having an impact on trade as wejust all of this is having an impact on trade as we just heard karishma vaswanihas he in fa ct vaswani talk about. what has he in fact been on currency markets? in the currency markets, we know there is a lot of risk of urgent and uncertainty in the market to which means that people are less attractive to what is happening. —— attractive. we see strongerjapanese yen due to market uncertainty, and what has taken pill by surprise that the dollar has remained strong. this could be due to a number of factors. firstly, the trade war is seen as less of a risk to the united states because it is being pursued by the united states administration. this could be helping the attraction towards the us dollar and secondly because the trade war is such uncertainty for the global economy as a whole, there are suspicions that the world might start using the us dollar more as the reserve currency. us dollar more as the reserve currency. and there are safe havens as well, including the japanese yen. tell us about the possibilities for china. we saw that it was done through % but in

i'm karishma vaswani in singapore. the headlines: caught on the mountain. the moment trekkers run to escape landslides, as a powerful earthquake hits the indonesian island of lombok. at least 1a people are dead. cambodia's prime minister has claimed election victory, but critics say the vote was a sham. hello. i'm ben bland in london. also in the programme: just hours before zimbabwe's historic election, former president robert mugabe says he won't back his successor and the man who ousted him. and we meet the stand in mum helping same—sex couples shunned by their parents on their wedding day. live from our studios in singapore and london, this is bbc world news. it's newsday. good morning. it's 8am in singapore, 1am in london and 8am on the indonesian island of lombok, where at least 1a people have been killed in a powerful earthquake. indonesian presidentjoko widodo is due to visit later on monday. he's ordered the maximum relief effort to help survivors. officials say hundreds have been injured and the number of casualties is expected to rise. the bbc‘s

let's go to our asia business hub, karishma vaswani is following the story. nice to see you.ing to see at a very practical level now what these tariffs mean. yes, i think what you are starting to see now is the rhetoric actually turning into reality for companies, and if you take the case of bmw, the german carmaker says as as monday it will start raising the retail price on the seb models by 47%. analysts that i have been speaking to says that is a marginal increase at best. —— suv. what this shows is that bmw is actually willing to take on the costs itself and absorb those costs, this is because of increased competition among the luxury brands in china. it has been hit by these additional chinese tariffs on american car imports because it moved some of its production to china. remember, actually, beijing 0pendoc it's carmaker market to foreign car makers this year by removing all tariffs from cars imported to china, except that the us because of this ongoing trade war between washington and beijing. what it did was slap an additional 25% tax on us carmakers last month, effe

let's cross straight to our asia business correspondent karishma vaswani. at one of the world's biggest seaports in singapore. karishma, what is the view where you are? what will the regional implications of this be? well, very much, as you said, people are extremely concerned about the escalation of future tariffs after the ones the united states put on that $34 billion worth of chinese exports, which came into effect today. to give you a sense of where we are, i am in front of singapore's seaport, one of the busiest in the world. every yea r, seaport, one of the busiest in the world. every year, something like 100,000 ships pass through here, carrying containers of cargo all over the world. in the last few hours i have been out here, i've seen something like ten or 15 ships. i think that really underlines the problem in all of this, the concern for so many businesses in this part of the world. asia's economies have really depended on these free trade policies. that is how we have seen growth here become some of the most dynamic growth in the entire world,

let's go to our asia business hub, where karishma vaswani is following the story.that week, massive flotation that many expected? it has been a difficult start for the smartphone maker xiaomi, when it debuted this morning, initially at one point four and more than 3.5% at recovering. mainly, investors are concerned about the valuation of the company, they think it has been priced too expensively. initially the public offering has been priced at around 17 hong kong dollars per share, at the bottom of the range it had originally intended to price its shares at. at that price, the company isn't out —— the company is valued at around $50 billion. lots of things clouding investor sentiment, among them, the fact that xiaomi, who makes other pieces of hardware equipment is not seen as a hardware equipment is not seen as a hardware company plus as an internet play, but more as a low—cost mobile phone maker. then there is the threat of further trade tensions between the us and china which we have been talking about. some a nalysts a re have been talking about. some analysts

i'm karishma vaswani in singapore.moment trekkers run to escape landslides as a powerful earthquake hits the indonesian island of lombok. at least 14 people are dead. cambodia's prime minister has claimed election victory, but critics say the vote was a sham. hello. i'm ben bland in london. also coming up in the programme: just hours before zimbabweans head to the polls, the former leader, robert mugabe, breaks his silence, saying he won't vote the man who pushed him out. live from our studios in singapore and london,

let's go to our asia business correspondent karishma vaswani, who is following the story for us.. indeed, andi a massive fall from grace. indeed, and i think this is really underlines the current administration's focus on clamping down on corruption in malaysia. now, it has to be said that at this point, what we do understand is that the former prime minister najib razak has been charged with three cou nts razak has been charged with three counts of criminal breach of trust and one count, we understand, of abuse of power. all of this relating to the subsidiarity, a unit of the state—run investment fund, imdb, which he remembered it set up, ostensibly to develop the malaysian economy in particular, to develop kuala lumpur, the malysian capital, into a financial hub. of course, that never happened, what happened instead was that the fund racked up the windsor dollars worth of debts, there were allegations that some of that money found its way to the prime minister's personal account. —— billions of dollars worth. allegations that he has consistently denied and to be frank, was able

