the indian prime minister continues his whirlwind tour of the us, as he looks to court investors to his country. hello and welcome to asia business report. i'm monica miller. our top story this morning — more interest rate hikes might be on the horizon. that's according to the chair of the us federal reserve, who made his comments at a congressional hearing on wednesday. the american central bank paused its aggressive hiking cycle last week after ten straight increases for the cost of borrowing. despite that, inflation continues to remain above the fed's long—term target. america's central bank has two main objectives — maximum employment and price stability. it's that latter objective that remains elusive. the federal reserve likes to keep inflation

hovering around 2%. right now, it sits somewhere around 4%. that's certainly better than where it was last year. somewhere above 8.5%. but it is still not good enough. and it's why the fed chair jerome powell has said more interest rate hikes seem pretty likely. in may, the 12 month change in the cpi came in at 4.0% and the change in the core cpi was 5.3%. inflation has moderated somewhat since the middle of last year. nonetheless, inflation pressures continue to run high and the process of getting inflation back down to 2% has a long way to go. the theory is by making it more expensive to borrow money it should cool off the economy. and ten rate hikes later, that tactic seems to be working. of course, the danger is the us economy could

fall into a recession. those hawkish comments by mr powell had certainly weighed on investor minds. the nikki index is trading flat as japanese investors look at what happened on wall street overnight aftermarket sales for a third straight on wednesday. still staying on the topic of interest rates, it's going to be a busy day for monetary policymakers here in southeast asia. indonesia and the philippines will host central bank meeting. no big changes are expected because prices there have not risen as quickly as other parts of the world. but it's likely to be a different picture for turkey, which saw inflation hit a 24—year high last year. the turkish central bank is expected to hike its rate later today. earlier, i spoke with oxford economist alex holmes, who gave his take on how

authorities might move. the hopes are the new finance minister and new bank governor, it means orthodox policy pivot from the bank. looking for a 650 point hike this time around. eventually rates getting up to 25% over the next six months from 8% now. it would still leave real interest rates when you account for inflation and it might not be enough to stem the lira's fall. that's an eye—watering amount. let's turn to southeast asia where we're looking at indonesia and the philippines, who said they will hold steady for the year. what are we looking at in terms of indonesia? indonesia hasn't given much in the way of guidance, it doesn't usually. inflation there is better than the philippines, it's fallen back to within the bank's target.

growth has held up but it is slowing, so we think the central bank will be looking ahead and perhaps in the latter half of this year will start cutting rates after having hiked them over the present cycle. why have these countries not been dealing with the stubborn inflation rates that other countries have, like turkey, for example? first of all food price inflation hasn't been as high in asia, that's in large part because we tend to eat more rice than wheat, which hasn't been as affected by globalfactors. a number of subsidies, in indonesia there's been fewer subsidies. also core inflation hasn't been as strong because the recovery is not nearly as advanced as places like the us where they've been driven by fiscal support. speaking of interest rates, the bank of england is expected to announce its latest monetary policy decision later today. expectations are high that authorities could raise the cost of borrowing for a 13th time in a row. this is after british inflation continued to defy

predictions of a slowdown. it held steady at 8.7% in may. elsewhere in the world, india prime minister narendra singapore's central bank has fined lenders dps, and ocbc in a role in fraud case centred around the collapsed german payments firm wirecard. this is after the monetary authority of singapore said it discovered inadequate controls in place when wirecard collapsed back in 2020, owing creditors almost $4 billion. elsewhere in the world, india prime minister narendra modi has metjoe biden at the white house. later this week, he's due to address a joint session of the us congress. my colleague looks at the big themes behind his visit. from complaining about tariffs in india last year to complimenting prime minister narendra modi, elon musk has come a long way. now he says he's looking forward to a significant investment in india. this is prime minister modi's

big pitch on the trip, to rely more and invest more in india, in a country which is going to be the fastest growing economy in the world. as the world looks to diversify global supply chains, india is looking to plug itself in. this is going to be the essence of these conversations. he's also addressing the joint session of the us congress, the first time an indian prime minister would've done it on two occasions. the us has a red carpet welcome for prime minister modi, despite india not openly criticising russia for its war in ukraine. russia remains india's oldest ally, and also their largest arms supplier. on this trip, the us is looking for ways in which it can wean india away towards its side, and that's why in this context a potential deal with general electric over jet engine technology to enhance defence becomes all the more significant. when it comes to trade, it stood at $191 billion last year, and the us is india's largest partner.

