the time has come. president biden meets with congressional leaders in the latest effort to break the debt ceiling stalemate. co—working after the pandemic. . .we�*ll hear what's the future for we work. hello, and welcome to asia business report. i'm karishma vaswani. today's the day. a group of congressional leaders are due to meet with us presidentjoe biden later for emergency talks on how to deal with the debt ceiling. it comes as us treasury secretary janet yellen has reportedly been meeting with business leaders to explain the impact

a default could have on us and global economies. so how did washington get here — and what would happen if the borrowing ceiling is not lifted? my colleague samira hussain has been investigating. first of all, this debt ceiling crisis is actually a political crisis. itjust happens to hinge on a must pass piece of legislation to save the nation from economic catastrophe. so, what exactly is happening here? weeks to go before the federal government is unable to pay its bills. well, the us government spend more money that it brings in. so it needs to borrow money to pay its bills. it can only borrow a certain amount of money. and if it needs to borrow more, congress has to prove that. it used to be a routine thing, but not any more. republicans see this as an opportunity to extract demands, like cuts to affordable housing or other social security spending.

but us presidentjoe biden says, "no way. "you need to pass this legislation with no "strings attached." so off to the white house the two warring political parties go to try and work it out. but the clock is ticking. the us government could run out of cash as early as 1june. so what are the possible consequences? forstarters, people who work for government agencies won't get paid. and those getting social security benefits won't get their money, either. financial markets would fall, and thousands ofjobs would be lost in the immediate aftermath. but the most dire consequence would be investors losing confidence in the country's ability to pay the interest on its debt, which comes in the form of treasury bonds, which are seen as one of the safest places to put your money. and that would quickly shatter the world's confidence in america. sameer hussein reporting on that story for us.

later today, wework, one of the giants in the co—working space will report their latest quarterly earnings. analysts polled by reuters are expecting to see a bump up in revenue for the first three months of the year. the company held up well during the pandemic, due to strong demand for remote and co—working spaces. but this year, it's stock price has been seeing very steep declines, and it faces the possibility of being delisted from the new york stock exchange. for more on this, jun bei liu of tribeca investment partners, whojoin us now. what is your sense of how we work is going to do? our sense is that the result in terms of the revenue it is going to be strong, because we are seeing very good trend of people returning to work and co—working space, and reconfiguration of a lot of co—working space. so this company has been a big beneficiary of it. however, the share price reaction really comes down to what is going to happen to its future, financial future, and what is going to happen to a lot of its debt.

the company, with a high interest rate, capital is very difficult to come by. so, this company needs to figure out a way to quickly monetise its business model. and then, to find ways to deal with this mounting interest as well as debt. it is tricky, economical and financial conditions right now, with concerns of the recession brewing in the us and liquidity drying up in other markets as well. how might that affect the companies outlook going forward? look, it's going to be very challenging, because as we see with the slowdown economic activity, the r—word, the recession, will mean there will be less demand for office space. but the interesting question at this point is how many of the previous full—time workers have now returned to work, to the office, before the employers start laying off people? so it is a transition base. it is going to be very challenging. and also the same time, commercial property evaluation is very challenging

because what is happening in the us with their second tier banking crisis. all of that together just means a very tough environment for this company. just looking at the sector as a whole, more broadly, there was so much hype about co—working spaces, remote working, etc. what is your sense of how the sector will do in the future? look, i think absolutely there is a space for the sector because we do think that there is a future for working from home. and flexible working conditions. and with all that in mind, the co—working space becomes collaboration space. so, it requires a lot of new thinking. and wework is good at that. all of that together does mean there is a place in the future, butjust right now how do you monetise that during an economic slowdown when perhaps there won't be enough people to really support that revenue and cash flow.

