a historic visit — the us presidentjoins the picket line of auto workers on strike in michigan and declares his support for their struggle. plus — amazon in the crosshairs. regulators take aim at the tech giant, accusing it of adopting anti—competitive strategies. hello and welcome to asia business report. i'm arunoday mukharji. to asia business report. we begin in michigan, where the us president has made a historic visit to a picket line of auto industry workers. while us lawmakers 7 and presidential candidates 7 frequently appear at strikes to express solidarity with american workers, it is considered unprecedented for a sitting president to do so. biden�*s visit comes a day before his would?be challenger, donald trump, is due to arrive. there's concern that the strike targeting three major us

car companies could dent growth in the world's largest economy. still, the us president backed the striking workers�* call for a 40% pay raise, telling them they deserve a "lot more" than they are getting. you deserve the significant raise you need, and other benefits. get back what we lost, 0k? it's about time they step up for us. wall street didn't build the country. the middle class built the country. unions built the middle class. that's a fact! so let's keep going. you deserve what you've earned, and you've earned a hell of a lot more than you're getting paid now. thank you very much. now, the biden administration has also been taking aim at the us tech sector. the competition regulator, the federal trade commission, has filed a lawsuit against amazon accusing it of protecting its market dominance in online retail at the expense of consumers and third 7 party sellers. our north american business

correspondent erin delmore has more from new york. it's a case that has been in the works for years under the watchful eye of ftc chair lina khan, who made her name in the antitrust world with a blockbuster 2017 legal paper detailing amazon's monopoly footing. on thursday, khan's ftc struck its widest blow against amazon, a sweeping lawsuit alleging the company stifled competition in its online marketplace. 17 statesjoined in. the lawsuit challenges a bunch of amazon's business practices, including prioritising its own products and search results ahead of ones by third party sellers and anti—discounting measures that ensured sellers list their lowest prices on amazon and requiring sellers to use amazon's network of delivery services as a condition of being included in its popular prime subscription service. rivals, according to the ftc, just couldn't compete. but amazon rejected those accusations, saying that the low prices and fast delivery that customers enjoy are thanks to

those very practices. amazon's share price fell on the news, but is still up year to date. the case is the latest in a wide ranging effort in washington to rein in the power of big tech and the fourth targeting amazon directly. this new case is expected to take years to work its way through the courts. and while the ftc says it's seeking an injunction blocking amazon's, quote, unlawful conduct, it also raised the spectre of a restructuring. now, it's notjust in the us that tech giants are facing increased scrutiny. a european commission study has found that x, formerly known as twitter, has the biggest proportion of disinformation of six big social networks. it examined over 6,000 unique social media posts across facebook, instagram, linkedin, tiktok, x, and youtube. the content came from three countries. spain, poland and slovakia. deemed particularly at risk to disinformation due to elections or proximity to the war in ukraine.

staying with us tech giants, let's zoom in on a company nearly everyone uses to search the web. google is marking its 25th anniversary at a time when the tech sector is being disrupted by the widespread roll? out of artificial intelligence. platforms like chatgpt have been dubbed the "google killer" because of their ability to answer user questions. earlier i spoke to google�*s president for the asia pacific region and he told me how google is performing in the race to develop ai applications. it certainly fuelled the whole company with a lot of enthusiasm and a lot of excitement. we have looked at al as being pretty pivotal to the future of technology for a number of years, we announced back in 2016 that we were aspiring to be an ai first company. and with organisations such as deepmind, the extraordinary work that

goes on within the organization, or google search function, i think, and we hope, that what consumers are, our partners will see in the field of ai will feel the excitement going forward as in terms of what is possible. let's turn to china's property market, because troubles keep piling up for property giant evergrande. 0ur asia business correspondent nick marsh has the latest. more bad news for evergrande, even though their shares are practically worthless at the moment, they have still managed to lose over 25% of their value just this week. on monday, a very complicated debt restructuring plan collapsed after they revealed that a regulatory probe, the real estate group. and now they've confirmed that would they've defaulted on more than half $1,000,000,000 worth of money which is owed to their overseas creditors, plus we are hearing reports in china, unconfirmed by the bbc, that several former and current executives including the former chief

executive have been detained by the chinese authorities. this has all the hallmarks of a slow managed decline of a company, let's not forget, that owes more than $300 billion, much of which is owed to people in china still waiting for their unfinished homes to be built. but it's this overseas debt which is putting their survivor down these forward creditors have managed to force a hearing in hong kong at the end of october and if an agreement isn't reached before then, then liquidation is a real possibility. earlier i spoke to eveline danubrate from redd intelligence and she told me the latest news is yet another blow to investor confidence in evergrande and china's property sector. it will affect confidence even more. if the confidence of key

