you're watching bbc news at nine with me, annita mcveigh. the headlines: mps m ps voted mps voted by a majority of one to force an extension to the brexit process. the deal is an attempt to this is business alive. stop an ideal brexit. meanwhile back to jail. ex—renault nissan boss talks continue today between labour carlos ghosn is re—arrested at his home in tokyo over and the conservatives to try and new financial misconduct allegations. salvage a brexit deal, and despite live from london, that's our top story on thursday the 4th of april. differences, discussions yesterday between the party leaders were described as constructive. his manifesto says we need to deliver brexit. our manifesto says we need to deliver brexit. i think it's in the national interests to deliver on the results of the referendum because we are a democracy. ministers insist they still want to leave the eu by the middle of may but could parliament and the eu the rock star of the global car demand a much longer industry says the new charges are outrageous and arbitrary as he is taken away in an early morning raid. and german manufacturing data has come in at its slowest pace in two

yea rs come in at its slowest pace in two years in february. a new warning over the health of the euro zone‘s largest economy. and in the financial markets — the rally runs out of steam. shares in asia dip as investors await further results from us—china trade negotiations. a really busy day for business and we will get the latest on a boeing on the ethiopian airlines plane crash where inspectors are due to release their preliminary report. also, the international monetary fund thinks big tech is too big and are warning about the likes of google and facebook squashing innovation and not encouraging competitiveness. we want to know, do you agree? should companies broken up. —— should these companies be broken up? carlos ghosn, the former boss of the japanese carmaker nissan, has been rearrested in tokyo. this time, over allegations

that he paid an omani businessman $31 million from company funds. mr ghosn was on bail on charges of mis—stating his salary and misusing company funds. mr ghosn has called the latest charges "outrageous and arbitrary" and again denied any wrongdoing. let's get more on this from our asia business hub. tell us more about the latest allegations. we know he has been arrested while out on bail which in itself is highly unusual as this is his fourth arrest on those allegations, and this time it is on the aggravated breach of trust according to prosecutors of around 5 million us dollars and the ceo who first brought these allegations is

saying that he is also shocked by the arrest, so what we have been hearing from various reports is that these are payments made from a discretionary fund controlled partly by mrghosn discretionary fund controlled partly by mr ghosn which amounted to around $31 million over a period of years to an omani businessman and somehow these funds came back to him and his family. previously it was said that authorities had been building a new case against him involving payments to this omani businessman. the question asked today is why arrest him again? he had already been held for more than three months in detention and now it appears he could be held for several more days for more questioning with potentially fresh charges levelled against him at the end of the process. what has been the response from his fairly newly appointed legal team? his from his fairly newly appointed legalteam? his lawyer from his fairly newly appointed legal team? his lawyer has been speaking in the last few hours and says that the latest arrest is really m ea nt says that the latest arrest is really meant to pressure mr ghosn

and stop him from speaking freely. he said this to ghosn‘s bail terms did not include an internet ban, and he took to twitter last night to say he took to twitter last night to say he will hold a press conference next week and go public and tell the world the truth about what has been happening to him. whether these things have anything to do with each other, we don't really know yet. his lawyers now say that there will be a video statement instead of that press c0 nfe re nce video statement instead of that press conference next week. we know that accusations by some critics is that accusations by some critics is that the japanese have a hostage justice system where people are taken into justice system where people are ta ken into custody justice system where people are taken into custody for prolonged periods and they try to grind them down to force a confession, but mr ghosn continues to deny the allegations and says his legal team have indicated he is determined to stick this out. he has been saying, why arrest me except to break me? and he says the rearrest is outrageous. his trial over claims of

financial misconduct is still pending and he denies all of it. he was released on bail and held for 108 days in custody and tokyo prosecutors reportedly entered his residence early this morning and then to their offices. the movie is then to their offices. the movie is the latest twist in a case that has attracted lots of global attention —— the move is. the french finance minister said that mr ghosn was getting french consular protection, so getting french consular protection, so lots to say about this story. thank you for the latest on what is going on with carlos ghosn. the eurozone's biggest economy, germany, has seen the biggest fall in industrial orders in more than two years. the latest numbers show a 4.2% fall in february. this will no doubt heighten concerns about the state of europe's biggest economy. manufacturers across the eurozone are struggling with a slowdown in emerging markets such as china, trade tensions with the us, and of course uncertainty over brexit.

