Business Matters

Over the weekend, at the age of 92, one of the giants of American economic policy and former head of the US central bank Paul Volcker, died at his home in New York. He was perhaps best known for his dramatic hiking of interest rates in the early eighties to fight inflation. We explore his enduring legacy. Meanwhile, shares in Tullow Oil fell as much as 70% after the company announced a boardroom shake-up, scrapped its dividend and cut its production forecasts. Chief executive Paul McDade and exploration director Angus McCoss are stepping down immediately. We talk to Eklavya Gupte, senior editor of Europe and Africa News S&P Global Platts. (Picture Credit: Getty Images)

In Australia, wildfires are causing unprecedented damage and danger. We hear from our environment correspondent, Matt McGrath and from Perth, Sinead Mangan who presents the ABC radio programme, Australia Wide. What's the secret to Poland's success? Of all 28 countries in the European Union, new figures show it has seen the most growth - a heady 1.3% in the last three months. That’s ahead of all of its eastern European competitors, leaving laggards like Germany and the UK far behind. So how is Poland managing to grow faster than even the 'Asian tigers'? On Monday this week, President Trump tweeted that he was restoring tariffs on Brazilian and Argentinian steel - effective immediately. To assess the impact within the American steel sector, we hear reaction from Lisa Goldenberg, President of the Delaware Steel Company. Also, we test drive technology whose developers say it can instantly translate any language into any other. Plus, our reporter Deborah Weitzmann explains why the office Christmas party is increasingly fraught with risk. (Picture description: Australian wildfires. Credit: Saeed Khan/AFP via Getty Images)

President Trump has hit back at Democrats in the House of Representatives, who have announced articles of impeachment against him. Meanwhile, in less than three years, a total of 170 judges have been given lifetime appointments, meaning that Mr Trump's allies have picked around a quarter of all American federal judges. This worries some people, including them Sam Berger of the Centre for American Progess. Mike Davis disagrees. He runs the Article 3 Project whose mission is to "fight to confirm President Trump's judicial nominees and defend these new judges from left-wing attacks." After deadly fuel protests in Iran, businesses tell us what they want from the government. We also hear from Esfandyar Batmanghelidj, founder of Boursa Bazaar, a publication which tracks developments in Iran's economy and Rana Rahimpour of the BBC Persian service explores the historical roots of the current protests. Plus, Saudi Aramco, Saudi Arabia's huge state-owned oil production company is up for sale. 1.5% of its stock will be on offer on the Riyadh stock exchange which Aramco hopes will raise $25 billion, valuing the company at $1.7 trillion. The BBC's Sameer Hashmi has been following this highly anticipated IPO from Dubai. A lot of Chinese companies have been relocating in order to rebrand their exports Made in Vietnam to get around American tariffs. So how lucrative has that new business been? We speak to Lien Huang, who reports for Bloomberg Law in Ho Chi Minh City. And joining us throughout the programme are Rachel Cartland, author, writer and expert on Hong Kong and in London, Simon Littlewood of ACG Global which is based in Singapore. Picture description: Donald Trump Credit: Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images

US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin has urged countries to suspend plans for digital services taxes that Washington believes would unfairly target US tech companies. He said the OECD should be given time to reach an agreement on international taxation. Dr. Luminita Enache is from the Haskayne School of Business at the University of Calgary and explains how a global digital tax might work. A Christmas advert from exercise bike company Peloton has been widely mocked on social media as being "sexist", "out of touch" and even "dystopian". Matthew De Silva of Quartz explains how this translated to a hit to the company's share price. An onion crop failure led to soaring prices in India where it can cause political turmoil. Vivek Singh of London's Cinnamon Club restaurant explains how significant the onion is to South Asian cuisine, and the BBC’s Mike Johnson takes it from there. An economic crisis in Venezuela pushes millions of citizens to seek a more prosperous life abroad, our reporter Stefania Gozzer heads to Peru to find out why it has become home to the second largest community of Venezuelan immigrants in the world. And as Michael Bloomberg continues his presidential campaign, the NRA manages to run an attack ad against him on his own news site. Chris Nolan, owner of Spot On Political Advertising in San Francisco, explains how it happened. All through the show we’ll be joined by Lahore journalist Mehmal Sarfraz and freelance journalist Melissa Chan in New York. (Picture: U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin in Washington, DC. Picture credit: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

Larry Page and Sergey Brin will leave their roles as Alphabet CEO and president, after two decades. Google's current CEO, Sundar Pichai, will become CEO at Alphabet. We get reaction from Stuart Miles, founder of tech website Pocket-lint. A US intelligence committee says the case for the impeachment of President Trump is 'overwhelming'. But the White House has called it a 'one-sided sham process'. We speak to foreign policy reporter Amy Mackinnon in Washington DC. And could man-made neurons improve the performance of medical implants? We speak to the team from the University of Bath in the UK which has been developing them. Jamie Robertson is joined throughout the programme by Ralph Silva of the Silva Research Network, who's inToronto, and Yoko Ishikura, professor emeritus at Hitotsubashi University, and currently a member of the World Economic Forum’s Expert Network, from Tokyo. (Picture: Google branded sweets. Credit: Adam Berry/Getty Images)