Big Boss Interview

The Democrats hated it before it even happened and now many Republicans have distanced themselves from the US President's proposals for an Obamacare replacement. So is Trumpcare already dead in the water? We speak to Professor John McDonough of Harvard University's Department of Health Policy & Management - who worked in the Senate on the passage of the Affordable Care Act.

The US Department of Justice has fined the Chinese telecoms maker ZTE nearly $1.2 billion for selling banned American-made equipment to Iran and North Korea. We get analysis from Shawn Donnan, World Trade Editor of the Financial Times in Washington DC.

The shipping industry is predominantly male and women who manage to get in complain of institutional harassment and sexism. Eldine Chilembo Gless, a One Young World Ambassador from Angola in south-west Africa outlines the extent of the problem.

We cast the net a little wider to draw in some of the business headlines from elsewhere in the world and we cross to Sydney and the BBC's Phil Mercer.

36 years ago at the age of just 36 Bob Marley died but interest in the reggae star shows no sign of diminishing. In the UK, a new stage show called One Love: The Bob Marley Musical opens on Friday. It's written and directed by Kwame Kwei-Armah who's been talking to our Arts Correspondent Rebecca Jones.

And we're joined throughout the programme by Mitchell Hartman of Marketplace who's is in Portland, Oregon and Jyoti Malhotra, President of South Asian Women in Media is in Delhi.

Picture description: Protestors demonstrate during a health care rally at Thomas Paine Plaza on February 25, 2017 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

President Trump has issued an executive order putting in place a new travel ban. Is it legally watertight this time? We hear from Ambassador Norman Eisen who was senior counsel to President Obama and David Rivkin, a lawyer who served under Presidents Reagan and George Bush senior.

The centre-right in France keeps Francois Fillon as its presidential candidate, despite falling poll ratings and a legal investigation into his financial arrangements; we get analysis from the BBC's Hugh Schofield in Paris.

The BBC's Sharanjit Leyl finds out how to make an amazing party in Singapore.

We cross over to Kolkata where Rahul Tandon tells us about Asia's biggest business stories.

One of the advantages of working in radio is that the dress codes aren't too rigid but in some jobs it's a very different situation. Our well-dressed regular commentator Lucy Kellaway of the Financial Times has been musing on corporate dress.

And we're joined throughout the programme by two guests on opposite sides of the Pacific; Anjani Trivedi, Columnist for WSJ Heard on the Street who's in Singapore, and Richard Wolff, professor of economics emeritus at the University of Massachusetts and founder of Democracy at Work in New York.

Picture description: President Trump walks across the South Lawn towards the White House on March 5, 2017 in Washington, DC.

With President Donald Trump less than an hour away from addressing Congress for the first time, we preview what he's likely to say and how he's been performing in The White House so far.

Three months on from India's surprise decision to remove high-valued banknotes from circulation, we examine how the economy has been affected with British economist Roger Bootle.

Despite frequent reports that 'Milennials' are finding it difficult to get onto the housing ladder, a report from HSBC suggests that home ownership may not be all that out of reach for young adults in the 21st century. The survey of 9000 people in nine countries indicates that 40 per cent own their own home and 83 per cent of those that don't are planning on buying in the next five years.

Should stars of stage and screen get involved in politics, or is it best left to the professionals? Following the Hollywood awards season, where many a political viewpoint emerged among the acceptance speeches, we ask whether celebrities have a part to play in the political sphere and do people actually listen to them?

And joining us to discuss all that are Andrew Peaple, Deputy Asia Finance editor for the Wall Street Journal and Katie Long, of Marketplace

(Picture Credit - Getty)

Donald Trump plans to radically change government spending, increasing the defence budget by 10% paid for by slashing domestic programmes and foreign aid. We hear from Sharon Parrot of the independent Center on Budget and Policy Priorities in Washington DC.

After the Oscars 2017 'Best Picture' mix up, we discuss how the accountants at PWC managed to mess the winners up with Erich Schwartzel,

We hear from the BBC's Yogita Limaye on how the withdrawal of high value rupee notes has hit agriculture and industry in India hard and

All this and more discussed with our guests throughout the show Ralph Silva in Toronto in Canada and Daisy Guo in Shanghai in China and Rahul Tandon in Kolkata.

(Photo: US Military Parade. Credit: Getty Images.)

Greece's debt crisis burst back on to the economic and political agenda today following an extraordinary row at the top of the International Monetary Fund, the body overseeing the Greek government's bailout programme.

The pledge to build a wall along the US-Mexican border was a key election promise from President Trump.

It might sound something of an oxymoron - car companies looking to develop something other than cars - but that's apparently exactly what some of the biggest players in the industry are doing. Mark Garrison from the US business radio programme Marketplace explains all.

The BBC's Fergus Nicoll will be joined throughout the programme from New York by Mark Garrison, from New Dehli by Jyoti Malhotra, senior journalist and president of the South Asian Women in Media (SAWM) group, and they'll also be joined from Hong Kong by the BBC's Juliana Liu.