a survey by ihs markit has shown that output from german factories is now at the weakest level since the eurozone debt crisis in february 2012. it doesn't sound great. let's run through some of the numbers with jennifer mckeown. thanks for joining us. jennifer mckeown. thanks for joining us. sally ran through some of the big issues there, but is there anything going on within germany itself? are consumers more restrained? is there a more downbeat national forecast before we look at the wider picture? so far, the general domestic economy has held up relatively well and retail sales figures say consumers are still spending that the real risk is that germany is an export —dependent economy and it is quite possible that as manufacturing continues to suffer that employment suffers as well and once that happens it will pass through to the domestic economy and consumer spending. just to tell

us and consumer spending. just to tell us what is ahead, we are waiting on news today from some of the top predictors in the german economy to say what they are projection is for the year ahead and it's expected to be reduced a lot. i think it is pretty clear it has to be. the previous projection was something like 2% and now we expect 0.5%. growth for germany in 2019? yes. that is a smidgen. yes, it's nothing like 2009 but it is flirting with recession now and the manufacturing sector is already in recession so things are not looking good at all. you are right to make the comparison, looking at this as the equivalent of the sovereign debt crisis. we are not there but we have only just really crisis. we are not there but we have onlyjust really finished the emergency measures from the last financial crisis, so what have the ecb got in the tank to fight a potential recession in the likes of

germany? very little. the emergency measures are still in place and it ended the asset purchasing programme recently but it has a huge balance sheet and that limits the amount it can buy and interest rates are already negative in the eurozone so it is restrictive. there could be a fiscal stimulus but things could get worse first foot to convince them to loosen the purse strings. jennifer, we could talk about this a bit later but we have run out of time for now, with other guests. and we are watching the us and china trade talks very closely because that has implications for other economies. let's take a look at some of the other stories making the news. facebook say they have removed public data bases on facebook say they have removed public databases on records of its users after a lapse was noted by cyber security. the company revealed a news website had been using the

amazon cloud service to openly store records from its three facebook pages including account names and comments which led to renewed concerns about privacy following the cambridge analytical scandal last year. thousands of uk companies are yet to publish their gender pay figures before the midnight deadline. it is said that the commission will take enforcement action against the firms that miss the deadline. the median pay gap so far reported is 10% comparing to 9.796 far reported is 10% comparing to 9.7% last year and big firms with the largest gaps include easyjet, lloyds ba n k the largest gaps include easyjet, lloyds bank and british gas, according to bbc and allergies —— analysis. tesla says it's delivered analysis. tesla says it's delivered a third fewer vehicles compared with the previous quarter. a lower than expected 63,000 vehicles were delivered and it is warning that earnings will be hit by the disappointing delivery numbers as well as recent price cuts.

foreign exchange markets are muted, and investors are very much crunching through —— reports of progress in the trade dispute between the us and china. the big question is whether they will be able to broker a deal, and the rest of the world is under pressure from a slowing global economy. malaysia posted its steepest fall in exports in the last two years. let's have a look at what is going on in europe at the moment and the focus is very much on banking stocks. according to press reports, the italian bank unicredit is preparing a rival multi—billion—euro bid to take control of the german bank commerzbank. deutsche bank is facing troubles with its move to buy its rival. shares in commerzbank have been rising. and michelle fleury has the details of what's ahead in the us, today.

