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The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has begun the inquiry into last December's cyber attack on the IT provider, media reports say. It will ask whether some companies failed to disclose they had been affected. Our technology correspondent Rory Cellan-Jones explains the story. As India offers its free vaccinations to all adults, human rights activist Manjula Pradeep of the Wayve Foundati...

Search giant Google is to pay a $267m fine in France because of its advertising dominance. Katrin Schallenberg is an antitrust expert with Clifford Chance, and explains the background to the case. As some companies turn to anthropology to balance the insights of algorithms and AI, should all businesses now have an anthropologist on their books? We hear from Gillian Tett the author of Anthro-Vision...

The Colonial fuel pipeline, shut down by a cyber attack since Friday, serves 45% of America's east coast. A regional state of emergency has been declared, allowing tanker drivers to work extra hours to get some fuel where it's needed – but will they be able to keep up with demand? We ask Ellen R Ward, president of Transversal Consulting. Is it a surprise that criminals were able to hack into the s...

Apple has released its latest software update with a new tool that has forced a confrontation with Facebook over privacy; the BBC's Technology Correspondent Rory Cellan Jones explains the controversy. As an international effort is underway to help India as it faces an overwhelming surge in coronavirus cases, we hear how the US, the UK, China, Russia, the European Union Saudi Arabia are among those...

Pubs, restaurants, beauty salons and non-essential shops have reopened with the easing of lockdown restrictions across England. We hear from the heart of London’s shopping district and from a pub garden near Reading. The e-commerce giant Alibaba has been accused of anti-competitive practices and fined more than $2.5 billion by Chinese regulators. We discuss what this will mean for the future of th...

Switzerland's Credit Suisse and Japan's Nomura have seen their shares take a sharp fall after warning they could face losses of billions of dollars. The two large banks lent money to crisis-hit US investment fund, Archegos Capital, which was forced to liquidate billions of dollars’ worth of shares last Friday. We hear from Financial Times Correspondent Ortenca Aliaj and financial lawyer Mark Berma...

Texas's Brazos Electric Power Co-operative has filed for bankruptcy after winter storms. The firm says it's facing a $1.8bn bill as a result of last month's disruption, and Bloomberg's Jeremy Hill explains the implications. Also in the programme, starting a week of special programming about mental health and the pandemic, the BBC's Manuela Saragosa reports on what more businesses and governments c...

Google has agreed to pay Rupert Murdoch's News Corp for content from news sites across its media empire. Meanwhile, Facebook has announced it is banning the publishing and sharing of news on its platform in Australia. This follows moves by the Australian Government to make digital giants pay for journalism. We get the thoughts of Peter Lewis, Director of the Centre of Responsible Technology and is...

Around 150 million Americans have been advised to take precautions as an unprecedented winter storm continues to cause havoc across twenty five US states. In one of the worst affected states, Texas, more than four million people are without power as a surge in demand caused the power grid to fail. We hear how ageing infrastructure, unregulated grid and climate change have all contributed to the si...

In her own words "history was made" today when Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala became the first woman and the first African director general of the World Trade Organization. She tells us how she plans to reform the WTO and the importance of climate change. Also in the programme, the global economic cost of the Coronavirus pandemic will run into trillions of dollars. Could the world set up a better early warni...

72 tennis players at the Australian Open are facing 14 days stuck in Melbourne Hotels after positive Covid-19 cases on their inbound planes; We discuss whether the Covid-19 pandemic is still a big threat to major sport events including the Tokyo Olympics. We'll hear the latest on the US Capitol as DC remains on high alert ahead of President-Elect Joe Biden's inauguration on Wednesday. Car and elec...

A merger between Fiat Chrysler and PSA has won approval from the companies' shareholders. The new company will be called Stellantis and we ask why has Fiat agreed to be subsumed into an ever bigger group. Also in the programme, more than 200 workers at Google-parent Alphabet have formed a labour union. It marks a seismic shift in Silicon Valley, where unions are a rarity and relations with organis...

