you are watching bbc world news. our top story: a lawyer representing five women who have been taking legal action againstjeffrey epstein says he wants prince andrew to give evidence in court in america. the women allege the prince saw how they were treated at the late sex offender's homes. prince andrew says he would never condone or participate in the exploitation of any human being. typhoon kammuri has made landfall in the central philippines. manila international airport has been shut and 200,000 residents were evacuated from coastal areas. and doing well on our website: lionel messi has won the ballon d'or for the world's outstanding male footballer of the year. it is a record sixth time for the barcelona player. the women's award was taken by team usa world cup winner megan rapinoe. that is her first title.

more on our website, bbc.co.uk/news, and the news app. now on bbc news, live to singapore for asia business report. the us threatens tariffs on brazil, france and argentina, pressuring asian stock markets as investors worry about yet more trade spats. will the longest commercial passenger flight become a reality? we speak to the boss of qantas. good morning, asia. hello, world. it isa good morning, asia. hello, world. it is a tuesday. glad you could join us

for another exciting addition of asia business report. i'm rico hizon. let's begin with trade spats, because over the last few hours, the us has proposed tariffs of up to 100% on certain french goods in retaliation for france's digital services tax. items which could be affected include sparkling wine, cheeses, handbags and make up product. and just yesterday, president trump said he is restoring steel and aluminium trout two ta riffs steel and aluminium trout two tariffs on imports from brazil and argentina. he says their currencies are undervalued, which is making it harderfor us farmers are undervalued, which is making it harder for us farmers to compete. that tweet had an impact on wall street stocks overnight. as you can see, the dow, the s&p 500 and the nasdaq all in negative territory by about i%. it is also having a major effect on asian markets, as well, with the all 0rdinaries index down byi.7% andjapan‘s with the all 0rdinaries index down by 1.7% and japan's uk 225 by 0.7%. but our correspondent in new york says many don't agree with president trump's assessment of brazil and argentina. not many economists agree

that brazil and argentina have been lowering their currencies or devaluing their currencies artificially. in fact, there is a list by the us treasury department called the currency report and neither is listed on that. because of this, president trump says effective immediately the two countries will be no longer exempt from global tariffs of 10% and 25% on steel and aluminium imports, so if brazil and argentina export those commodities to the us they will be hit by those tariffs, effective immediately. and staying with president trump, and his re—election campaign, they said they will no longer issue press credentials for reporters working for bloomberg news, the agency owned by democratic presidential hopeful michael bloomberg. following the announcement of his bed, they said they would no longer critically covered the democratic presidential candidates, including bloomberg and his rivals, but they would continue covering mr trump. trump hasjust landed in the uk to meet allies at a nato summit this week. he is likely to discuss threats posed by china including the country's dominance of

sg including the country's dominance of 5g telecommunications networks. the us has warned its allies against using equipment made by china's huawei, saying that its gear could be used by china for spying. these concerns centre on a particular chinese law that requires domestic companies to co—operate with the government on security matters. critics say this law could compel huawei to be a vehicle for chinese spying. huawei has denied the allegations made by washington. as for germany's chancellor, angela merkel, she has sounded out concerns over huawei's spying claims. she said europe, which is a key part of nato, needs to have a unified policy on the rollout of the 5g mobile network to address the espionage concerns for mixed signals that will be sent out. when australian carrier qantas set a new long distance record for a passengerjet, with a test flight from london to sydney,

last month, it got a lot of attention. it's boss, alanjoyce, says they will make a decision by the end of the year whether or not to go ahead with plans to run the longest scheduled commercial flight in the world. speaking to the bbc‘s mariko 0i, he said two airline makers are locked in a battle to display and fly those jets. they said it was a bit like a race to the moon at airbus. this is seen is really a flagship product they want to get and both boeing and airbus are to get and both boeing and airbus a re really to get and both boeing and airbus are really aggressively trying to place the aircraft with qantas because it will be seen by the rest of the world is the ultimate in aircraft technology. and we are leveraging that, and hopefully we will get an even better deal as a consequence of that. we're still trying to finalise the business

case, and we are hopeful we will have a decision to be made by the end of this calendar year. have a decision to be made by the end of this calendar yearlj have a decision to be made by the end of this calendar year. i want to ask you about climate change, which is obviously a hot topic, and cop 25 just got under way. the aviation industry has come under a lot of criticism. what is qantas doing? we have said that by 2020 we will be carbon neutral in all of our growth, including project sunrise, it will be offsetting its carbon emissions. we have already doubled, we have the largest carbon offset programme in the world. 10% of our customers at modest .com offset their carbon emissions. we have said we will match that dollar for dollar from three weeks ago and by 2050 we will be net zero carbon emissions by investing in sustainable aviation fuels and offsetting. reports say you are about to cutjobs just before christmas. is that true? like in everything we do, we are hiring in areas and cutting back on areas. we are hiring hundreds of pilots, cabin crew and ground staff, and there are some areas which are back office stair areas where technology is replacing jobs, where artificial intelligence is coming in. it is interesting you mention ai. do you

expect the technology to replace a lot of your employees?” expect the technology to replace a lot of your employees? i think it will in the future. a lot of people, for example, used to ring call centres to make aircraft bookings, and now people do it themselves on the internet. they talk to about on the internet. they talk to about on the internets, on our website —— a bot. that is computerised, instead of individuals to solve problems. so a lot of technology is helping people in giving that customer service, and it has allowed us to automate functions that we used to be very manual in the past. one of your flight attendants was accused of racism by rapper will.i.am. do you have any comment on the case? we have talked to lawyers about retracting the statements he has made, it is clearly a defamatory statement he has made. i have personally spoken to the cabin crew. we have done, as you would expect, an investigation of it. i have offered support to the cabin crew