watch out for the latest round in elon musk‘s legal battle with the financial regulator, us security and exchange mission. they want a new yorkjudge to find the tesla ceo for being in contempt for violating the terms of a court approved settlement in october. the commission says there must be a company lawyer to approve the tweets from elon musk, but he blatantly disregarded the agreement. meanwhile, a jury but he blatantly disregarded the agreement. meanwhile, ajury in boston is expected to hear closing arguments in the trial against the one—time billionaire and entrepreneur, mr kapoor. he and four collea g u es entrepreneur, mr kapoor. he and four colleagues are accused of conspiring to pay doctors bribes to prescribe patients and addictive sentinel spray, charges they deny. on the earnings front, constellation brands is expected to report a drop in sales as closed whether likely hurt the sales but wine sales didn't do much better after the weak

performance of the brands. that's michelle who is based in new york and we have jane, the regular on business live. what a time to be a senior business live. what a time to be a senior currency business live. what a time to be a senior currency strategist. tell us about the pound. one thing that would surprise people is that it is the best performing currency at the moment. the more we hear about growth, we do have plenty of this from stocks and that's because monetary policy is seeing rates go low, and we have expectations that we might have more monetary policy accommodation across the g ten, but sterling is holding up. i think the fa ct sterling is holding up. i think the fact it's been performing so well this year suggests that there is a bias and that the markets want to see a deal and market consensus is that there will be, so even though we have a weak candidate ago until a

potential no—deal brexit date, the market is still optimistic that something will be thrashed out and the hard brexit or no deal will be avoided. outside of the world of brexit and the pound in what is going on here there are wider us, china trade tensions having a real impact on economies across the world. they have, and you could weave this into the global growth story. looking at china, the second largest economy in the world, and this week they have seen better economic data but there is no doubt china has slowed down. they are very dependent on exports and clearly the exports have been hit by the tariffs the us has put on them and look at germany, they export a lot to china and that has been hit. this has been pushing out to the rest of the globe. we are watching the talks taking place in washington and everybody is wondering what is going on, but we expect to deal and that is what we have been told. i wanted to ask you, compared to the global

financial crisis, the collapse of lehman brothers, what is it like where you are? i don't think you can compare it in terms of the shock. we have not had the big shock that we had in 2009 but as we discussed earlier, one of the big concerns is because central banks do not have this ability to slash interest rates. the us possibly does. it hiked its reins —— rate nine times over the last few years but in europe we don't have that fuel in the tank and that is a big concern. how will the central banks deal with a downturn and they haven't really learned from last time around. there is the question. i don't know what to say after that. thank you so much. we shall see you a little later. lots more to chew on. we are running through the papers a bit later. india cuts its interest rates weeks before the big election we will be live to delhi.

you're with business live from bbc news. the confusion around brexit is continuing to have an impact on businesses. today we are looking at food companies that spend money stockpiling ingredients to avoid brexit related problems. with the current deadlock, might that be wasted money? ben thompson is at a chocolate maker in preston. we have commissioned him to bring some back. yes, hands off. good morning and welcome to preston. what you are looking at our lemon cream is, believe it or not, the start of the process as they begin their way down the production line in preston, to be encased in chocolate. but this place, like many other businesses, has had to do a lot of stockpiling. they spent about £4a0,000 of buying up they spent about £4a0,000 of buying

up brazil nuts —— £140,000. they they spent about £440,000 of buying up brazil nuts —— £140,000. they buy ginger from up brazil nuts —— £140,000. they buy gingerfrom china up brazil nuts —— £140,000. they buy ginger from china and up brazil nuts —— £140,000. they buy gingerfrom china and they up brazil nuts —— £140,000. they buy ginger from china and they have up brazil nuts —— £140,000. they buy gingerfrom china and they have had to get this stuff earlier than normal to make sure they are not hit by delays of the border that might be caused by brexit. andrew is the boss, and let's talk to him. we are looking at the chocolate is coming off here and it looks like a smooth process but you had to work hard to make sure you don't face disruption. appearances can be deceptive. we have worked hard to keep things running smoothly, bringing stock forwards, advancing production programmes. we had to spend a couple of hundred thousand pounds extra on cash of hundred thousand pounds extra on ca s h flow of hundred thousand pounds extra on cash flow that we had not planned to to meet the date at the end of march. 0r to meet the date at the end of march. or that came up at the end of march. or that came up at the end of march. like everybody else, we are waiting with baited breath to see what happens next. how frustrating is it that you had to spend a lot of time and money and you now have a lot of stock sitting here without necessarily immediate customers for it, because you wanted to prepare?

