earlier this week. scotland's high court ruled that borisjohnson's action was unlawful because his intention was to prevent parliament from doing itsjob ahead of brexit. forest fires in indonesia are causing toxic smogs which is spreading to neighbouring countries. hospitals in the region have been inundated with people complaining of respiratory issues. the discovery of a planet which appears to have water in its atmosphere has got a lot of attention online. scientist have called the planet k2—18b. it's around 110 light years away and it's being described as the most likely place ever discovered to find life away from earth. that's all. stay with bbc world news. exciting stuff! as always, you can find background and analysis

on all our top stories on the bbc news website. log on to bbc.com/news or download the bbc news app. now we're crossing live to singapore for asia business report. sharesjump shares jump as the us and china offer goodwill gestures on tariffs. india's finance minister cormann a twitter storm after pointing the figure over the country's economic slowdown —— finance minister in a twitter storm after pointing the finger over the country's economic slowdown. welcome to asia business report with me, mariko oi. let's start with the us—china trade war, because this morning donald trump that he would

delay the imposition of new tariffs on china, tweeting: that came after china announced it would exempt some american products from new tariffs. stocks in asia have opened higher following the us on hopes the announcements signal igas a softening in beijing and washington's stances ahead of talks next month. joining me from sydney is markets a nalyst joining me from sydney is markets analyst peter maguire from xm.com. thanks forjoining us. president donald trump calling it a goodwill gesture, is it that or are they softening their stances? there's a number of points. we need to understand the fragility of the economy and we think resident trump is extending the olive branch to get

the trade talks back on track in a goodwill gesture, and i think that extending that branch is going to be a benefit for all economies and certainly for the china and us economies at the moment. he's only suggesting a two—week delay. of course, talks are starting next month. but the fundamental differences between the two countries remain the same. do you think they can come to a resolution? i think they're working towards that. there is no doubt president donald trump has a goodwill gesture to make it happen, and ifeel like the chinese are doing the same. it's possibly the first stage of where we have to get to, and like any form of negotiation, it takes little steps to get to the end result. is it possible... president donald trump kept saying china has to pay tariffs but we started to some impact on the us economy and us consumers ahead of christmas shopping season. that's right. that fragility and that's

where we don't want to any form of further slowdowns to impact as far as global recession fears goes. china is in a state of unease with its own economy, and what happens from here has got to be... i would say confidence. that underpins everything leading up to christmas. peter maguire, thanks forjoining us from sydney on this latest development in the trade war. in the us and europe, crypto currencies are very much the business of the private—sector. however, in asia, china's central bank is set to launch its own digital currency, while india is cracking down on non—government additional currencies. so is the future of crypto private, public or both? earlier i spoke to the chief executive of circle, the company behind a us dollar backed crypto currency, and asked him to describe the difference between his crypto

currency and the us dollar. the idea behind the us dollar coin is you want all the benefits of crypto currency, the ability to send and receive currency at the speed of the internet. so, in seconds instead of days or hours et cetera and virtually at no cost. instant, nearly three. you want very high levels of security. most importantly you want your dollars to be what we call programmable and what we can get with technology, one of the advantages, is you can write code that allows your money to be programmable, just like content on the internet. it gives superpowers to the currency but it is still fully backed and held in reserve in central bank money. you get the benefits of the price stability and the underlying money characteristics but with the power of the internet. private led virtual currencies are known for their volatility, so how can they compete with a product like

yours? there's going to be a few types of major popular crypto currencies. you will have the non— sovereign crypto currencies that are trying to compete with something more like gold. bitcoin is playing that role, it is non— sovereign, viewed as a store value that has those characteristics, but for everyday payments, sending an receiving money and building economic relationships around the world over the internet, things based on the yacht, in particular the most popular reserve currencies like the euro, the dollar, they will be quite popular, so those are some of the key differences. despite the hype in recent years, because there's critics who say these virtual currencies are used by criminals, how do you respond to that? the most popular currency in the world for criminals is the us dollar, 2 trillion us dollars are laundered each year. i believe it is over 98% of money laundering goes undetected by the existing banking system. right now

we have a system failing. blockchain technology introduces new things attractive to law enforcement. there's an audit trail. there's an ability when you know your customer policies attached to that to more readily track the bad guys. as a firm we are regulated and we work closely with law enforcement when necessary and when you look at what china has done with the central bank digital currency, one of the primary reasons they are introducing it is to reduce the risk of money laundering with cash. when it comes to the indian economic slowdown, one sector in particular, the motor industry, has hit the brakes, but who is to blame? according to the finance minister it is millennials, who are turning to ride—hailing apps like uber and ola rather than buying cars themselves. we have more from mumbai. the comments have caused a huge stir in india, especially among the younger generation. she implied

