing your time with us, i am rico hizon. goodbye for now. the government has downgraded its prediction for economic growth this year but says it expects borrowing to be lower. the details were announced in the chancellor's spring statement to mps. philip hammond said the predictions depended on an orderly brexit and he highlighted what he called the ‘cloud of uncertainty hanging over the economy'. our economics correspondent dharshini david reports.

at this cookery class in manchester, cuts to some public services have been hard to swallow. they are keenly aware of the way budgets have sometimes failed to keep up with the cost of living over the last decade. we are not getting for what we are paying, really. the police and the fire, we are not getting the services enough. parents needing to provide papers and pens on things like that to help the schools to teach the kids, it'sjust not good. today, the chancellor revealed he has the funds to ease austerity. at the time of the autumn budget, this is how much the chancellor thought he would have to borrow to fund spending over the next few years, but look at the yellow bars. today, the government expects to borrow less thanks to higher tax receipts on wages and lower interest payments on government debt. so that means the chancellor has over £26 billion he could spend just over the next couple of years

to restore public services without running into trouble, but not yet. our economy is fundamentally robust but the uncertainty i hoped we would lift last night still hangs over it. we cannot allow that to continue. it is damaging our economy and it is damaging our standing and reputation in the world. it is here at the treasury that the chancellor decides how much to spend so is he withholding funds to make a political point? perhaps not. previously, he was expecting the economy to grow by 1.6% this year. solid but not spectacular. now with europe slowing down and brexit uncertainty, he expects growth of 1.2% and that would be the weakest since the financial crisis. that forecast assumes a swift deal otherwise growth could be weaker and the chancellor has implied he may need that money to support the economy, but the shadow

chancellor disagrees. why has money been found for tax cuts for big corporations while vital public services have been deprived ? austerity was never as necessity, it was always a political choice. these budding chefs will be pleased that an extra £100 million is being earmarked to fight knife crime. now on bbc news, sport today. hello, this is sport today, live from the bbc sport centre. coming up on this programme: all the latest from the uefa champions league as the quarter final line up is now complete and it includes four teams from england. there's a shock defeat

for chinese super league champions shanghai sipg in the asian champions league. and roger federer remains on course for a semi final showdown with rafael nadal after both won their respective last 16 matches at the indian wells masters. hello and welcome to the programme where we start with the uefa champions league and the news that the quarter final line up is now complete. liverpool and barcelona were both victorious in their respective ties against bayern munich and lyon and earlier our football reporter john bennett explained how liverpool won in germany. really, liverpool in a way didn't have to get out of second gear. buyer munich were woeful. a brilliant performance by liverpool, incomplete control for the whole game. brilliant goal by sadio mane. he is in great form. buyer munich fought back and got an equaliser

before