it must be annoying as a business. it's really frustrating. the process could have been a lot simpler. at the very beginning, the public gave parliament the statement that they wanted everybody to work together to move us wanted everybody to work together to move us out of the eu and what have they done since then? made it a party political game and batted the ball around and do nothing. we've only really started this week to make some concrete moves towards both sides of the house actually agreeing away forwards to get us out of europe. nice to see you and good luck with it and thanks for letting us luck with it and thanks for letting us have a look around. there you have it, that is what this place is contending with before we even get into the staff and the rights they might have. big questions, still no a nswe rs. carlos ghosn back to jail,

dramatically rearrested over new allegations about miss using company funds. let's look at the financial markets. as you can see european traders are heading low and various stocks on the move because of earnings reports that are disappointing, and also disappointing, and also disappointing manufacturing data out of germany, so that has hampered trade there as well. the us aviation regulator the faa says its going to put together an international team to review the safety of the boeing 737 max. it follows last month's crash of an ethiopian airlines jet which killed all 157 people on board. ethiopian investigators are due to release their initial report into the accident any time now. let's speak to our correspondent, theo leggett, in the business newsroom. what do we know at this stage? an international team? will it change things? it will try to

restore confidence in the certification process because the problem the faa has is that it certified the boeing 737 max as a safe aircraft. since then, two of them have been involved in accidents which on the surface look similar and we are expecting to hear in a few moments time in the preliminary report into the investigation into the ethiopian airlines crash that a flight the ethiopian airlines crash that a flight control system was a significant factor. if that is the case, a lot of questions will be asked about how the system, which was also implicated in a previous accident off indonesia came to be fitted and certified as safe. the implication is did they work together too closely and was enough due diligence done? those are the questions being looked at. because there are questions over both the plane itself and over how it became safety certified, bringing together

other authorities around the world to review the safety certification looks like a sensible plan because otherwise anything the faa says, at the moment, in this atmosphere, will be open to question. the moment, in this atmosphere, will be open to questionlj the moment, in this atmosphere, will be open to question. i was going to say exactly that, for boeing and the faa, they have to restore confidence in both, really, because there's been a lot of accusations that they are far too cosy. yes, and part of the problem is that the faa has limited resources so when it carries out safety analyses it can track some of the to experts, including boeing itself and the accusation is that there was such a drive to get the aircraft onto the market as quickly as possible in order to compete with an equivalent offering from airbus that maybe corners were cut and both were a bit too close together and that the checking wasn't as rigorous as it should have been. nobody sets out to create a dangerous aircraft but the suggestion is that there simply wasn't enough rigour and therefore

the whole process now needs to be reviewed. the faa will bring in outside agencies notjust from the us but from the overseas areas as well so the picture ultimately should be of a rigorous review process that creates a safe aircraft so when the 737 max is playing again, is it one day well, passengers can be confident about getting on board —— flying again. still waiting for any news from the ethiopian authorities and we will update you when we hear. the indian central bank has cut interest rates by a quarter of 1%. the decision comes a week before the general election in the country. prime minister nanendra modi is seeking a second term in office. cutting the repo rate, that's the rate at which the central bank lends money to commercial banks, should provide some relief to borrowers in the election season, as their lenders pass on those savings to their customers. we can speak to monica miller in delhi for us. good news for borrowers across the country, but

was it necessary? some are saying that this was a bit of a gift ahead of the election season. which politician would not want to turn it down at this point? as you mentioned, they dropped 25 base points to 6% which is making cash a lot cheaper for businesses to borrow and this is the second time they have decreased the rate in 2019 and the rbi governor is trying to boost the rbi governor is trying to boost the economy and give it that push in light of it being red—hot back in 2018 injuly light of it being red—hot back in 2018 in july where they light of it being red—hot back in 2018 injuly where they had a gdp growth of over 7% but later in the year it went down to 6.6% in december, the slowest pace in five consecutive quarters so what he is trying to do is to try and bring back above the level, above 7% level for the fiscal year of 2019 — 2020