slumping car sales was down to youngsters using car hailing apps like ola and over instead of buying their own vehicles. car sales in india have gone in reverse over the past year with additional data showing declining sales for the last ten consecutive months. the auto industry is seen as the engine for the indian economy, employing 35 million people in the country. however, some youngsters believe they are not to blame for the slowdown. in mumbai, i don't think there's a space to park the car. you don't buy the cars because youngsters don't earn much. if we we re youngsters don't earn much. if we were earning good, we would love to buy cars because we would love '5 20 cars, we buy cars because we would love '5 20 ca rs, we love buy cars because we would love '5 20 cars, we love technology and speed. picking up on one of the key points there, about cars being unaffordable, that comes as no surprise given you unemployment is high in the country and it is experiencing its slowest growth in

six years and with that, many feel the finance minister has unfairly targeted the younger generation. let stay with us auto sector, because ford is in the process of cutting 12,000 jobs across europe. about 20% of its workforce in the region. its closing five factories in an effort to close losses and free up cash to invest in electric and hybrid. our reporter theo leggett asked the director of ford —— president of ford europe what progress has been made. we announced it injanuary and we summarised it in june. we announced it injanuary and we summarised it injune. 20% of our workforce in europe. we are well on track with implementing that plan and more importantly we shared with employees and unions that everything we are considering in this period is on the table. so you shouldn't expect any new news. there's a lot of pain here, are you confident it

will be worthwhile and you should get back to profitability? the environment isn't easy for the car industry. absolutely. we expect a significant improvement in results in europe this year and we intend to return to profitability as soon as possible. in addition, we have a more fundamental redesign of the business under way and we want to achieve competitive returns and 6% marginfor achieve competitive returns and 6% margin for the business in europe. on the outside, looking globally, of course there's trade tensions between north america and china. the possibility there might be tariffs on exports from europe to the united states. what kind of impact does that have on you? yeah, of course, we are in a dynamic environment, whether globally, as you referred to, north america and china, or with brexit in europe. we are clear in our communications with governments, either in the uk or europe, that what matters to us is tariff—free

trade and we hope we can get you a deal and our business can continue and we can serve consumers in the uk and we can serve consumers in the uk and the eu. you mentioned tariffs, but if there is no deal on brexit, one thing we are likely to is tariffs on trade across the channel. what impact will that have on your company and your consumers? firstly, it doesn't necessarily mean there will be tariffs. that will be a decision for the uk government in terms of how they wish to manage the automotive industry. with that we end this edition of asia business report. thank you so much for. —— thank you so much for watching. this is bbc news the top stories this hour: opposition mps in britain demand parliament is recalled after scotland's highest civil court ruled that its suspension was unlawful. forest fires in indonesia are causing toxic smogs that's spreading to neighbouring countries and leading to a spike in respitory problems.

shareholders in the company sports direct have made clear their unhappiness with its founder mike ashley by voting in large numbers against him being re—elected as director. mr ashley owns just over 60% of the company, so he was ultimately backed to continue in the role. here's our business correspondent, emma simpson. chanting: we want ashley out, said we want ashley out! sports direct agm — it's never dull. shareholders had a long list of complaints, including last months's huge, unexpected tax bill from the belgian authorities. the boss later told me he's not happy, either. if i were a shareholder, i would be very frustrated by those events. so let's be crystal clear, it's not acceptable, yeah? when i heard the night before the results about a belgian tax

investigation that was over £600 million, i think i had to ask three times and i even had to question the currency, "what are you talking about?" and questions, too, about his spending spree, from evans cycles to jack wills and house of fraser. so why is he expanding on the high street while others are in retreat? i don't think you see next piling out. i don't think you see primark piling out. i don't think you see tk maxx piling out. i think you will see it's a lot, lot smaller pool, a lot smaller pond but the fish are going to be enormous and i want to be one of those enormous fish. a lot of people think you've bitten off more than you can chew, the business has too much on its plate. correct. i agree with all of the above but it is like buses, sometimes, they all come at once. it doesn't come in a perfect flow. life isn't perfect. trouble is, house of fraser is still losing millions of pounds a week. the jury's out. the jury's definitely out, but i'm a definite believer. before anybody thinks anything, my wealth is in that strategy.

not a fraction of it, 60% of that sd share price is one individual, who, by the way, does not get a dividend and does not get paid, and he's bet the farm on this and he's not going to back down until he wins. his message? "bear with me", but mike ashley is under pressure. tonight, sports direct doesn't have an auditor for its accounts. it's a legal requirement, and he is now in a race to find one. emma simpson, bbc news. hello, i'm gavin ramjaun and this is sport today, live from the bbc sport centre. coming up on this programme: the giants of basketball are taken down. team usa's 58—match unbeaten run comes to an end, at the world cup.

paying the price. jason roy is among the england names to lose their place for the final ashes test. and keeping up with the kordas. we check in with the sporting dynasty, hoping to win the solheim cup on european soil. welcome to the programme. we start with a big shock at the basketball world cup, where the defending champions the united states have been knocked out in the quarterfinals. the last time they lost an international match was back in 2006, but a battling performance from france means that long, unbeaten run comes to a dramatic end in china. austin halewood has the story. when it comes to basketball, usa are the best of the best. they won their last if their international matches, but on wednesday in china, the world expected more of the same. they hadn't planned on going down without a fight hadn't planned on going down without afight —— hadn't planned on going down without a fight —— france. into the second, withjumpers

a fight —— france. into the second, with jumpers like this from