stakeholders and the lenders in the home—buyers and contractors is effective, there is a question about the company ability to generate new cats and pay existing applications. if there is no new cash coming in, then everyone is fighting for a piece of a shrinking pie. the issue of how to slice and dice it, how do you decide what to give to people. so this is the key challenge going forward, trying to restore confidence.— forward, trying to restore confidence. �* , confidence. bei'ing has been clear that _ confidence. bei'ing has been clear that their— confidence. beijing has been clear that their priority - confidence. beijing has been clear that their priority is - confidence. beijing has been clear that their priority is to l clear that their priority is to ensure housing projects are completed, but is that easier said than done? completed, but is that easier said than done7i completed, but is that easier said than done?— said than done? i think it's a tricky situation. _ said than done? i think it's a tricky situation. right - said than done? i think it's a tricky situation. right now . tricky situation. right now there is a huge imbalance in there is a huge imbalance in the sector, where you have massive oversupply and just not enough there so this balance has to be rectified, and confidence in such a tricky thing. 0nce confidence in such a tricky thing. once it has diminished, you have to fight to get it

back. ~ . ~ ., ., , back. what kind of initiatives need to be — back. what kind of initiatives need to be seen _ back. what kind of initiatives need to be seen to _ back. what kind of initiatives need to be seen to restore i back. what kind of initiatives i need to be seen to restore the kind of confidence in the property sector which are such a key element of the chinese economy?— a key element of the chinese econom ? . , , ., economy? once people need to sto economy? once people need to step seeing _ economy? once people need to step seeing all— economy? once people need to stop seeing all these _ economy? once people need to stop seeing all these negative l stop seeing all these negative headlines about the developers, just a slew of negative headlines in the past few weeks, whether it is country garden or on evergrande, the consumers, even before the latest news of evergrande, they were already facing thousands of lawsuits onshore from creditors including banks, home—buyers, everyone is basically trying to get the money back and they want to jump money back and they want to jump the queue. so i think the first thing to do is to assure people that there is enough cash. and before we go... we need more female role models in the workplace. that's according to vivien wong, the co7founder of little moons, the ice cream snack maker. the entrepreneur spoke to the bbc for the latest

of our paths to success series. one thing i wish i knew before i started running my own business is just how all—consuming it could be, in the most wonderful way because this is your baby, you live and breathe it. some of the hurdles that we faced in little moons is growing too quickly, we weren't ready to meet the demands that came our way so you just have to be ready to pivot and do everything you can to adjust your strategy, pulling your team, and just be agile in how you respond to unexpected events. i feel like there's a huge amount of response ability to try and affect change, to see how hard it is for women in the corporate structure where it is quite structured. allowing people time off to work, for children, family, just for life, i didn't have the confidence to ask for a pay rise when i

worked for a corporation. it's really important for me to set an example. there were no labour laws to support women when they had children, so she was forced out of herjob and was forced to start her own business. it's such a force for good, women's confidence is something that limits us and we need to build our confidence, self belief. we need role models from a diverse background, age, ethnicity, if you can't see it you can't be at and we really need more female role models so people, women can see we can do it. and that's it for this edition of asia business report. thanks for watching. bbc news — bringing you different stories

from across the uk. 75—year—old polly has lived in her ground floor flat here in northampton since 2005. earlier this week, she received a letter highlighting concerns about the safety of the three storey building's cladding. it said a neighbouring six storey tower block would need to have the cladding removed urgently, but her block, built with the same material, wouldn't. not here, no. we can fry. how do you feel about that? very upset, in thatjust because we're a lower storey, we're not treated with the same respect as everybody else. northamptonshire partnership homes, the managing agent for the council, says the low—rise blocks like this one will have daily communal and external fire safety checks. west northamptonshire council says the fire service will advise on minimising safety risks and on removing the defective cladding.

the council's deputy leader, adam brown, says addressing these issues is a top priority. but for people like ruth and polly, living in blocks where cladding won't be removed, the worry over their safety continues. for more stories from across the uk, head to the bbc news website. hey, i'm dylan with the catch up. first up, a top doctor says telling people vapes are 95% safer than smoking caused chaos and encouraged the under 18s to take up vaping. government experts put out the message in 2015 to try to get people to quit cigarettes. doctors say even though vaping is safer than smoking, more research is needed on the long term effects.

more than one in ten 16 to 2a—year—olds vaped last year, although it's illegal for the under eight teens. this expert says it's an epidemic. absolutely shocking that we've allowed that to happen. we've got it wrong. and that means we have to change some other stories now. and the liberal democrats have been outlining their plans for if they win the next election. party leader sir ed davey told their annual conference that voting reform, economic growth and ending delays in cancer treatment would be top priorities. the racing driver jessica hawkins has become the first woman to test a formula one car in almost five years. she completed 26 laps in an aston martin fi car last week. a woman hasn't started in a grand prix since 1976. and spotify ceo says he has no plans to ban content created by artificial intelligence. the platform previously deleted a song that used ai cloned voices of drake and the weekend, and finally ten viral seconds. taylor swift was spotted leaving the kansas city chiefs game at the weekend

with her new rumoured love interest, the american footballer, travis kelce. she was also seen sitting with his mum during the game — that set the internet alight. that's it from me. you're all caught up.

hello and welcome to sportsday. i'm betty glover. here's what's coming up in the show. england were beaten 2—1 by the netherlands in the women's nations league. europe look to use home advantage to recapture the ryder cup. and we meet the test driver looking to insipre the next female formula one star. we start with football and the women's nations league, where england were up against the netherlands in utrecht. a match which, for england boss sarina wiegman, held extra significance — as she returned to her home nation and former employer. but it ended up a night to forget, as england lost 2—1. the netherlands opened the scoring

through a controversial lieke mertens goal