really culture no that brings us up to speed on the ground in paris and italy is drawing fire from the united states as it becomes the first g seven nation to sign on to chinese gold in the road initiative alex mail of its joins us to break down how this shake up will impact the longstanding western oil plus following the fallout from venezuela from american sanctions why is the gulf oil looking for new places routes or are inconclusive joins us to wade through all the oil moves in the gulf of mexico and finally just how real is the prospect of a cashless society artie's venture bush sat down with geno but in hong kong to break down that issue and so much more a super parent show ahead today but first we had some headlines let's go. we could offer a global report today with a major market update after indexes took a beating on friday from new york to asia it was almost all red across the board to pan led the charge but not in the best sense of the word check out this stock after markets open in tokyo the index dropped more than six hundred points around three

percent three percent of the total across the sea of japan things were much better in china as the shanghai composite index which has been a bit on a bit of a rocky trend over the past few days took a tumble of more than one hundred points which for this index is quite a bit markets in europe also felt the heat but not nearly as much with the german dax taking a bit of a slide but was trending upward toward the end of trading the u.k.'s footsie was also down today with a bevy of uncertain moves and closing the country's bricks at saga drama and finally the dow jones in new york was also hit by the downturn opening in the red but over trading today it has managed to bounce back a bit. the u.s. federal housing administration the f.h.a. has notified lenders that it will change its standards and begin rating some home loans more home loans as risky the new policy could significantly affect the size and composition of f.h.a. . one point three trillion dollar loan portfolio and f.h.a.

is mission of making homeownership more feasible for those with less than ideal credit ratings and an f.h.a. f.h. a spokesperson told the wall street journal the roughly five percent of his portfolio of first time borrowers could be affected resulting in forty thousand to fifty thousand more mortgages being labeled as to risky for f.h.a. to underwrite the average credit rating for an approved f.h.a. borrower is six seventy the shift by f.h.a. reverse is a relaxation of lending ratings in two thousand and sixteen and is a response in parts of the entry of a growing number of non by non-bank lenders to the home loan market. and across the atlantic the british public are trying to force their way onto the stage of the bracks a drama on saturday a parade us estimated at more than

a million marchers demanding a second national vote on whether to leave the european union filled the streets of london a petition on parliament to parliament calling for cancellation of brigs it now has well over five million signatures the options of a second referendum or cancellation are much like a no deal brags that ideas the british political class has almost unanimously declared unthinkable but they still seem to become more possible by the day and sometimes by that hour meanwhile u.k. prime minister theresa mary has put some nordic sorely needed time on the clock ms may has now extracted an agreement for a short delay of the braggs it to april twelfth if members of parliament approve the twice rejected agreement and a third vote planned for next week if the agreement is not passed the e.u. has further agreed that brags it will be delayed for a longer period until may twenty second opposition leader jeremy corbyn also weighed in on the prime minister's burks a plan over the weekend. now. susan refuses to

listen and so when she goes to the bunker the time it's all going to come or it's reached this is a change. in moving from britain just across the english channel over to france a yellow vest movement but this past weekend was unique in that french president emanuel mccrone has deployed new measures to combat the protesters or to use medina nova brings us up to speed with the latest on the ground from paris following harsh measures introduced by the french government to avoid and other waves of extreme rioting here in paris the nineteenth consecutive weekends of demonstrations went rather peaceful here and the capital over eight thousand people marched across the city center and this sound on the steps of the famous that recur cathedral which is located right in the north of the capital it was a new location for the yellow vests demonstration and as for the french government

well it close several landmarks that used to be the meeting points for protesters including the avenue dish and surrounding areas which saw the highest level of violence these recent weekends the government imposed half the fines for those who violate thing you said oh frank relations says he was also beefed up with security the french government decided to deploy armed soldiers on the streets of french were left quite divided over such measure of opinion polls on the presidency of a man who in mccraw has been regularly conducted by french pollsters since the start of his five year term earlier pool was conducted that showed that three quarters of the frame is sharp dissatisfied with the president and then across policies and how his cabinet is handling the protests movements in the country as for the situation on the european stock markets well they are. deep in classes at

the end of last week closing near a session lows parents were saying more than two percent and this monday it's canteen hands over all this weekend when they're peaceful in regards to yellow fest protests but. moving elsewhere in the euro zone in the midst of simmering tensions between the u.s. and western powers in china italy turn up the heat over the weekend by officially joining the asian superpowers belton road initiative the move cements italy is the first g seven nation to sign on to the initiative despite fierce resistance from the united states and partners in the european union china however has refuted concerns from western powers they see that italy's move will be an all around benefit for the struggling mediterranean nation as government spokespeople attempted to tamp down western concerns to leave. china and italy have great space to cooperate in expanding trade investment in infrastructure construction finance health tourism and other fields belt road initiative is open and transparent we

