this is the business briefing. i'm sally bundock. earnings for alphabet — the tech titan behind google, youtube and driverless cars — dissapoints, sending shares down sharply. and boeing is feeling the heat as shareholders ask the aviation giant, did it put profits before safety? and financial markets have a bumper week of earnings reports — economic news and central bank meetings to digest. this is how asia is trading now as trade talks between the us and china get underway again. the japanese markets are close for a

nice holiday. shares in alphabet fell sharply after the tech giant revealed it reaped less money than expected, making investors worry that its core digital advertising growth may be slowing. revenue forjanuary to march rose by almost 17% to $36.3 billion — still a decent sum — but around $1bn less than most experts had expected. other parts of the business, or "google other", includes youtube, play, its cloud computing business, hardware sales and the android app store — revenues here grew by 25% to almost $5.5bn. but profits were dented by a large fine after the european commission slapped a $1.7 billion penalty on alphabet for abusing its monopoly in online advertising. the total fines imposed by brussels over the past two years now stands at more than $9 billion.

here's our north america technology correpondent dave lee. alphabet‘s overall profits have been dragged down because of the european commission find of 1.5 billion euros. about $1.7 billion. over what it saw as anti—competitive advertising to esses. the fine isn't great, of course, but wall street's key concern here is that the revenue growth has now been slowing for more than a year. —— practices. there has also been increased investment on solving big rob limbs like toxic content on the video sharing site youtuber. —— problematic content.

they have little to show for it. james erskine is managing director at the big shot, hejoins me now. good morning. you have been looking at their numbers. shares went down some 7% in after—hours trade. element they are fighting against the target that was set for them by the target that was set for them by the market. -- they are fighting against. it is impressive but not impressive enough. there are some extenuating circumstances. you mentioned the fine. there is also having to recruit about a500 additional members of staff. they have been recruited in the last 3— six months. that is another factor contest six months. that is another factor co ntest — —to six months. that is another factor contest ——to consider. yesterday they spoke about the strong dollar but there are other factors when you

get into their products and other reve nu es get into their products and other revenues as well. when you look at the other advertising revenues coming in, for google, they saw their slowest rate of growth since 2015 stop for facebook, they saw a 26% rise. why is google not as attractive in this competitive market. i'm in? —— competitive market? there is an element of a little bit of the varnish coming off the google ad product. less so with youtuber, that still feels quite exciting. it's video. extensively, the google ad product is what you or imight the google ad product is what you or i might have called classical advertising. even though it is it effective, it's not exciting. in terms of their dominance in this market, they still attract a heck of a lot of advertising sales. that

will continue presumably? absolutely. that's what they have done brilliantly. they have democratised what they are doing to their ad products. more detail on oui’ their ad products. more detail on our website. boeing 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 planemaker faced calls for a boardroom shake—up for failing to foresee safety risks with its best—selling model. airlines have warned that the grounding of the jet could cost them millions of dollars. samira hussain reports from chicago. in the 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 heading into the annual meeting. i'm hoping justice for the victims and the victims' families, and that means a full federal and state criminal investigation. boeing has just made decisions to put their profits in front of the safety of their passengers. 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 fail—safe 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.

are we into the final laps of us china trade talks? that's what us treasury secretary steven mnuchin has been saying. he is travelling to beijing with his trade chief robert lighthizer. robin brant is following the story in shanghai. this is the 10th round of talks. talk us through what is ahead. this is the 10th round of talks. talk us through what is aheadm this is the 10th round of talks. talk us through what is ahead. it is double digits now that steven mnuchin is big very optimistic about the prospect of a deal being done not after this meeting but after the meeting that's due next week when his chinese counterpart goes to washington dc. i have to say, steve nugent has always been the one optimistic about the prospect of a deal. —— steve mnuchin. the man who has talked about the importance not of doing a deal but enforcing a deal

is less optimistic. what we are hearing is the chinese are willing to give more ground on cloud computing, letting american companies coming here. robert lighthizer has been talking about progress in ip protection. there is also talk about how they enforce this deal if it happens. robert lighthizer has been sceptical about this and the chinese seem to be resisting. they have concerns about sovereignty. they don't want the americans being in charge of enforcement. there is a mixture of sentiment here. the reality is, nothing is agreed until everything is agreed. as ever, thank you so much. now let's brief you on some other business stories: samsung has posted a 60% drop in operating profit in the fist three months of 2019, hit by falls in chip prices and slowing demand for display panels. operating profit at the south korean tech was $5.a billion in the january—march quarter.

