our top story: it is a moment of history forjapan. for the first time in more than 200 years, a japanese emperor is about to abdicate. emperor akihito will formally give up his throne. a new era now begins, with crown prince naruhito becoming the emperor. us deputy attorney general rod rosenstein, who appointed robert mueller to investigate links between russia and donald trump's campaign, is resigning his post. mueller‘s investigation did not establish evidence that trump's campaign illegally conspired with the russian government. and this video is trending on bbc.com. is this beluga whale, found off the coast of norway, a spy trained by the russian navy? it was found off norway's coast wearing a russian harness, which has now been removed. that's all, stay with bbc world news. our top uk story: further talks have taken place

between the government and the labour party in an effort to break the deadlock over brexit. now on bbc news, live to singapore for asia business report. murky skies for boeing. the plane maker is on the defensive after receiving a grilling from its shareholders. and the new dawn in the land of the rising sun. japan gears up the land of the rising sun. japan gears up for it emperor's abdication. we will take a look at the economic legacy his reign leaves behind. good morning, asia, hello, world. it is tuesday. i am glad you could join us for another action packed edition of asia business report. i'm rico hizon. we start off with boeing, and the plane maker has come underfire

with boeing, and the plane maker has come under fire from investors with boeing, and the plane maker has come underfire from investors in the wake of the two deadly crashes of its 737 max aircraft. at its annual meeting in chicago, the plane maker faced calls for a shakeup for failing to foresee safety risks with what was its bestselling model. however, boeing's ceo refused to admit the system was flawed, saying it could have been one of multiple factors. elsewhere, there are reports whistleblowers from the plane maker contacted the us airline regulator over concerns about the system. our correspondent has all the details. in heavy rain, family and friends stood silently, clutching photos of victims from the ethiopian airlines crash last month which killed all 157 people on board. they wanted shareholders and boeing's ceo, dennis muilenburg, to see their faces before boeing's ceo, dennis muilenburg, to see theirfaces before heading into the annual meeting. i am hoping

justice for the victims, and victims' families, and that means a full federal and state criminal investigation. i want boeing to come clean about the chain of events inside boeing that led to these crashes. but if they were looking to hear some accountability, they were disappointed. despite being pressed by the media, boeing's ceo was reluctant to accept full responsibility. there's a chain of events, there are multiple contributing factors. there are factors that we can control in the design, and, in this case, that common link related to the mcas system and its activation. we're going to break that link, and this will prevent accidents like this from happening again. the boeing 737 max's anti—stall system, or mcas, was the common factor in both the ethiopian and lion air crashes, and it is what led regulators across the globe to ground the entire boeing max fleet.

as it scrambles to get their planes fixed, the crisis continues to grow for boeing. four whistle—blowers have approached us lawmakers, raising safety concerns with the max jet. the company is facing a mounting number of lawsuits and criminal investigations from the us justice department. that should have gone through some sort of internal review... facing shareholders for the first time, mr muilenburg took pointed questions about putting profits over safety. you seem to have rushed the 737 into production, and lost sight of some basic failsafe things. i want to assure you, first of all, that safety is our top priority. the message of safety being the top priority was repeated several times. whether it was enough to convince global regulators, and the flying public, is not yet clear. another round of trade talks between

the united states and china as both sides try to reach a deal. the trade representative and treasury secretary are in beijing today to meet with the chinese vice premier. the white house has said the discussions will cover a range of issues, including intellectual property, forced technology tra nsfers, property, forced technology transfers, nontariff barriers and agriculture. there have been hence negotiators have made some progress, but will it be enough to agree to end this ongoing trade dispute? i spoke with a professor from new york and asked her what were some of the main issues up for debate. based on what they have been saying, it seems like the sticking points really are how they are going to ensure enforcement on both sides. and that could be difficult, given that it is a very broad trade deal. by covering so a very broad trade deal. by covering so many different areas, from obviously the tech transfers, to ip to all these other areas, you would

have to have a lot of different regulators covering a lot of areas. and so working those details out is not going to be an easy thing. beijing has basically criticised, professor, trump's moved to end waivers which limit the importing of oilfrom waivers which limit the importing of oil from japan. could this waivers which limit the importing of oilfrom japan. could this be waivers which limit the importing of oil from japan. could this be an obstacle oil from japan. could this be an o bsta cle to oil from japan. could this be an obstacle to a deal? well, it remains to be seen. obviously china does important oil from them, to be seen. obviously china does important oilfrom them, and i don't know where they are going to get the substitution for that. maybe the us plans to make up that difference. so we will see. the us basically said that they are going to make up for those shortfalls, so we have to see what the us comes up with. indonesia is looking to move its administrative capital away from jakarta, as the newly re—elected

president widodo orders ministers to co—ordinate a financing plan for it. to tell us more about this big project is my colleague sharon —— sharanjit leyl. project is my colleague sharon —— shara njit leyl. why project is my colleague sharon —— sharanjit leyl. why move operations out of jakarta ? sharanjit leyl. why move operations out ofjakarta? in a word, traffic. when was the last time you are stuck ina cartrying when was the last time you are stuck in a car trying to get somewhere from jakarta resnick this is something government ministers have to face as well. they are often accompanied by police convoys to get to their next meeting on time. in 2016 there was a survey done that officially found that jakarta, with its 30 million strong population, has the world's worst traffic congestion. and this costs the city money, as well. some $7 billion in lost productivity every year, in fa ct. lost productivity every year, in fact. and there is another reason. the city is also sinking. according to researchers, it will be potentially submerged by 2050. so