both will be looking to build on that by ironing out existing differences over tariffs on some commodities. to round up the trip prime minister modi will also be meeting members of the 4.4 million strong indian american community. twitter is facing a lawsuit that it failed to pay workers millions in bonuses. it was filed by a former director of compensation who alleged that after elon marsh bought twitter, the company promised employs 50% of their target bonuses for 2022 but the payments never materialised. 0nto the paris airshow, where european aerospace giant airbus has had plenty to celebrate. they opened the first day of the event with a major order from the indian airline indigo. but as its chief executive explained to our reporter, headwinds remain. there are two main

challenges in the industry. delivering plane orders by the airlines and also the decarbonisation of the industry. we're committed to net zero by 2050. to get there, we need to increase the use of sustainable fuels in an economical way. to make this happen, we need to reduce plane fuel burn, so we're preparing for the next planes that will enter into service between 2035 and 2040. that's one of the main priorities at the moment — to develop those technologies and to be able to reach 20 to 30% less fuel burn at that horizon. what are these planes going to be like? they'll be burning sustainable aviation fuel. how would they differ from the current generation? more efficient engines, and we want to go onto a new stage of improvement on engine technology. same for the plane itself, the wings still have a lot of potential for more efficiency, reducing the weight that is what we're fighting against with thrust.

it's about thrust and therefore energy on board. a lot of potential for improvement that is quite classical in a way, and we're putting in the effort with the architectures that will be very different. we hear everybody in the industry talking about sustainable aviation fuels. but how sustainable are they? there's not a lot of the stuff around, it takes energy to make it, how confident are you that you'll have a supply of cheap, genuinely carbon—neutral fuels? there are many different types of sustainable fuels, the biofuels, e—fuels and a combination between the two. there's a lot of players, historical players or new ones, which are working on developing and producing those fuels with a lot of innovation in that space. we need de—carbonised sources of energy, electricity, but we can also use the biomass for biofuels. we need to combine all those solutions to come to a picture

where we are de—carbonised by 2050. a lot of innovation ongoing. you'll be competing for those supplies of sustainable fuels against a whole range of other industries. does that mean in the future flying is simply going to have to become more expensive? it will probably become slightly more expensive moving forward as those fuels are significantly more expensive. the equation in general is that the prices will increase. we think it can be absorbed by demand. the us federal trade commission has accused amazon of enrolling millions of customers into trade subscription programmes without consent. it also said they made it difficult for the customers to cancel the amazon prime service. that's all we have for you on asia business report. i'm monica miller, thank you for watching. meet the gospel 0ak crow. for the journalist who first heard of a bird attacking long—haired locals, it didn't

take long to find proof. me and my colleague anna, who has long hair, which is obviously what the crow goes for, we went up to see if the crow would go for her, and within seconds, it swooped on top of her head. it's the talk of the town in this part of london. dozens of people with their own terrifying experience. i knew they were attacking people. but they were attacking women — women with long hair. so i thought i was pretty safe, and then suddenly there was a thump on my back, a really hard thump. and i thought, what's that? and i saw it was the crow. something bit my hair from the back, - and when i turned around there was nothing. - and it happened to me, - idon't know, five times maybe. and it kind of feels- like you become delusional, because there was literally nothing going on. - and then, yeah, at some point i realised it was a black crow. i there are around 1 million pairs of carrion crows in the uk, and although people in gospel 0ak are worried, experts say they're simply protecting their young during nesting season. they're hyper—vigilant. it might be that in this case they're over—interpreting the appearance on their

territory of a woman with long hair as a threat. so they're really just trying to defend themselves. they're not attacking, crows aren't aggressive towards humans, they're not attacking for no reason at all. hey, here's the catch up. tonight, the search for the missing submarine continues. glastonbury opens its gates, and a feathery surprise. there's been a warning about a sharp rise in teenage girls developing eating disorders during the pandemic. a new study says there were a third higher than expected in 17 to 19—year—olds. you didn't have to go to school. to go to work or any of that stuff. so no—one knew that you weren't eating. you weren't like passing out in public. it was easy to hide. the government says it's investing in mental health support and spending up to 54 million on eating disorder help by next march.

and if you've been affected by any of this, you can visit bbc action line for help and support. some other stories now. banging noises have been heard in the search for the titanic tourist submarine, which went missing with five people on board. it's a race against time, though, because there's a limited amount of oxygen. now, lots of uni students aren't happy at the moment as they're having to graduate without knowing their final results because of a marking boycott. some students in edinburgh are planning to protest by not wearing gowns or shaking hands with the principal at their graduation. and glastonbury has officially opened its gates ahead of the weekend. also swifty fans have been going crazy because she's just announced loads of tour dates. there seems to be a mysterious gap on the days that glastonbury�*s on — surprise performance on the cards. we will have to see. now time for ten seconds of colourful feathers. they've been left all over the streets of cardiff after harry styles concerts

this week. kind of looks like colourful birds have had a little bit of a fight, doesn't it? his fans definitely know how his fans definitely know how to dress, that's for sure. you're all caught up. to dress, that's for sure. see you later.