
Big Boss Interview
255 episodes — Page 6 of 6
Euro-quotas for Amazon Prime and Netflix proposed
Officials in Brussels are proposing rules that would force online video services in the European Union to ensure at least twenty percent of their content is made in the EU. The biggest companies in the sector, Netflix and Amazon Prime, are American and much of their material currently comes from Hollywood. Supporters of the plan say it would have "a positive effect on cultural diversity". EU rules already oblige television broadcasters to spend at least half of their time showing European works, including material made in their own country.The world's biggest publicly traded oil company, Exxon Mobil, has largely seen down a rebellion at its annual general meeting over its climate change policies. Only a third of shareholders backed a motion that would have forced the company to work out a strategy against global warming. However a majority did approve a motion that could allow green activists to nominate members of the company's board.A report by the charity Human Rights Watch says thousands of children, some as young as eight years old, are working on tobacco farms in Indonesia. The country is the fifth biggest tobacco producer in the world. The authors say the farms involved supply companies including Philip Morris - the maker of Marlboro - and British American Tobacco, which owns cigarette brands including Dunhill. Our reporter has been to hear the stories of some of the child labourers.We speak to a group called Eco Peace Middle East, which has united Israelis and Palestinians on some of the biggest issues in the middle east, including water provision.And a report on our technology correspondent, Rory Cellan Jones on a new breed of robots - designed to work alongside their human masters.Our guests for the hour, on opposite sides of the Pacific - Peter Morici, Profesor of International Business at the University of Maryland - who's in Washington, and Puja Mehra of the Hindu in Delhi.(Picture: French actress Nadia Fares at the premiere of the French TV show 'Marseille', a Netflix co-production. Credit: AFP/Getty Images)
Argentina Corruption Charges
Former Argentine President Cristina Fernandez has been indicted over accusations that she oversaw irregularities in the central bank's sale of dollars in the futures market. The number of migrants arriving in Greece from Turkey has fallen dramatically...as Ankara tightens the border, but elsewhere in the Mediterranean, attempts to stop the smugglers are failing. Miners seeking millions of dollars in compensation for contracting a serious lung disease have won a landmark judgement against the gold mining industry. The High Court in South Africa has given the go ahead for a class action by thousands of workers who developed silicosis while working underground. The head of GSK Sir Andrew Witty tells Marketplace host Kai Ryssdal why developing new drugs is so expensive. And throughout the programme Susannah Streeter is joined by Danny Samson, Professor of Management at Melbourne University in Australia. And the power of Eurovision - why the song contest has such an enduring appeal.
Brazil's New Leader
In Brazil, the new president is putting together a very different-looking cabinet to his predecessor - a much more market friendly one. His new finance minister is Henriques Meirelles, former head of the central bank. So what is the likely effect going to be on Brazil's wobbly finances?"Fantastically corrupt". That's how British prime minister David Cameron described Nigeria and Afghanistan earlier in the week. On Thursday he was hosting a global anti-corruption conference in London. Fifty states were represented at the summit, alongside banks, civil society organisations and the International Monetary Fund. Though delegates promised to make tackling corruption a top priority, the meeting led to few firm commitments. Just six countries agreed to publish registers of who really owns companies in their territories, a key goal of anti-corruption campaigners. So - just how much was achieved?St Louis, in Missouri, made international news two years ago because of race riots in the suburb of Ferguson. But it would rather be known for something else. It's become the unlikely capital of chess - in America if not - here's a boast - the world. David Edmonds has just returned from St Louis, which was hosting the US National Championship.Can you copyright a language? Obviously you can't claim the rights to Russian, or Spanish or Swahili, but what about a made-up language? That is an issue that an American court will look at later this year when Paramount Pictures and CBS sue the makers of a Star Trek fan movie. One part of that case is the use of the invented language for the warlike alien race, the Klingons. Klingon is a BIG deal. It was invented in the early 1980s by the linguist Marc Okrand for the Star Trek movies. And Roger Hearing is joined by two guests for the hour on opposite sides of the Pacific - David Kuo of the Motley Fool in Singapore and Ralph Silva of the Silva Network in Toronto.
India Special: Bollywood's Challenges
Rahul Tandon looks at India's changing entertainment industry - the competition that Hindi films face from regional cinema and Hollywood. He also speaks to one of India's leading actors Manoj Bajpayee about his latest film Aligarh, based on the life of gay professor Ramchandra Siras. Plus the risks and opportunities posed to the industry by the ever growing numbers of Indian smartphone and tablet owners. Also, why aren't more Indian bands cracking the international music scene? Rahul hears from rock band Indus Creed. Joining Rahul in Mumbai is author and film critic Deepanjana Pal and from Boston, journalist and academic Hasit Shah.(Photo: Manoj Bajpayee in Aligarh. Credit: Eros International)
Poachers Threaten Reef in South China Sea
The BBC has exclusive evidence of the large-scale destruction of a reef in the South China Sea by Chinese poachers and the theft of valuable and endangered giant clams. The Philippines, which is pursuing its own legal claim to many of the islands, says the Chinese navy is allowing the poachers to plunder the reefs with impunity. Rupert Wingfield-Hayes has the story.All public schools in the Los Angeles area were closed on Tuesday after a ‘credible threat’ was received via email. Almost 700,000 students were affected. A similar threat was received by police in New York, but was not deemed credible - schools remained open. We hear from families caught up in the California alert.Also in the programme, the US central bank the Federal Reserve is expected to raise interest rates tomorrow, for the first time in almost a decade. Our economic commentator Roger Bootle offers his assessment.We discuss big data, as the EU announces new laws requiring companies to ask permission to keep clients data. Customers are also given the right to demand their details are removed from a company's database. However, a breach of the rules could see firms fined around 4% of global revenues.And the artists from a Grammy shortlisted album who definitely won’t be attending the awards ceremony – because they’re all behind bars. We speak to the producer of the Zomba Prison Project in Malawi.We're joined throughout the programme by Mark Miller, Managing Editor at Marketplace in LA and Madhavan Narayanan, columnist and tech writer on the Hindustan Times in Delhi.(Picture: Reef in South China Sea. Credit: BBC)