21/03/2017 World Business Report

Ousted South Korean President Park Geun-hye apologises to the country

as she arrived at prosecutors' offices for questioning as part

of a corruption investigation that has already cost her the presidency.

And just how well can robots play football?

We'll take a look at some of the innovations on offer

at the world's largest computer and tech fair.

In a moment we'll be talking about what's going on in Australia's

banks, as Westpac faces trial over lending practices.

It's the scandal that's engulfed a nation.

Former South Korean President Park Geun-hye is being questioned

by prosecutors over a corruption scandal that brought her down.

Ms Park is accused of colluding with an associate to pressure big

conglomerates into donating to her charitable foundations.

In response, it's alleged that these businesses received favours

But the scandal has also raised questions about the role

of the so-called Chaebols within Korean society.

The word chaebol is a combination of the Korean words

These influential groups of companies include Samsung,

Hyundai and Lotte group - all of which dominate

Samsung alone accounts for 30% of the entire value of the Korean

stock market, but there are dozens of other Chaebols in the country.

The corruption scandal isn't the only issue facing

The government claims that its biggest trading partner -

China - is imposing economic sanctions on the country,

over its decision to host the United States THAAD

Oliver Salmon, Lead Economist and South Korea Analyst,

He joins me on the line from Singapore.

Thank you for being on the programme. If we first of all start

with the issue of chaebols. Many are saying that the impeachment of

President Park and that the boss of Samsung is what will cause this to

change. Will it? In the past, we have had problems with chaebols we

have had presidential pardons and nothing 's been done about it. The

difference this time around is the level of public disquiet we have had

with the impeachment of President Park and now the prosecutors and the

issues going on at Samsung. This should give the new leadership when

they come in a strong mandate for corporate reform. We see this

situation as being slightly different to historical instances

and hopefully more positive responses going forward. It is

interesting because many are watching this very closely because

they are waiting to see if this will be the trigger to see if there is a

historic change as to how business is done in South Korea and yet it

seemed to be business as usual. The South Korean stock market climbing

up and up-to-date, Samsung shares going up and up. We will all still

buy the goods all over the world, the likes of Samsung and Hyundai.

Absolutely. The stock markets have been buoyed by the idea that

corporate reform is coming. These are still international companies

and very strong brand. You only need to look at Finland and the impact

the decline of Nokia had and the impact of other companies

collapsing. Fenland has struggled to generate growth after Nokia. --

fenland. South Korea needs this. Since the financial crisis, growth

has stagnated. This is probably due to the fact that all these chaebols

around the services sector. There is the fear that in the long-term,

there may be a Japanese style period of stagnation. It is a hot topic for

the new administration when they come in. In the meantime, add to

that these spats that is a merging between South Korea and China.

Businesses are saying that actually we are seeing sanctions imposed on a

South Korean businesses in mainland China, for example. Absolutely.

There are concerns of deployment of the ante missile system that already

we have seen the Chinese respond and they have imposed a ban on Chinese

tour groups visiting South Korea. A number of tour groups going to South

Korea are China and they spend more than the average tourist in South

Korea as well. The impact on paper seems relatively strong but we must

consider it is a relatively immature tourism sector in South Korea. Only

about 3.5% of export revenues come from tourism. It has stoked fears,

though, of further actions from China. Clearly trade is a

significant topic. The South Korea and exports around 130 billion US

dollars of goods to China. It is a roundabout 25% of total goods and

exports. We do not see China in posing significant trade barriers,

however, the integration of South Korean products into the Chinese

supply chain means that any type of punitive response on supply trade

might be self-defeating in terms of the Chinese business. Nevertheless,

South Korea is stuck between a rock and a hard -- hard place. We have

seen Rex Tillerson, the US Secretary of State, on his visit to Asia

are... All right. It is a difficult situation in terms of balancing

between relations at China and the US. Banks, all of us. Sorry to

interrupt you but time is getting the better of us.

The US government is expected to announce on Tuesday,

that with immediate effect, it's banning certain

battery-operated devices from cabin baggage on flights from a number

of countries in the Middle East and North Africa.

Speaking off the record, government officials said

the prohibition would apply to devices larger than a mobile

phone on non-stop flights from ten airports in eight unspecified

The Guardian newspaper is reporting that several UK banks processed

nearly $740m from a vast money-laundering operation,

run by Russian criminals with links to the Russian government

HSBC, the Royal Bank of Scotland, Lloyds, Barclays and Coutts are some

of the banks facing questions over what they knew

Documents seen by the Guardian show that at least $20bn appears to have

been moved out of Russia during a four-year period

From self-driving buses to delivery drones -

this week the northern German city of Hanover becomes the centre

of the tech world, with the CeBIT trade fair, at which some 3,000

exhibitors from 70 different countries will parade

This year, automation and robotics are taking centre stage,

and robots are taking on ever more human roles.

a photo opportunity and a renewed commitment to trade from Angela

Merkel and Japan's Shinzo Abe and the opening of the CeBIT Tech show.

On display, the latest in automation, including some products

that could transform the world of work. Among many children, I grew up

with the dream of one-day driving a bigger like this but if that is to

ever happen, I'm going to get a move on because this is an autonomous dig

up and it can do all of the dirty work itself. It doesn't need a

driver to offer it and it uses sensors to get a map of the

environment and then the operator can specify a region where to dig

based on this map and the digger drives it into the region and then

autonomously big is. This won't be the end of human digger drivers, of

course. You always need at person which programmes the task for the

digger and tells the digger where to go and what to do, actually. Now,

not all robots are here to take your job. This one over here could become

your next colleague and what's more, you can control it from halfway

around the world. Now imagine my colleague operating the robot with

the robot being located on the International Space Station. Now,

the robot could maintain regular tasks without even human presence.

Shooting for the stars is one thing but back on Earth, robots may not be

able to beat humans at their own game just yet.

Hopefully you won't have robot presenting this show any time soon.

That is also me, see you in a moment.

The number of children under the age of five who have had teeth removed

in hospitals has risen by almost a quarter in the last decade.

The figures are from the Royal College of Surgeons,

which says most of this tooth decay could have been prevented