World Business Report

At least five different wildfires are still raging around Los Angeles, and the flames are visible from space, squeezing the city in a blazing pincer. We will look at the financial costs to fight such fires and insurance costs for people who live in areas like Southern California where fires happen regularly.A new mega-port on Peru’s coastline—part of China's Belt and Road Initiative—will increase the frequency of trips to Asia this month. And Ethiopia is on the brink of launching a new stock exchange after a fifty-year gap. This stock exchange is housed on a freshly minted trading floor within a towering high-rise in Addis Ababa's financial hub.

A fire at Pacific Palisades is the most destructive in LA history, officials say, with more than 1,000 buildings burned. Also, could President-elect Trump be serious about re-taking the Panama Canal? We speak with one of his former trade advisors. And, tensions rise in Venezuela with protests expected ahead of President Maduro's inauguration on Friday.

President-elect Donald Trump is ramping up economic pressure on Denmark in his bid to acquire Greenland. Are Danish exporters concerned about these threats?Could the sale of new air-fryers and dishwashers reignite the Chinese economy?And we hear from the Chris Brownridge, CEO of Rolls-Royce cars.You can contact us on WhatsApp or send us a voicenote: +44 330 678 3033. We would love to hear from you!

The big event of 2021 that will shape economies all over the world for decades to come was the COP 26 climate conference in Glasgow in November. The meeting saw a deluge of promises, but what was actually achieved? Martin Webber speaks to Tim Gould, chief energy economist at the International Energy Agency and economist Irwin Stelzer, from the Hudson Institute in the United States.It was another boom year for the pharmaceutical industry as it crafted the vaccines that have saved so many lives. Of the 8 billion coronavirus vaccinations worldwide, one billion have been delivered by the US logistics company, UPS. We hear from Wes Wealer, President of UPS healthcare.And small business owners have had a bleak time for much of the past year. But many of those that have survived now feel optimistic. We hear from the owner of the Aroma speciality coffee shop in Bologna in Italy, Cristina Caroli, about her year.

Covid-19 is set to prompt radical long term changes to how we live and work, so what lessons can be learnt when we eventually emerge from the pandemic? Could the changes in the way we work herald higher productivity and happier people in the future?We hear the stories of the people who managed to thrive during a very difficult year, including the milkman who saw a boom in deliveries and the dancer who found work in South Korea when the London stage went dark.Martin Webber is joined by Professor Devi Sridhar who holds the Chair of Global Public Health at the University of Edinburgh; economist Roger Bootle, of Capital Economics; Robert Reich, former Labour Secretary under President Clinton; Tomas Philipson, who was Chair of the Council of Economic Advisors under Mr Trump; and actor Thomas Inge who is currentl starring in the musical Cats in South Korea.