to tell us more about this is monica miller.ome kind of recovery, but still it's been a downward slope? it was amazing what happened yesterday, and why it is happening is expectations are changing. not long ago we were talking about oil shortages, but now we're hearing there's a glut and a lot of 0pec and non—opec members are worried if there's going to be enough demand for that. in terms of the market is what happened is a lot of analysts are saying it's a response that is a spill over effect since monday when president trump weighed in on this, and he said hopefully saudi arabia and he said hopefully saudi arabia and 0pec will not be cutting oil production. 0il and 0pec will not be cutting oil production. oil prices should be much lower on supply. his tweet had markets in a stir, but also on tuesday, 0pec was saying they do need to look at cutting production, and potentially that could be about 1 production, and potentially that could be about1 million barrels per day starting in 2019. we've come a really long way. crude oil w

monica miller, thank you. of a resolution to the trade war between china and the us helped lift the hang seng. european markets, let's look at them. they have recovered a little bit of the losses we saw. political turmoil in the uk very much a focus. the pound pounded by the brexit and the pound pounded by the brexit and t has recovered a little of its value against the euro. and michelle fleury has the details of what's ahead on wall street today. cable company viacom reports its fourth—quarter profits this friday. its bottom line is likely to be boosted by a strong performance from paramount. the latest mission impossible film franchise is expected to boost profits, and licensing revenue should also get a lift this quarter. that follows paramount tv‘s launch of tom clancy's jack ryan on amazon prime and maniac on netflix. 0n the economic front, the federal reserve publishes industrial production figures — a key manufacturing indicator. economists are forecasting a 0.2% rise in october. this follows the 0.3%

monica miller is in our asia business hub in singapore... we can ask her!not the news that they wa nted this is not the news that they wanted to hear going into this, we had this meeting between president donald trump and president xi jinping. after the news came out, factory orders had fizzled in november, it is the latest sign that the world second largest economy is slowing down. the official purchasing managers index fell to 50 points, which means we are in neutral territory. it does not go one way 01’ neutral territory. it does not go one way or the other which is alarming many people. there are new orders on the domestic end of overseas markets, the trade dispute we have been talking a lot about today between the us and china is beginning to impact the economy. monica, thank you. a look at the asian markets which closed pretty flat dot a wait and see approach on the stocks ahead of that meeting between president xi and president trump later at the 620. similarfor the european shares right now. a bit down but they are treading water ahead of what is ha

monica miller has the story in singapore — some closure for these families?ted from a grieving father. a father of a 23—year—old samsung jet worker who died of leukaemia in 2007. he took on one of south korea‘s biggest companies. he represented people that not only died, but suffered from miscarriages, tumour as s and other diseases that afflicted the workers. we got a public apology in asia from the chief executive of samsung electronics. these payments are expected to go out by 2028. they are going to be around $130,000 per worker. it is hard to say exactly how many people have been impacted. advocates say anywhere from 200 workers suffering some sort of illness, and possibly 70 of them have died. really sad. thank you very much. asian stocks were mostly weaker on low volumes, rounding out a third week of losses on a note of caution. chinese equities led regional declines, with the technology sector weak on concern the us is ratcheting up a campaign against huawei technologies. volumes were lower than average as the week ends with japan and india shut for h

monica miller is following this story from our asia business hub in singapore.telecoms carrier in new zealand has said it has been banned from using the huawei network. it is the world's biggest producer of telecom equipment and has been dealt quite a few blows. earlier this year australia banded project fearfrom supplying 3g equipment. donald trump signed a bill which band huawei equipment from being used by the government. —— band huawei from supplying. there is possible chinese government involvement. huawei has repeatedly insisted that beijing has no influence over and china has long disputed accusations that security risks and links to the intelligence service. they say none of this is going on. thank you for that update. shares across asia have mostly risen over hopes that beijing will take steps to support the economy and as investors tried to decipher some rather conflicting signals of the prospects of calming the china—us trade dispute. president trump is expected to meet china to meet some kind of deal. in europe, markets have opened largely higher — f

so, controversially, will the personal data of hundreds of millions of people — as monica miller reportswn to the biggest online shopping day of the year — notjust in china, but the world. it's called singles‘ day, held on the 11th of november. get it? all of the ones? and it is a hugely successful shopping festival, invented by chinese e—commerce giant alibaba. in 2017, alibaba earned a record 168.2 billion yuan, or us$25 billion, on that day alone. and it keeps making more money every year. but shoppers are notjust handing over their dollars — singles‘ day might well be alibaba's biggest data collection event of the year too. take taobao, for example. it's one of alibaba's most popular shopping apps. it monitors notjust what you buy but what pages you view, what you bookmark, and uses artificial intelligence to predict what you are most likely to buy. alibaba says it does this to tailor its recommendations to you, so you have a better shopping experience. and what it is doing is pretty common in e—commerce, just like other sites like amazon — they are doing it as well. but when it come

monica miller is in singapore.ing at their slowest pace in more than a year and this is due to the external headwinds by the mounting trade tensions between the us and china. luk fook put out their earnings earlier today and even in their earnings statement they were saying this had a bearing on the bottom line. sales are in the single digits and that's looking at sales starting back in october and as far as the mainland the numbers were down in the double digits and it's not just a down in the double digits and it's notjust a trade war that is going on it's also the chinese economy starting to slow down and there is a week, the biggest rival whose earnings we will hear later today area earnings we will hear later today are a household name and their shells fell by almost five and a half percent. thanks for that. asia—pacific equities rose following a jump on wall street — after investors interpreted comments from federal reserve chairman jerome powell as a signal the central bank will slow down its programme of ra

. >> host: doctor monica miller tweets, how does geraldine brooks approach archival research? time does she spentch n the archives? >> guest: i do love archives. you can accomplish a great deal online now. more and more of the great collections of human knowledge are being digitized and think that's a wonderful thing for people who can't access the archives it but i tell you what, things still happen in the archives that will not happen online. i'm lucky enough to be close to widen library which is a wonderful research library at harvard. when you're in the stacks, every time i walked in there there's this wonderful smell too the old volume and the stacks. you go there looking for one thing but your eyes can be drawn serendipitously to a book you did even existed, nearby. there's also a mystical connection if you hold a piece of paper that was held by somebody that you are writing about. going to the library of congress and holding some of louisa may alcott's papers in my hand, and a poem that she had transcribed for one of the wounded soldiers who was in her care when she wor