shared office provider wework is prepping the paperwork to list its shares on the us stock market. the firm offers shared office space and services, and is already london and new york's largest private office occupier. but it's yet to make a profit, with losses last year doubling to $1.9 billion. for financial markets, japan closed today. they are celebrating the end ofan today. they are celebrating the end of an error and the change of emperor. this is how the commodity markets are training. the price of oil isjust down markets are training. the price of oil is just down by one third of a percent at the moment. the sharemarket teenager, they are mixed again today. of course, a lot of attention in asia on those trade talks taking place later in beijing. that is your business briefing.

up next, news briefing. we'll take you through the stories making headlines in the global news an independent report into maternity services run by a welsh health board will be published today. it follows concerns that women and babies under the care of the cwm taf health board may have come to harm because of staff shortages and failures to report serious incidents. our wales correspondent sian lloyd reports. cherishing the precious memories of her daughter who died when she was just 19 days old. jessica weston gave birth to macy at one of two welsh hospitals where maternity services are being investigated. macy was struggling to breathe properly and her mother has many questions concerning her daughter's birth and care. them doing it is not going to bring macy back but it will

give us relief and may be just to feel a bit settled because at the moment we're so full of questions, we're full of anger, everything. and i just... we're full of anger, everything. and ijust... i don't think we're full of anger, everything. and i just... i don't think they we're full of anger, everything. and ijust... i don't think they really understand that. last october, the welsh government commissioned an external investigation into maternity services run by cwm taf health board. it provides facilities at the prince charles hospital and at the prince charles hospital and at another hospital where macy was born. bert is carried out between 2016 and 2018 have been under review. —— births. a3 cases were identified in total. 25 were classed as serious and include eight birth deaths. the health board has already been asked to make changes after finding immediately — make immediate concerns. — make immediate concerns. what we see is problems with staffing. we know there is a national shortage of midwives and often there are no specialist

doctors on cover when they are needed as well. consultant consultancy is now only provided on one site which they say will help the challenges around staffing. more details will emerge today and for families like macy's, they are eagerly awaited. this is the briefing from bbc news. the latest headlines: the end of an era — japan's emperor akihito prepares to formally give up his throne. islamic state releases a new video. if authentic, it'll be the first time its leader, abu bakr al—baghdadi, has been seen in years. the deputy attorney general who appointed robert mueller to investigate links between russia and donald trump's presidential campaign resigns. now it's time to look at the stories that are making the headlines in the media across the world.

we begin with the i newspaper. it says the us is threatening to sever intelligence ties with the uk over huawei, apparently set to get the go—ahead to help build britain's 56 network. let's look at russia's mk newspaper now. it's among many covering the story of the discovery of a whale in norway, wearing a gopro camera harness that can be traced back to russia, but it pours cold water on claims it could be being used as a spy. on to the financial times. its main story is on the plight of the iranian economy, which it says is collapsing under us sanctions. the guardian has a story on the uk economy, which it reports could be in for its worst decade since the second world war. and finally, fox news. it reports on a tech company apologising after putting out an ad seeking "caucasian" candidates only.

with me is fiona cincotta, senior market analyst at city index. britain could be dealing with highway? it says here that theresa may is reportedly ready to give them the go—ahead for the chinese technology firm to supply non—core elements, it says of the uk's new mobile system. now, there have been a lot of concerns over this. chinese laws suggest that firms must co—operate with beijing. so we seeing that there could be a conflict of interest here, and that is something that has been brought up is something that has been brought up by is something that has been brought up by senior as well. there is a huge debate and discussion about huawei, what it provides, what it doesn't provide, whether it's