the us and china now. joining me from the port of singapore is our asia business correspondent karishma vaswaniworld's busiest ports here in the country, so naturally this trade tension between the us and china, they are having global implications, aren't they? yes, they have worried many businesses around the region that i have been speaking to. as you are saying i am standing across the water from the singapore port. lots of activity on a typical day. every year something like 100,000 ships come through the port carrying containers of cargo all over the world. and of course that is the worry. that this us— china trade war, the beginnings of a trade war, asjohn sutton were for saying in his piece, will have a cascading effect on the rest of the world and certainly out in asia —— jon sudworth. remember, the products taxed by america, chinese goods, a lot of them have components from countries out in asia. they are then sent to china, assembled and then they make their way to the us. what does that do? basically if you stop seeing the same amount of demand for these goods because of higher ta ri

karishma vaswani is in singapore. this story is starting to permeate all sorts of areas isn't it?r prime minister of malaysia was arrested and then subsequently charged on corruption charges. he was the one who approved many of these projects and made that approach to beijing and trying to firm up ties between china and malaysia. now, just to remind our audiences, the malaysian authorities, the current government, is investigating whether chinese state—owned bank was used in a transaction that benefitted the government investment fund at the heart of the scandal over the last few years. it is suspending three of its largest chinese—backed projects, worth $22 billion, to detail the projects one is the old coal rail link, that would have connected the less developed eastern coast to thailand and kualar lumpur. it was pa rt of thailand and kualar lumpur. it was part of a plan to connect asia to china. a real sense that malaysia's clamping down on chinese investments and we may see more of that in the future. thank you. asian markets have been reacting with alarm to the prospect of a

karishma vaswani has the details from singapore.ic turning into reality for companies, take the case of bmw, the german car—maker says as early as monday. raising the retail price of the x five and x six suv models. analysts i have been speaking to say that the marginal increase in prices at best, what this shows is that bmw is actually willing to take on the cost from the trade tariffs on its own and absorb bad, because it's already facing fierce competition among luxury car brands in china, bmw ships some of its cars in the us to china and that's why it's been hit by additional chinese tariffs on american car imports which came into effect in july. let me show you the numbers, pretty decent economic numbers from the us last week, markets ended lower over concerns that cracks could start to appeared in the tech sector, that until now has been one of the biggest drivers of growth. there was a second consecutive weekly fall for the nasdaq. lot of central bank news for us this week. the bank ofjapan, us federal reserve and the bank of

i'm karishma vaswani in singapore. the headlines: caught on the mountain.rful earthquake hits the indonesian island of lombok. at least 14 people are dead. cambodia's prime minister has claimed election victory, but critics say the vote was a sham. hello. i'm ben bland in london. also in the programme: just hours before zimbabwe's historic election, former president robert mugabe says he won't back his successor and the man who ousted him. and we meet the stand in mum helping same—sex couples shunned by their parents on their wedding day. live from our studios in singapore and london,

our asia business correspondent karishma vaswani is at one of the world‘s biggest seaports in singapore you know the chinese have consistently said they would not be the ones to fire at the first shot in this trade for and soon after the ta riffs in this trade for and soon after the tariffs from the united states came into effect on chinese goods just a minute past midnight washington, dc time we started to get reports from beijing that indeed, china had started to implement these tariffs in some shape or form, that‘s coming out of state media at the chinese commerce ministry there, saying it‘s bowing to retaliate against the united states and what it‘s called off at the us has done, is launching the biggest economic trade war in history, we are expecting some confirmation of the exact specifics as to what china has done in the next few hours. remember what they had said in the past, they would meet the us measure for measure, if the united states slaps tariffs on 34 the united states slaps tariffs on 3a billion dollars worth of chinese goods, beijing would do the same, china has consis

karishma vaswani has been through this new report.been a theory at one point saying that the plane had been hijacked by external parties through technology, according to investigators in the press conference today there is no evidence to support that, the airworthiness of the plane was analysed and in the meantime there was a great dignity cell and investigation into the pilot as well but for all intents and purposes, in this report, over 800 pages, but for all intents and purposes, in this report, over800 pages, it looks like the new malaysian government says they don't have a conclusive reason behind why this plane disappeared and it is not clear if that will be a resumption of the search. because remember what the malaysian government had said ahead of this report being released, the new prime minister had said that if that was new evidence that came asa if that was new evidence that came as a result of this report than that was the possibility that the research might be resumed. that is not clear if that is happening yet so obviou

more now from karishma vaswani.current administration's focus on clamping down on corruption in malaysia. all of this relating to a subsidiary unit of the state—run investment fund, one in db, which he remember set up. in particular to develop kuala lumpur, the malaysian capital into a financial hub. that never happened, what happened instead was that the fund racked up billions of dollars worth of debt, there were allegations that some of that money found its way to the former prime minister's personal bank account, something like $700 million, allegations that he has consistently denied and was able to shrug off both political protest on the streets and any criticism he may have a seat in the media as a result of some of the laws he implemented over the last few years. but now as a result of the new government that's in power, there has been a renewed focus on what happened at this fund, and now we have to see how these charges play out. kamal ahmed is our economics editor. "world trade organisation warns on costs

with the latest we can speak to our correspondent, karishma vaswani who is in singapore for us this morninglso highlighted the fact the report contains of the mistakes, as they have courted, of protocol and guidelines that were not followed. it is not yet clear what those m ista kes it is not yet clear what those mistakes were. there has been such a great deal of mystery over this particular airliner which disappeared just over four years ago, on its way from kuala lumpur to beijing with more than 200 people on board, most of them from china. from what we understand from the report's findings, some 800 pages, according to media reports, have been published. what the minister of transport had to stay ahead of the report being published is that every single word over the last four years of the investigation would be apparent in the report and be published in the report. the new government in malaysia have promised full transparency but still many questions remain. only three confirmed fragments of mh370 have been found. all of them in the indian ocean shores including a two metre wing part te