welcome more countries security for the spirit of silk road and to build built road together it will achieve common development and bring benefit to relevant countries and people the so-called tears of individual countries are completely unnecessary so help us get a global perspective on the issue and guide us through the world words we're now joined by our correspondent alex malin alex welcome back. thank you alex tell me a bit about the belgian wrote an initiative or b r i we talk a lot about it here on the show but for those who somehow haven't heard about it yet tell us about the. break that down for you just after i tell you that you know what they believe this is a big move for them twenty nine agreements signed over the weekend during president she's visit to italy and this amounts to about two point eight billion dollars investment so of course italy was excited to jump on board especially when you start off with a bonus surprise like this but out let's talk about the belt and wrote initially here's a map this should give us

a good view of what this looks like we're talking about sixty percent of the population of the globe already pretty much signed on to this thing. it's china centered business network basically right so the trading that work that is center is centered around china we're talking about the old silk road from ages ago and this is the basis of this but you have the two parts to it which is the salt silk road economic belt which is on the ground and then what they call like to call the maritime silk road which is the maritime so i'll go over the boats go so this is attached as much of eurasia when i'm speaking about eurasia going down all the way to oceana and that all the way to western europe now italy of course plays a massive part in all of this this is a focus on infrastructures of focus on manufacturing materials construction railways and so there's a lot being done here we're talking about a trillion plus dollars in investment on the behalf of china to make this happen so break it down to italy itself and this is why the good thing for them right now

they have two main goals here and when you have a group like this side while you're basically killing these two birds with one stone they want the deficit between trade with them in china to be lowered which means they can export more to china which is a huge one and also they want some infrastructure help so that would be the chinese bank the big one beijing based asian infrastructure investment bank so they're giving money towards these types of projects and these types of projects will be happening in italy in that great rundown. alex and we can see why what the angles are for italy why they would want to be part of the b r i as far as the people that are not so happy about the parties that are not so happy about this the e.u. and the united states how are they reacting to this announcement now that is italy's actually gone through with this partnership i mean the u.s. doesn't like this at all we see china as a nation growing in extending its power across all the continents basically now there's a huge huge partnerships with this project that are in pakistan that are in sri lanka and they are moving into europe so never mind for the positive all the way from china to what would be western europe over russia in terms of say kazakhstan

all the serbia and all those countries that are in between the two so for the u.s. this is a strategic thing really and what they're saying that they're calling this debt trap diplomacy they're saying that the chinese are coming in with money and putting nations into debt and when you look at a country like sri lanka or pakistan yes these are countries that are doing too well economically so keeping them in by giving a bit of that debt that could be a part of it a debt trap diplomacy i don't know if we should be actually pushing it that far and i will come to the e.u. is the fracturing of the e.u. because not everybody is signing up to this thing and we don't have all the countries united to sign up that's an issue so the e.u. loses a little bit of its negotiating powers with china if it's a divided e.u. . very interesting alex very interesting situation i'm sure it's only going to get more interesting and complicated as time goes on and you'll be here to break down the next developments are correspondent alex male that's thanks for being with us and you keep. coming back to the shores of the united states

we had on a story we reported on last week we told you how biogen the biotech company announced they would halt work on theirs their touted all timers cured drug shortly after that announcement the company's stock completely bottomed out now look at this massive drop here around thirty percent well now the company has announced that it will be using five billion dollars to buy back their own stock following this. the company stock recovered slightly on the news but compared to last week's massive stock. drop this looks just like a drop in the bucket at this point in time now for a quick break but hang in there because when we return after the fallout for venezuela from american sanctions oil buyers are looking elsewhere. through the oil moves in the gulf. and finally just how real is the prospect of. sat down with. much more as you go to play

here are the numbers of the. dead so the money. from banks the banks. the money. getting into the economy.

but from the sun on my book you go to the british courts that's enough then you're not. i mean god the lord on the course of the good of the of the bones or might not . think that. that really took. you but.

it was. not going to have it well. welcome back famed us apparel maker nike has been fined twelve point five over the company's attempts to prevent cross border sales of licensed products bearing the brands of some of europe's biggest soccer clubs the commission says that seems involved or a us role not f.c. barcelona inter milan given to spain just united and manchester united as well as the french football federation in a statement competition commissioner margret

a vestibular said nike prevented many of its licensees from selling these branded products in a different country leading to less choice and higher prices for days including a dip on friday after an unfavorable profit was trying to offer nonfederal profited by israel but earlier today the nikkei stock was trading up after the news. and the dwindling oil production and lingering political. crisis in venezuela continue to shift oil markets as boom busters no venezuela's oil exports are predominantly heavy crude and venezuelan producers typically expect to ship their product to u.s. refineries designed to handle that chemical input reuters points out that crude oil accounts for two thirds of u.s. while imports and venezuela accounts for a disproportionately large portion of that sector at thirteen percent of heavy crude imports to the u.s. rival producers in the gulf of mexico as well as oil energy majors royal dutch shell and british petroleum are now profiting from resulting shifts in oil