crypto company at the truck has filed for bankruptcy protection in united states. that's three weeks after authorities accused it of operating an unregistered exchange. the company, based in seattle, stopped its operations at the end of last month following the allegations by the us securities and exchange commission. court filings suggest the truck six assets were between half a billion and $1 billion. it has recently been fined almost $30 million for violating sanctions on certain countries, as well as breaking anti—money laundering laws. heightening regulatory scripting has seen a number of crypto country tumble in the past year. britain's investment minister has arrived in hong kong to promote business ties with the city. lord dominicjohnson is the first british minister to visit hong kong for five years , before mass pro—democracy protests swept the city and resulted in a crackdown by beijing. 0ur asia business correspondent nick marsh with more.

there is a focus primarily on financial services, and financial services, and financial technologies. now the economic links between the home of europe's financial capital and asia's financial capital, of course, they run deep. there are some parallels more recently as well. both places, frankly speaking, have any bit of a wobble recently. london, because of brexit and the uncertainly they are, hong kong because of the political turmoil, the protests. and then more recently, the covid—19 restrictions. hong kong financial officials were in london this month doing civic meetings with uk ministers. but of course, it is the political backdrop to all of this that makes it so contentious. rewind three or four years during the protest of 2019, britain was a vocal supporter of the demonstrators. it was highly

critical of china, its crackdown. the national security law then jump forward, here in 2023, and it's back in hong kong, asking for investments. so a reflection of economic reality perhaps, and certainly a reflection of the uk governments softening start towards china, which is all about trying to engage beijing rather than isolated. saudi aramco, is set to see another record year — when it reports it results for the first three months of this year. last year it made a bumper $161 in profits. the global energy crisis helped fuel the gains and an agreement with russia over production. but what's next for saturday aramco? but what's next for saturday aramco?

0ur middle east business correspondent sameer hashmi gave us his take. the first quarter earnings, which for the period of january to march 2023. a record year for the company. $161 billion for the full year, will this was primarily due to higher prices after the war broke out in ukraine. oil prices have touched a 14—year—old high. in fact, infact, in in fact, in the first quarter of last year, oil prices have touched almost $100 a bottle after the war broke out between russia and ukraine in february. so it is unlikely that they will be able to regulate the same kind of earnings this year —— replicate. they were hovering between $70 a barrel to $80 a barrel. saudi arabia, along with other members, have slashed oil production in the last couple of months because of their concern

about weakening demand. nevertheless, i still expect a strong performance from aramco. the earnings are not importantjust for the health of the company. it is not seen just for the oil industry, but it's also likely for saudi arabia is a common me because saudi arabia has 90% ———99% ownership in aramco. so it relies heavily on the dividend from saudia aramco to fund some of the major infrastructure products which are spearheaded by... these products are vital for saudi arabia. so that is why it is not just the oil industry, government but also the saudi officials will be keeping a close watch on the earnings that will be released on tuesday morning. he will be following for us throughout the day here on bbc news. that brings us to the end

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something called the big help 0ut. now, this is where volunteers help out on local projects like beach cleaning and flower planting. some other stories for you now... so, the government has allowed animal testing for makeup ingredients to start again after a 25 year ban. according to a high court ruling. it changed a policy on animal testing to align with eu chemical rules, which the uk are actually still following even after brexit. elsewhere, a 48—year—old woman has survived for five days after being stranded in a remote part of australia. now, she survived just by eating sweets and drinking a single bottle of wine. and what is crazy is she doesn't actually drink herself. she only had this bottle of wine as she was planning to give it as a present. and time now to leave you with ten seconds of... i'm not gonna lie... absolute chaos!

now, what would you do if you're walking down the street and ed sheeran suddenly appeared on top of a volvo? well, exactly that happened to these lucky people in new york as he treated them to some of his songs. now, that is one very, very clever way to promote his new album, subtract. i'm going to say massive big up to his management. brilliant pr stunt there. absolutely love it. you're all caught up now. have a good night.

hello. coming up on this programme... a day of drama in the premier league with some remarkable results among the sides looking to avoid the drop. can pep plan the downfall of real madrid?? we'll look ahead to the tuesday's champions league semi final first leg as manchester city travel to the bernabeu. and australia's michael matthews sprints away to win stage three of the giro d'italia. it's been an astonishing day of action from the teams battling it out to survive the premier league relegation,

and we'll start with everton.