and they also weighed in on the monetary policy which was not a big surprise to economists, not knowing what to expect in the months to come. monica, thank you very much, in delhi for us. jane is back as promised because we are going to look at some of the other stories being discussed in the business papers. one of them is about the imf warnings about big tech. they do not name the companies in their analysis, but the reporting of it, you have to put google, amazon in there, so what is the imf worried about? it's about standard economic policy and oligopoly power and companies with a big market share. theory suggest if you allow group of companies to have a big market share they can depress the ability of smaller companies to compete and if you don't have competition then generally speaking, in theory, those

big companies can push up prices and make us pay a little bit more than if there was a level playing field. what they do say is that there are not many signs yet of this happening. they are more concerned in the us than europe. it is a worry. they are saying governments should have stronger competition policies. this analysis is a long way from the more radical proposals about breaking up the biggerfirms but you have presidential candidates like elizabeth warren calling for this and lots of people would argue that this is already too late in the firm already have too much power and should have been broken up in the first place. if you go to the west coast, to california, there is a long—running political issue in the recent mayoral election highlighted that because the mayors did not want to associate themselves with the tech companies as they had in previous races and the reason for thatis previous races and the reason for that is because of the amount of homeless people and a lot of health —— wealth inequality. homeless people and a lot of health -- wealth inequality. a quick comment from a viewer saying, i think they have too much power and

asa think they have too much power and as a result they don't allow competition and innovation is the other thing mentioned in the report. prince harry was warning about the addictiveness of social media, instagram and all that kind of thing, and also a warning about gaming. it is interesting what he said. i read the one in the daily mirrorand he said. i read the one in the daily mirror and he doesn't mention mental health but we know he has been involved with mental health charities and we know there is a lot of research suggesting that too much phone use or social media use has affected the mental health are particularly teenagers, so it's a big concern and it is more addictive than alcohol. and then he launches his instagram account. more than1 million followers in record—breaking time. having his cake and eating it? all right, you, jane. thank you all for your company. a lot of news packed in there. moore is on the web page. plenty more through the rest

of the day on bbc new —— bbc news, but from me and sally, goodbye. we've got pretty unsettled weather at the moment across the uk all courtesy of an area of low pressure which from the satellite imagery you can see as this spiralling cloud, rotating around the centre which is towards the south—west of wales in the south—west of england, but you can see the weather front which matches up nicely with the cloud and also some outbreaks of rain and hill snow across the higher ground of wales, the south west midlands and the south—west of england through the south—west of england through the morning. there will be sunny spells developing in cornwall and west devon as the afternoon goes on in the rain will continue to spread north through the midlands, eventually into eastern areas but across east anglia and the south—east of england, through northern england and scotland there

will be sunshine and the rain is confined to the far north of scotla nd confined to the far north of scotland here. there could be a few showers for northern ireland. maximum temperatures between seven and 11 degrees, but need the cloud, the rain, the hill snow, it could be only as much as four or 5 degrees. through tonight, we continue with showers, spiralling around this area of low pressure towards the west and the further east you are, clear spells and it could turn chile with temperatures down to between two and 4 degrees and may a touch of frost first thing on friday morning. on friday the area of low pressure is still there but it is moving towards the south and the west so while the weather fronts are still around that, it's more towards the western areas so for northern ireland, wales, west of england, it will remain unsettled with the risk of heavy showers and for central and eastern areas in scotland, largely fine and dry, plenty of sunshine on the wind is coming in from the

south—east and it won't be as cold on friday with temperatures getting up on friday with temperatures getting up to on friday with temperatures getting uptoa on friday with temperatures getting up to a rather pleasant 12 or 14 degrees. we keep the feed of or south or south easterly wind as we go into the weekend and you can see the oranges are taking hold across the oranges are taking hold across the uk, and the exceptions of the warmth might be the east coast with an onshore wind in the north sea is quite chilly and that could bring lower temperatures but generally speaking it's between 11 or 15, may 17 on sunday in the capital, dry weather, sunny spells, but equally heavy showers to keep a close eye on on sunday in southern england. goodbye.