production distribution. and joining us to break down all the moves in the gulf and the turmoil in venezuela is marine catoosa catoosa research it's good to say welcome to the show. my pleasure now first of all when oil production in minutes way though when you see a decline start as stark as sharp as we have in recent years what is the effect on oil markets in terms of light crude versus heavy locations of production and these and these refineries that we talked about. so if you look at the venezuela production you know from the peak is about just under just slightly above two point three million barrels a day they're down about forty two percent to date and a lot of that is not reinvesting into their fields at the same time as the refineries that just their composition mix because of the success of the domestic shale areas such as canada has really made up the difference from the the lack of production from the traditionally heavy your oil fields from mexico and venezuela

so you're seeing a major transition where now the u.s. refineries you know this undesirable or lower valued heavy oil is now becoming very desirable. and what has been the role in this scenario of u.s. sanctions in relation to a venezuela's ability to sell their oil in abroad and raise needed for next. and has there been an effect from those sanctions downstream on production. i'm going to give you a very unpopular in a contrarian perspective i actually don't think the sanctions have made that big of a difference because before the sanctions even came in the actual venezuelan production such a big hit down on the negative side so if you look what happened to russia in the eighty's or mexico in the late ninety's early two thousand same thing when the state oh nations do not invest in their own production but use those to fund the socialist agenda and you know non-production the fields have

a natural decline that is exactly what's going on in venezuela right now yet still today they unfortunately it's not just the oil production it's the venezuelan refineries are actually running at looking at over a decade low so they're not running at a high utilization rate so they are importing crude actually if you look at the ones that they're working with it's russia through lukoil obviously you've got china and also india so you know has it been easy no but are there ways to work around the sanctions definitely. we're always interested to get a contrarian take and we will definitely take that up your take up with next time we have a venezuela guest on a venezuelan expert next time but switching to the oil player sort of the oil sector players here shell and b.p. have been cited in this report as some of the stakeholders that are profiting from the shifts that are happening right now toward the gulf of mexico what is their stake what is their position in this scenario how are they profiting. when the big

oil guys especially in the gulf it's very very different than shale oil which you can have many juniors come in so this is a very expensive venture they plotted out in decades if oil drops to say forty they won't shut down the production whereas many of the shale fields you would see a decrease in production quickly so when you look at the gulf of mexico it's a very different type of production very. different decline rates it's a very baseline production that the majors are looking at for multi-year production it's much more expensive also so it's a very different type of production i don't think this is in reflection to venezuela specifically i know there's been references made but it's more of a business venture for the majors ok so it's just trying to it's happening more broadly separate from what's happening in venezuela currently. exactly because look at the canadian production what a lot of people are making that connection is where the big smart

a lot of the large u.s. funds and some a large like riverstone are investing billions of dollars in canada because of the heavy oil that is been reduced from mexico and venezuela is being produced even more in kind of the problem is that pipelines are act capacity and even the rails that capacity so that's that's the real issue good point there don't sleep on canada when you think about oil markets could use a chairman of the research thanks for your time. but but. when we think about the future for decades we have thought about flying cars and robots taking care of our dull chores but what about a future without cash although chain is still in its infancy some people think it could lead to a cashless revolution r.t. producer bridgeboro managed to catch up with. you know that in hong kong where he first asked how botching has managed to play into traditional investing. so in two ways f.e one way is actually really internally so one of our major problems early

stage and even late stage funds has been lack of liquidity so one thing that we are doing is to actually create a small contract so that peace can buy and sell their interest to a small contract which means that the small lake which we are promising liquidity off the a for some or maybe promising him even earlier but. in the old days which is still now you know normally a fund could take even ten than even more years so there is the potential to get the quiddity zero years and that is really affecting us internally externally what you are mentioning is where do we position ourselves we only invest into equity we are trying to really understand this if you're talking about skill is that something we could invest through into or not and that is something that is happening right now in really trying to understand your position and you being from the traditional investment background i mean so you're working in what stocks bonds hedge funds things like that well i did start an internet fan

