21/11/2017 Asia Business Report

Now on BBC News all the latest

business news live from Singapore.

The US government filed a suit to

block AT and T's massive takeover.

The future looks uncertain for a

multi million dollar infrastructure

collaboration.

Good morning, Asia. Hello, world.

It's Tuesday. Glad you could join us

for another exciting addition of

Asia Business Report. I am a Rico

Hizon and we kick off the programme

with some breaking news from America

and the Department of Justice has

filed a suit to block a megamerger

between at&t and Time Warner. Over

one year ago, at&t offered a billion

dollars to take over Time Warner.

That would create a giant with vast

content and services. At&t ditto

press conference and said the

company is prepared to go to trial

as soon as possible. -- at&t just

held a press conference.

We are

surprised to be here. We entered

this deal with decades of clear

legal precedent demonstrating how

this merger would alternately be

evaluated. We and this deal and the

best legal minds in the country

agreed it would be a proved and said

these companies don't even need to

compete with each other.

Reporters

in New York explains the background.

At the time the deal was announced,

we were in the midst of a

presidential election. And then

candidate Donald Trump that if he

became president he would try and

block that deal. Fast forward to

now. In fact, earlier this month, we

heard the Department of Justice had

said to AT&T, look, if you want this

deal to come through without any

regulatory pushback, you are going

to have to sign off and perhaps sell

off some of the assets, including

CNN. AT&T rejected that deal and

once they did, this decision became

a lot more expected. The fact that

the Department of Justice is going

to file a lawsuit to try and block

this.

In other business news, China's

e-commerce giant Alibaba is pushing

into bricks and mortar retail. It is

buying into one of the largest

market operated which operates more

than 400 stores across the mainland.

The purchase gives Alibaba a leg up

in the lucrative grocery sector.

Associates from China and Pakistan

are meeting today to discuss closer

economic relations. The two have

been allies since 1981 when Pakistan

was one of the first Nations to

recognise the People's Republic of

China. Trade between the two sides

and amounts to almost 13 billion US

dollars annually and most of that is

Chinese exporter to Pakistan. The

latter has also been roped into

China's ambitious one road

initiatives which sees China

investing up to 55 billion US

dollars over the next five years but

China has paid towards a

hydroelectric dam has -- and it has

been reportedly rejected by

Pakistan. It is facing challenges.

The issue is a little more

complicated.

We feel that the situation is a lot

more nuanced than that. Number one.

If you look at the nature of the

project, hydropower is also

relatively controversial. There is

the impact on local populations,

local environment, national

security. All of this is reason

enough to derail the project in

other countries before. More

importantly, this product is

specifically occurring on a piece of

disputed territory between Pakistan

and India, namely Kashmir. The

project had previously failed to

secure financing from the World Bank

and Asian development bank and while

that was not a block of China,

Pakistan likely rejected the

financing, we think, due to Indian

and US pressure and came out by

saying we will you lash refinance

the project.

Another country counting on China's

support is bit Zimbabwe which seems

to be in the headlines from its

ongoing political crisis. Joining us

now is our business reporter Matt

Morrison. Both countries over the

decades have had a steadfast

relationship.

Stead fast, heartfelt,

going all the way back to Zimbabwe's

is independent. They have been

side-by-side. China is taking a

long-term view of this. I spoke to a

legal person in China and that he

said China's policy is to

legal person in China and that he

said China's policy is to wait it

out. They have a lot of money

involved, including investments.

They will start there and in between

2012 and 2013, they invested in 128

projects. This trend is continuing

during a president between Xi

Jinping in 2015. $4 billion of deals

were signed and just this year, a

Chinese company investing in a mess

of steelmaker in Zimbabwe. China is

Zimbabwe's fourth largest trading

partner and they put all of this

together and call in all weather

friends, rain or shine. There are

some clouds on the horizon in

Zimbabwe that China is whether when

the storm.

Matt, from what you just

said, it

the storm.

Matt, from what you just

said, it sounds like China dominates

and controls of the Chinese economy.

It is China being a very big or

above.

We are shifting our attention to

Saudi Arabia and investors around

the world are still watching

nervously to see what will happen

next. An anticorruption crackdown

has seen more than 200 people put in

detention inside rear's luxury

hotels including officials. --

Riyadh. We all wondered whether the

shakedown rattled the nerves of

investors.

The public prosecutor is

in charge. We will wait to see this

investigation that will happen.

Observers have described this

crackdown as a seismic shock. One

president is in Saudi history, you

must have got nervous phone calls

from investors.

They do come here,

the majority of investors are

saying, look, this is the kind of

environment we like to see and most

of them because they have invested

here, they know that going forward

is what really matters. It is

dealing with a more transparent

institutional work that really

matters to them.

There is a sense,

there is talk of hundreds of

billions of dollars that could be

taken in assets that are frozen in

cases you have done. If that also

part of it, that you need this

money? And this is the way you have

decided to get it?

I like to talk

about Russian but only in financial

terms will stop it is the misuse of

authority --I like to talk about

corruption corruption. It is a writ

is, negligence, it is way beyond the

sounds of amounts that people are

talking about. I cannot comment on

these amounts. We wait on the

investigation to finish and I am

confident that the leadership will

meet the right protocol.

That was Saudi Arabia's new economy

minister. Before we go, when you go

to a country and you don't speak the

language? How well does the up work

that can do the translation for you?

These are the Google pixel buds.

Perfectly ordinary wireless

Bluetooth headphones. Not

particularly elegant, I have to say.

They have got an amazing trick. They

are going to translate 40 different

languages straight into your evils

to help me speak Hindi. What happens

if the Google translate app opens on

the vote and will listen to somebody

speaking. There are lots of people

speaking all sorts of different land

which is around the BBC so let it is

a try. Hi, Amir. How did West Ham

two on the weekend? You answer

there. It says tomorrow was a bad

day for us. What does it mean by

that?

It is not a yet. It is

supposed to say yesterday was a bad

day.

Let's see how it copes with

Chinese. Hi, what is the thing you

like best about living in London?

SPEAKS CHINESE. What it set back to

me is, "My favourite goes to

London's museums and Chinatown." I

kind of get the message, it is the

sort of right, isn't it? SPEAKS

POLISH. Poorly run trains in the

subway. That sums it up.

The best food I have ever eaten for

chicken. It is still struggling,

isn't it? Swahili is not its strong

point.

Very interesting. In the markets as

we pull up the Asian boards, we are

currently in positive territory

early Tuesday trading. The Nikkei

225 is gaining 14%. The