Brexit talks stall prompting a meeting for later this week, between the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen and the British Prime Minister, Boris Johnson. We will hear what is at stake for both sides with analysis from Carsten Brzeski, from ING in Frankfurt. We will also consider the future of Venezuela, after President Maduro and his allies won political control, but the st...

US President Donald Trump accepts that the formal transition to Joe Biden's White House can finally begin and it's reported that Mr Biden will nominate Janet Yellen, a former head of the Federal Reserve, as his Treasury secretary - we hear from Samira Hussain, our American Business Correspondent. There's more good news on the coronavirus vaccines front as it's announced that the AstraZeneca/Oxford...

The chief executives of Facebook, Twitter, and Google have faced intense grilling from senators over Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which protects web companies from liability when it comes to content posted by users. Rebecca Klar, a reporter with The Hill in Washington D.C., gives us the highlights. Also in the programme, financial markets have tumbled around the world for a secon...

With just a week to go until the US election, we’ll hear how the Biden and Trump campaigns are getting their final pitches in. Also in the programme, the elite Central Committee of China’s ruling Communist Party is meeting behind closed doors over four days to create the economic blueprint for world's second biggest economy. Meanwhile, a Hong Kong activist has been detained by plain-clothed police...

Turkey's president calls for a boycott on French products - but do they work to stifle business, especially when driven by political or religious reasons? Plus, Japan has set itself an ambitious target to cut its harmful gas emissions to zero by 2050. We assess if they can do it. Cinemas are set to reopen in India, and we look at what it means for the Bollywood film industry, which has suffered hu...

The President's nominee Amy Coney Barrett says she is 'honoured and humbled' to have been chosen by Donald Trump for a place in the US's top court. After the first day of confirmation hearings, we speak to Ilya Shapiro, director at the Robert A. Levy Center for Constitutional Studies' Cato Institute and author of Supreme Disorder: Judicial Nominations and the Politics of America's Highest Court. S...

After a controversial debate between President Trump and candidate Biden last week, Vice President Pence and candidate Kamala Harris are set to face off in Utah. Emily Means, a reporter with KUER Public Radio in Utah, tells us what to expect at the debate in Salt Lake City. Also in the programme, President Trump's administration has unveiled a tightening of rules for H-1B visas, which allow tens o...

A report backed by US Democratic lawmakers has urged changes that could lead to the break-up of some of America's biggest tech companies. The recommendation follows a 16-month congressional investigation into Google, Amazon, Facebook and Apple. The BBC's James Clayton explains what's behind the report. Also in the programme, US President Donald Trump has said he is ending negotiations over a Covid...

As the number of deaths from coronavirus approaches one million, we hear how countries around the world have been handling the pandemic. Also in the programme, why are some of the world's leading cement producers making a public pledge to shrink their carbon footprint? Plus, Apple and Epic Games are back in court for another face-off over the online video game, Fortnite. And, we meet the founders...

We hear from businesses across India, as the country suffers a 23.9% fall in its economic growth, the worst on record, amidst one of the biggest single-day rises in coronavirus cases in the world. The start of the American presidential election campaign is in full swing, with the two candidates attacking each other over law and order, rather than the economy. And we'll hear the view from the Engli...

Covid-19 restrictions and concerns mean that the only people attending in-person will be those necessary to orchestrating the event. Instead of 50,000 people gathering for the traditional calendar with days full of speeches, receptions and rallies, sessions will be streamed from the Democratic Party's social media channels and aired live on most US news channels. We discuss the ramifications with...

Alex Harris, Head of Global Policy at the Wellcome Trust and the BBC's Fergus Walsh tell us about promising progress on a coronavirus vaccine. Video-sharing app TikTok has denied that it is controlled by the Chinese government; Emily Taylor, associate fellow with the International Security Programme at Chatham House, tells us why countries like India and the US are not reassured by TikTok's guaran...

Several countries have criticised China for imposing a new security law on Hong Kong, which they say threatens the territory's long-standing. Some of the world's largest social media and internet businesses - including Facebook, WhatsApp, Twitter, Google and Telegram - have all said they are "pausing" co-operation with requests for user information from the Hong Kong police, until they can assess...