a long time ago when i back in france which was one of the first internet banks we check should be. served its clients revolved any bank branches and we survived we had two hundred fifty thousand clients three hundred fifty people serve them and twelve million years profit before we sold it to c.i.c. and ever since then i've been basically doing all the stage investments and mainly payments to start with and i was very very lucky as you might have heard that i had these three axes into. and basically in two thousand and thirteen and i got this toward angel of the year in europe and then i moved to a show in two thousand and fourteen because especially payments i believe and still believe that this is where sap an interest payments it's not in europe and it's not the u.s. it's here. why is that why is this the place mainly has been driven by china which had an alley pay way to go you know straight to cure code payments they go straight into leap frogging technology instead of building it on our credit cards in our way the way we do so there is this leapfrogging mentality and i think he's very very

strong in a shop you know we've seen this before in some european nations as well a kind of move to a fully cashless society. is that good or bad so i'm actually coming from one of those countries sweden which is actually almost a fully cashless society since two thousand i reduced cash by fifty percent i definitely think it's good for the states because they know where the cash is so it means that you have pay your taxes no matter if you see a stevie eighty or you name it so it's getting paid so that's one thing which is very good that you actually can from a you know from a state point of view tax gets paid from a monetary policy point of view i think it's also important because you can track. we can track where the cash movements and that's where because it's digitalized and that's where i see huge using cases for actually decentralized technology from a central bank point of view that they can fine tune their money supply and a demand mechanist prodigiously to ledgers does the cashless yes it's definitely

important i think the biggest threat to a cashless society has traditionally been the czechs you have them in the u.s. you have them in the u.k. you have them in singapore you have them in france and the problem there has really been government policy is checks are free they will continue to be used if cash checks are charged and you know you need to pay something to use the very expensive you know monetary system to put you make your payments. then people use it less that's what sweden actually did already thirty years ago that costs are equal to five dollars to use a check and that's why it's going to cast a society very quickly so i think government policy actually makes a difference and interest if you want to go to cast a society and the next level of a cash to society for me is the blocks of society so so government can make a difference does it concern you not to sound a little conspiratorial you know you like you say everything can be tracked or do i want every financial transaction i make actually being tracked. well you know then you have you know we don't when you say we shouldn't go into iraq jane but you know

certainly if you can also keep privacy there which you know we can discuss anywhere on the block chain you can keep the privacy really some solutions you can write so that's where the way comes as long as you can keep the privacy of their yes i think you know we should keep track of our cash movements but the question is the privacy and the how or how in a permission based can we actually you know at the same time keep privacy and also keep track of the cash flow and for that we need to have trust and that's where it is to be to educate see and to death trust is who is running it. so it's all kind of linked to each other in a high society in a high trust society like sweden we trust what our government does and we give data but we are also know that they call it was used to data from privacy policies so it all depends also on government policy on state policy on policy who do you want to

share your data with and how does the black trade end up playing into the idea of a cashless society well i mean it's all these permission based you know distributed ledgers how do you use them you know as you know there are many different boxes some of the cash they are maybe at that forefront and you have others that maybe don't desire for privacy at all so you have a big spectrum between different solutions of distant. it's technology as you know that's probably different side if he's completely anonymous is that than and you don't contract who is down what but you can just track the overall numbers is that something gets traded that shouldn't be traded for is this illegal goods and so on so there's the balance between you know how much can be tracked and when and actually keeping the privacy and actually at the same time having that the benefits of tracking the cash. that's it for this time you can you catch boom bust on you tube dot com slash boom bust r.t.

she next time. join me every thursday on the alex salmond sure i'll be speaking to guest of the world of politics sport this list i'm showbusiness i'll see of an. officer. to get up off the ground began to. herd them freaks on the sounds of an mit grown man with misleading essentially. through his return. pushed it away from the officer. out of his group. they obviously did a kind of lunge for the web in one smith's and then when it happened on tree swung

and the observations didn't hit him i never saw any contact with. any kind of back to where they were so the officers back here they're trying again fifteen feet apart at this point and that's when the officer has gone even beyond three. so what we've got to do is identify the threats that we have it's crazy. let it be an arms race. very dramatic developments only. i don't see how. you sit down and talk. the tense situation in venezuela is still all over the news the problem in venezuela is not that socialism has been poorly implemented but that socialism has been a holy temple i'm inside but things are different we're going to announce sanctions

against. venezuela so as you. have a supplement to. get out of that. the. moment the focus of the who story makes him henry kissinger to tell him not be tolerated in latin america. an alternative economic and social system could take hold and therefore the policy would be to make. the economy scream so once in a colony of venezuela screed. russia's foreign ministry accuses the united states of treating latin america as its colony in comments come in response to washington's claims of moscow's military interference in venezuela. the u.n.

security council meets over the escalation on the gaza border where israeli tanks of gathered i.d.f. jets also attacked palestinian territory in retaliation for alleged rocket fire. comes as the u.s. officially recognized israeli sovereignty over the golan heights a disputed area on the border with syria which in this move was immediately condemned by the u.s. and the arab league. despite no collusion found between donald trump and russia by the investigation media.