PICTURE: A man walks past a graffiti with a EU flag reading in German 'NO' concerning Greece's referendum on the latest offer of a debt deal by the country's EU-IMF creditors, in Athens on June 28, 2015. (Photo: ARIS MESSINIS/AFP/Getty Images)

More than 100 US tech firms, including some of the industry's biggest players, have filed a legal document stating that President Trump's immigration ban affects their operations and "inflicts significant harm" on business.

The BBC's Daniel Gallas takes us through a significant meeting in South America, as the President of Argentina Maurico Macri, travels to talk cross-border trade with his Brazilian counterpart Michel Temer.

From big tech companies, to smaller, more local ones now - we'll hear about the big ambitions for local social networking site Streetlife, from its founder Matt Boyes.

The BBC's Fergus Nicoll will be joined throughout the programme from San Francisco, by the journalist Alison Van Diggelen and from Kolkata by the BBC's Rahul Tandon.

PICTURE: Leading tech CEOs, including Apple's Tim Cook meet with President Trump in New York prior to his inauguration.

Some of the most powerful business leaders in America have been among those to criticize President Donald Trump's plans to ban travel from seven mainly Muslim countries.

With almost daily stories about robots taking over everything from driving our cars, to our day to day jobs, are we all getting a bit hysterical about the prospect of artificial intelligence taking over our lives? Dr Chris Brauer from Goldsmiths University in London thinks so, and he'll tell us why.

Throughout the hour the BBC's Rob Young will be joined from Dehli by Sushma Ramachandran, former chief business correspondent at the Hindu Times. And from San Francisco by Michael Brune, Executive Director of the environmental campaign group the Sierra Club.

Picture: Demonstrators gather outside of the Trump Hotel International during a protest in Washington, DC. Protestors in Washington and around the country gathered to protest President Donald Trump's executive order barring the citizens of Muslim-majority countries Iraq, Syria, Iran, Sudan, Libya, Somalia and Yemen from traveling to the United States. (Photo by Zach Gibson/Getty Images)

In ten days, President Obama will leave the White House.

A lack of investment spending in emerging markets is strangling economic growth in those countries.

It's the swankiest week of schmoozing and high powered financial dealing of the year, and all against the backdrop of the snowy Swiss Alps. But why is the World Economic Forum in Davos such a pull for the World's business elite? Sandra Navidi - author of a new book called Superhubs: How the Financial Elite & Their Networks Rule Our World is here to tell us.

And, don't fancy becoming an air force pilot but still fancy travelling faster than the speed of sound? The answer used to be buy a ticket for Concorde, until the transatlantic supersonic plane landed for the final time in 2003. But could a very high speed return to supersonic passenger travel be on the horizon, the BBC's Business Correspondent Theo Leggett has been taking a look.

To pilot us through the hour, the BBC's Fergus Nicoll is joined from Los Angeles by Raghu Manavalan, a broadcaster at Marketplace and from Singapore by Nisid Hajari, Asia Editor for Bloomberg View.

(Picture: President Barack Obama delivers a farewell speech to the nation in Chicago, Illinois. Credit: Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)

The ongoing fall-out from the Volkswagen emissions scandal took another twist in the US today as court papers revealed VW executives knew about emissions cheating two months before the scandal broke.

It's been divided for more than 40 years, but could the European island of Cyprus soon become a reunified, single state once again?

How far is too far when it comes to compromising corporate principles for hard-nosed business realism?

And, come on, be honest, you're amongst friends here at Business Matters. Have you ever not been... strictly upfront with someone in work? Perhaps professed something they'd done was just fine at the exact moment you began hastily redoing that piece of work from scratch, all the while sobbing silently inside for the bus you are set to inevitably now miss? Well former Apple and Google employee Kim Scott reckons she has the answer, it's called Radical Candor, and it sounds... candid. Buzfeed's Jonny Ensall assesses its brilliance, brutality or perhaps both.

The BBC's bastion of honesty, Fergus Nicoll is joined throughout the programme by the equally honourable Diana Furchgott Roth,the Washington-based former chief economist of the U.S. Department of Labor, and from Hong Kong by independent economist, and former Morgan Stanley & World Bank employee Andy Xie.

Picture:Getty Images.

A US intelligence report says that the Russian president Vladimir Putin "ordered" a hacking campaign to help Donald Trump win the presidential election. The unclassified and cut-down version of the report was released shortly after Mr Trump was briefed by intelligence chiefs. John Bussey, Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal in New York considers whether the President - elect is convinced about the hacking incidents.

In the aftermath of Britain's vote to leave the European Union, the organisation is facing criticism that it's failed to sell a convincing vision for the future. Despite this, Serbia want to join the EU.. Under the leadership of Prime Minister Alexander Vucic, the country has undergone a major privatisation campaign - and is recording consistent GDP growth of nearly 3 percent. Vladimir Krujl is Serbia's Chief Economist for EU Accession - and when he came into the Business Matters studio Fergus Nicholl asked him why Belgrade is still hoping to join the EU.

A free co-working movement launched in Sweden claims that working alongside strangers can make us more productive and even happier. This home/office hybrid is called Hoffice -and the BBC's Maddy Savage reports from one of their events in Stockholm.

Fergus Nicholl is joined by Clive Hunton of ABC News in Canberra for comment throughout the programme,

Photo credit: DON EMMERT/AFP/Getty Images