Big Boss Interview

We get global reaction as the UK votes to leave the European Union.

In Finland, the Foreign Minister, Timo Soini - who heads the eurosceptic Finns Party - said the UK result had to be respected - and he warned against what he called retaliation in future negotiations between the EU and Britain. We hear from Alexander Stubb , who was until recently, the Finance Minister of Finland.

In recent weeks, we've heard the views of Roger Bootle of Capital Economics - arguing in favour of a British exit from the EU. We put to him that he must be very pleased today.

Some of the world's largest companies warned they could relocate their British-based operations following the EU referendum result.

We are joined throughout the programme by three guests. From Washington, Philippe Le Corre, a visiting fellow at the Centre on the United States and Europe at the Brookings Institution. Simon Littlewood, President at the Asia Now Consulting Group, joins from Singapore, and Colin Peacock of Radio New Zealand is with us from Wellington.

(Photo Credit: Rob Stothard/ Getty Images)

The Colombian government and Farc rebels say they have reached a definitive bilateral ceasefire in Latin America's longest running armed conflict. The main issue - the disarmament of the rebels - has been addressed. And, after half a century of war, the Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos has said a final peace deal could be signed by late July. There have been plenty of reports of peace before, so is this really it? We hear from the BBC's Natalio Cosoy in Bogota.

California's last nuclear power plant will close by 2025 under a proposal announced on Tuesday, with safety concerns given as the main reason. But the Diablo Canyon plant produces enough power for 1.7 million homes. There is now a plan to replace the energy with renewables, though some environmentalists do not think they will be able to match that produced by nuclear. However, Erich Pica, president of Friends of the Earth US, says he is celebrating the closure of the plant.

Are we heading towards a cashless society? It is a subject of intense debate in financial circles. The Danish and Swedish government have said they expect their countries to go entirely cashless in the future. In the UK, contactless card transactions have risen by a third over the past year and a Mastercard survey shows one in four Britons intend to make payments with their phone over the next 12 months. Most retailers have adapted to the trend but what about individual traders and organisations who have relied on cash donations to survive? The BBC's Susannah Streeter reports.

We are joined by two guests on opposite sides of the Pacific - Peter Morici, professor of International Business at the University of Maryland - who is in Washington, and Simon Long Asia editor of The Economist in Singapore.

(Photo: Graffiti with a sentence that reads 'Peace is ours' in Bogota, June 2016. Credit: Getty Images)

France wins the opening game of the Euros tournament, but will businesses lose out as striking workers disrupt the country's transport system?

The US news site Gawker files for bankruptcy after being told to pay 140 million dollars in damages to a celebrity wrestler

Plus the feat of engineering over common sense - we find out more about the multi billion dollar satellite constellation which was very nearly crashed back down to earth.

And Susannah Streeter is joined throughout the programme by Professor Danny Samson from the University of Melbourne in Australia.

(Photo: Nice, France where some Euro 2016 matches will be played. Credit: AFP/Getty)

So we now know, barring major incidents, that Hilary Clinton and Donald Trump are the choices for US President in November. But what are they offering American business? That's a concern of course for the US Chamber of Commerce. We hear from J.D Harrison, a senior editor at the US Chamber of Commerce based in Washington.

The creative money-spinner that is Harry Potter moved on to its latest incarnation in London this week with the start of a series of previews of "Harry Potter and the Cursed Child". It's been described as the eighth Potter story - although it's the first to originate as a piece of theatre. But does it have the magic of its printed predecessors? Our arts correspondent Vincent Dowd was among those blessed with a ticket and gives us his view.

It seems the UK isn't the only country in Europe where enthusiasm for the European Union is less than whole-hearted. Britain may be the country which is about to have a referendum on membership - but new research by the US-based Pew Research centre suggests more than sixty percent of French people have an unfavourable view of the EU. Poland is the country with the largest proportion of EU fans. In Germany favourable is ahead by a fraction: 50% to 48%. So what does this tell us? Roger Bootle, the Chairman of Capital Economics, who's campaigning for Britain to leave the European Union - and Professor Sebastian Dullien, at the University of Applied Science in Berlin discuss.

You know how it is - you're sitting in a café and you notice the person who just departed left their newspaper behind. You casually pick it up and start reading. In Morocco, you would be committing a crime. The authorities have banned people from reading in public newspapers bought by other people. Many Moroccans have taken to social media to ridicule the ban. One suggested special uniformed Newspaper Police might arrest 'illegal' readers, seize their offending newspapers and burn them publicly in the square. We hear from the BBC's Sidy Yansane in Casablanca.

Throughout the programme we are joined by two guests on opposite sides of the Pacific. Duncan Clarke, the author and consultant in Beijing and Peter Morici, Professor of International Business at the University of Maryland in Washington.

(Picture: Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump at a campaign event at Clinton Middle School. Credit: Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

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)

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.

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.

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)

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)