member to take a defamation case if she wishes against will.i.am. we will fully fund it and support it. it is her cold, but i think he should issue an apology. i think the state m e nts should issue an apology. i think the statements he made were completely inappropriate. that was qantas ceo alan joyce speaking inappropriate. that was qantas ceo alanjoyce speaking to the bbc‘s mariko 0i. more now in the aviation sector because the world trade 0rganisation sector because the world trade organisation has rejected european union claims that it no longer provides subsidies to plane maker airbus. the ruling has prompted the us to say it would increase retaliatory tariffs on a wider range of european goods. in october, the us was awarded the right to impose ta riffs us was awarded the right to impose tariffs on $7.5 billion worth of eu imports in its case against airbus. global climate talks have opened in madrid where negotiators from almost 200 countries will meet for two weeks. their headline goal is carbon neutrality by 2050. but the question is how? right now, the world is not on track, and investors are also watching to see how the so—called

carbon markets will work. these markets can offer credits to countries and companies that cut or eliminate carbon emissions, but there is no regulation as of yet. 0ur correspondent explains why it is important to come up with rules. 0ur correspondent explains why it is important to come up with rulesm is absolutely critical that the rules that are put in place ensure environmental integrity, and that there is no double counting. because obviously that is not going to assist or achieve the ultimate goal of emission reduction and those global targets. it has been said it would be better not to have rules if they can't be as rigid and as strong as they need to be to ensure that future. there is a lot of controversy around how the double counting aspect will work, and some countries will have different views on that, but at the heart of ensuring that we achieve at a global level emission reductions across the world, we need to ensure that that double counting element is put in

place. so this is the idea that you can't count and emission reduction in two different spots in two different countries, that it needs to be offset in the country that is providing the emission reduction, and the benefit gets taken in the other country. now, e cigarettes has beenin other country. now, e cigarettes has been in the news a lot lately, and uses could see their insurance bills saw as more and more countries decide to treat vaping the same as smoking. it could cost, put up the cost of life insurance as much as 7296 cost of life insurance as much as 72% compared to the cost for non—smokers. it comes amid mounting worries over the safety of e—cigarettes. us authorities say this year 47 people have died from a lung illness linked to vaping. 0ne expert says he is not surprised insurers have made this decision. expert says he is not surprised insurers have made this decisionm is now really bringing into the public domain this recognition that there are real problems. and i think

we need to be recognising that of course with electronic cigarettes, they have been purported to be much safer than conventional cigarettes, and that view is now being challenged because of the evidence thatis challenged because of the evidence that is coming out from quite a lot of research. it is still far too early to know. it took many years before we knew the harmful effects of conventional cigarettes. but if you look at some of the work that is being done in short—term studies, on animal studies, cell cultures, and so on, we can see that the mechanisms are the same and a number of major reviews recently have said you simply cannot say that one is necessarily safer than the other. thank you so much for investing your time with us. i am rico hizon. spot todayis time with us. i am rico hizon. spot today is coming up next. —— sport todayis today is coming up next. —— sport today is coming up this is bbc news. the top stories this hour: the lawyer for five ofjeffrey epstein‘s accusers has said he wants prince andrew to testify as a witness in the us court cases brought against the sex offender before he died. the prince says he would never condone or participate

in the exploitation of a human being. typhoon kammuri has made landfall in the central philippines. manila international airport has been shut and 200,000 residents were moved away from coastal areas. thousands of people in the falkirk area in central scotland are preparing to spend a second night in very cold temperatures without heating after a major gas network failure yesterday. heaters and portable cookers have been distributed to vulnerable residents, and schools and nurseries in the area have been closed. although work has started to reconnect some homes, gas network company sgn say others may not be reconnected for another two days. 0ur scotland correspondent lorna gordon has been talking to some of those affected. at the start of winter, thousands with no gas, no heating, no hot water.

have you got anything to cook on? the temperature has risen slightly here, but it is still very cold, and all day, there has been a constant flow of people here picking up heaters for their homes. has it been a cold night? yeah, just a tad. we've all been cooped up in the one bed, trying to stay warm. we had candles lighting up the house, and trying to heat the place with just the candle flames. there you go — yeah. angeline perry has four children. the youngest is nine months old. their gas supply was turned off yesterday, and they are using portable heaters to warm one room. so we're just using the kettle just now, to boil all our water, and we don't have any gas on the hob either. how are you coping? i'm just trying to think how i'm

going to go through the week, and just thinking about night—time. during the day, we're 0k. we can huddle into one room. butjust trying to plan ahead for the week. but tonight, the good news — with the original fault fixed, engineers are now going door—to—door, starting with the most vulnerable— they‘ re beginning to reconnect customers. we're really sorry this has happened. it's our equipment that has failed. but we are getting people back on. we're restoring now, and in the next couple of days, we should have the majority back on. and that is our objective — get the supplies restored. so warmth is on the way, though it could be a couple of days before everyone's gas central heating here comes back on. lorna gordon, bbc news, falkirk. now on bbc news: sport today. hello, this is sport today, live from the bbc sport centre. coming up on this programme: lionel messi wins a record sixth ballon d'or as megan rapinoe claims the women's crown. cagliari continue their run of fine

form in serie a with a late late winner to beat sampdoria in sardinia. while after securing a sixth formula i title, could lewis hamilton be tempted with a new challenge away from mercedes? hello and welcome to the programme, where we start with the news that the ballon d'or awards have been handed out in paris with lionel messi and megan rapinoe claiming the respective men's and women's trophies. both players also won their categories earlier this year in the best fifa player of the year awards. and the win for messi comes just 2a hours after he scored the winning goal for barcelona in their la liga win over atletico madrid. it's a record sixth time the 32—year—old has taken the award and comes ten years after he won it for the first time.