all of this is part of the reason. and it is going to cost money as well. at the moment the president and his team are looking to move this administrative capital, to potentially build a new city, they say it may cost about $33 billion. so they don't want it all to entirely rely on state funding, because of course it would take a real toll. so they are looking for public— private partnerships and potentially private funding in this. and the indonesians are sceptical this will happen. they have heard about this for decades now, that the administrative capital may move away from jakarta. but of course, we know jokowi has been newly re—elected, he has not been officially installed, that will not happen until late may, that will not happen until late may, that he may be the president to do this. he has pushed through a lot of infrastructure projects. this. he has pushed through a lot of infrastructure projectslj this. he has pushed through a lot of infrastructure projects. i have really experienced this gridlock, but it could be costly. where are they planning to relocate briefly?‘ pa rt they planning to relocate briefly?‘ part of borneo that indonesia owns,

a fairly sleepy city, but not the first time it has come up as a potential city to replace jakarta as a political capital. indonesia's founding father highlighted this and there are so many power and resources centred injava, authorities are thinking this is a good way to move it away from jakarta. but if you are in a hurry to get out of that traffic, it will not happen anytime soon, but maybe in the next ten years. thank you so much for that update. moving now to japan, and emperor akihito's abdication today will end the three decade era. during his reign the country struggled with economic stagnation and was hit by several natural disasters. our correspondent is in tokyo. how will investors remember this era? from the stock market performance, not so well. the last day in trade for this era was

friday, and share prices lost about a quarter of their value from the beginning of the era. i think we can show you the graph, how the nikkei 225 performed from 1970 until last friday, and you can see how shares continue going up and up and up in that era, but after the bubble burst, shares fell sharply, and they didn't really recover any of the losses as the us stocks did, for example. japan also lost their title as the world's second biggest economy when china overtook that title. as you can see on your screen, the gap between the two just continues to grow. in the corporate sector, in the tech sector, sony's day of being known for its killer product of walkman is long gone. it is struggling to compete with apple

as well as south korea's samsung, but one area where japan remained relatively competitive as the car sat there, where toyota has managed to continue competing against the likes of general motors as well as volkswagen. i think it is fair to say that many people are very eager to welcome the new era, and hopefully a better stock market performance. lets have a quick look now at the markets. we start off with wall street and a jump in us consumer spending propelling shares toa consumer spending propelling shares to a record high overnight and helping to offset weak eurozone sentiment and uncertainty over spain's elections. thank you for investing your time with us. i am rico hizon. sport today is coming up next. this is bbc news. the top stories this hour: emperor akihito is set to formally give up his throne.

and us deputy attorney general rod rosenstein, who appointed robert mueller to the russia probe, has resigned. a public inquiry into how thousands of nhs patients were given infected blood products in the 1970s and 1980s will start hearing witness evidence. so fararound 3,000 people have died, and the scandal has been called one of the worst ever disasters in nhs history. our health editor hugh pym reports. he died 22 years ago. that's an awful lot of living not to have had. seeing my children growing up, the children he might have had, it's all that life that might have been. we always got together at christmas... amanda remembering her brother, simon cummings, a successful radio presenter. as a teenager, he was given a blood product by the nhs for his haemophilia. it seemed to help at the time. but, unknown to the family and other

patients, it was infected, and he later contracted hiv. the awful thing is that it was self—administered. so, sometime, probably sitting at my mum's kitchen table, one of those doses, or many of those doses, will have infected him, without knowing which one, or when. it's almost worse that he administered it himself. so why did the nhs give patients imported products, using blood from infected donors? who was to blame? was there a high—level cover—up? that is what the inquiry starting tomorrow in this hall will try to answer. the victims and their families are pleased it is happening, but they say day—to—day financial support for them is far too low. people feel the money that's being paid by government as subsistence payments is hugely inadequate at the moment. people are not able to survive on it. many people have lost theirjobs. many partners have had to put their careers and lives on hold to care for them, and they've simply not been properly supported financially in relation to that. payments in scotland are higher than elsewhere in the uk. tomorrow, the government in westminster will announce new funding. campaigners are cautious

until they see the detail. we were always very close as children... amanda has never spoken out before about her brother. she hopes the inquiry will provide her family with some answers. she says the grief is just as raw now as when simon died. imiss him. i miss him more than ever, at this time, and i think because — because of this realisation that it maybe didn't need to happen, it makes it even harder to deal with. now on bbc news, sport today. hello, i'm tulsen tollett and this is sport today, live from the bbc sport centre. coming up on this programme: ding junhui loses six successive frames and is knocked out of the world snooker championship byjudd trump.

does championship byjudd trump. championship gloryi totte n ha m does championship glory await? tottenham have their semi—final later on tuesday. sport today's eye on india series continues as we talk to badminton star pv sindhu. hello and welcome to the programme where we start with the news thatjudd trump has knocked china's ding junhui out of the world snooker championship. the englishman rocketed to victory rattling off six successive frames to take a 13—9 win and progress to the quarterfinals, and jamie broughton was watching at the crucible theatre. please welcome, the national hero in china, into the dragon, ding junhui. ding junhui it is one of the biggest sports star in asia. going to the final session of this second round

match against