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00:00:56and Democrats and for the American American people. For the latest,
00:00:59latest, follow us on the President's.
00:01:00President's. Path here on BBC News.
00:01:08News. MUSIC
00:01:13MUSIC
00:01:20Now on BBC News. The latest
00:01:22business news from across the globe.
00:01:25globe. Business Today. Straight talking
00:01:36talking Iran says it's made a deal
00:01:37deal with Oman over shipping in the
00:01:40the Gulf, but its neighbours and
00:01:42and the US may not like the terms.
00:01:44terms. It's payback time. The Trump
00:01:47Trump administration refunds $100 $100 billion in illegal tariffs,
00:01:50tariffs, but now it faces a new legal legal battle over its latest import
00:01:54import taxes. A top lawyer tells
00:01:57tells us they are also unfair and
00:02:01and fighting fire with tech. We speak speak to a company that's using AI
00:02:04AI to detect and track wildfires
00:02:07wildfires in Greece. Hello. Welcome
00:02:10Welcome along. This is Business Today Today I'm Ben Thompson and we're
00:02:14we're going to start with events events in the Middle East. And that
00:02:16that conflict in Iran. There are are hopes of an agreement now to
00:02:20to end the deadlock over the Strait Strait of Hormuz, which has choked
00:02:23choked off vital supplies of oil,
00:02:25oil, gas and chemicals. Iran says says it's reached a deal with Oman
00:02:29Oman on shipping through the strait, strait, and a joint announcement
00:02:32announcement is still being finalised. finalised. Well, it follows promises
00:02:36promises from President Trump and and other senior US officials that
00:02:39that a deal is imminent. For now, now, though, oil traders are taking
00:02:43taking a rather wait and see approach. approach. The international benchmark
00:02:46benchmark Brent crude has been trading trading around $81 a barrel since
00:02:49since reports of an agreement first
00:02:52first emerged earlier this week. week. Major questions, though, remain
00:02:56remain regional sources have been been telling the Reuters news agency agency that the agreement would give
00:02:59give Iran control of ships entering
00:03:02entering the Gulf, a situation the
00:03:03the US is probably unlikely to accept.
00:03:06accept. But what about other countries countries in the region? Here's Doctor
00:03:09Doctor Yousef Alshammari he's the
00:03:11the President of the London College
00:03:14College of Energy Economics. I can't can't bring you that clip right now.
00:03:16now. But let's talk first to Joshua Joshua Minchin. He's a senior reporter
00:03:19reporter at Lloyd's List. He's one one that is one of the world's oldest
00:03:22oldest maritime journals. Good to to have you with us as well. And And I mean, we were going to hear
00:03:26hear in that clip about the importance importance of perhaps this deal,
00:03:29deal, but a suggestion that it is
00:03:31is only that a suggestion right now
00:03:33now if it was to go ahead, what significance
00:03:36significance would it make? Would Would it reopen the waterway in any
00:03:39any meaningful way? And indeed, would
00:03:41would the US even accept it? Oh,
00:03:44Oh, hi Ben, thank you so much for for having me. As you said there
00:03:47there there's so many ifs and so so much detail that shipping still
00:03:50still needs to see and it does need need to see quite a lot of detail
00:03:53detail and some pretty concrete guarantees guarantees that diplomacy has taken
00:03:56taken place because we've been here here before, right? We've had routes
00:04:00routes promised. We've had several several announcements and vessels
00:04:02vessels have taken the plunge and
00:04:04and some have been attacked. There's There's a lot of detail. The United
00:04:08United Nations Convention on the the law of the sea is quite clear. clear. You can't charge fees for
00:04:12for international straits, which which the Straits of Hormuz is. And
00:04:15And then there's other complications complications too, if fees are charged charged and you as a ship owner want
00:04:18want to pay those fees, who are they
00:04:21they payable to? Is there a sanctions sanctions risk for the person that
00:04:25that you're paying? Is your insurer insurer happy that you're paying paying that person? Even if we've we've got an announcement today and
00:04:28and the detail was crystal clear, clear, there's still a lot to work
00:04:31work out. Before I can give you a a definitive answer about whether
00:04:34whether this solves many of our problems. Yes. And you've sort of of touched on my next question, which
00:04:38which would be how long if and it's it's a big if this deal went through,
00:04:41through, things could get back to to normal. Another boring answer,
00:04:44answer, Ben. It's really hard to
00:04:46to say. We're talking, you know, know, weeks, not days. The latest
00:04:50latest Lloyd's list intelligence intelligence data is that there's
00:04:54there's nearly 150 vessels stuck stuck in the Middle East Gulf. At At least half of those have been
00:04:57been there since this kicked off. off. So months and months, let's let's not forget there's lots of
00:05:01of seafarers on board those vessels vessels too, operating under extreme
00:05:05extreme stress and often very, very very frightening circumstances. If
00:05:07If we look back to the MoU signed
00:05:10signed in mid June, traffic trickled trickled after that announcement announcement and didn't really start
00:05:14start to flow until 3 or 4 days after after that announcement between Iran
00:05:17Iran and the US. There will be some some owners who have a higher risk
00:05:20risk appetite and go first. There'll There'll also be a lot of owners owners that are happy to sit back
00:05:24back and let somebody else have a a try before they do. Yeah. And as as you touched on there, there's
00:05:28there's so many parts of this that that we don't actually know whether whether they're enforceable or indeed
00:05:31indeed actionable. And the question question many will have though is
00:05:35is if this does go ahead, what precedent
00:05:37precedent that may set for other other international waterways. That's
00:05:41That's the million dollar question, question, right? I mean, we've spoken
00:05:44spoken about this a lot here at Lloyd's Lloyd's List, and we've kind of come
00:05:47come to the conclusion that what what happens at Hormuz doesn't stay
00:05:50stay in Hormuz. There's lots of other other choke points that are just
00:05:53just as important around the world. world. And if you cross that Rubicon
00:05:56Rubicon of charging fees, it's very very hard to see how you go back
00:06:00back from that. There's lots of other other critical waterways that nations
00:06:03nations around them perhaps might might start thinking of for years years to come quite differently about
00:06:07about how willing they are to let let international traffic freely
00:06:10freely navigate. I was at a meeting meeting of the UN's International
00:06:13International Maritime Organisation Organisation Council recently. There There were lots of countries that
00:06:16that with waters in these choke points, points, you know, think Malaysia Malaysia and Singapore or Morocco
00:06:20Morocco and Spain, for example. They They were very keen to voice just
00:06:23just how well they were working with with their counterparts to keep trade
00:06:26trade flowing and very keen to stress stress the importance of freedom freedom of navigation. Know that
00:06:30that might not hold in the future future if Oman and Iran are willing
00:06:34willing and succeeding. Charging Charging fees for vessels, where where does it end? That's a difficult
00:06:38difficult question to answer. Freedom Freedom of navigation is an incredibly
00:06:40incredibly important principle for for international trade. It's been
00:06:44been eroded for several months now, now, and the effect of that shouldn't shouldn't be underestimated. Joshua,
00:06:47Joshua, really good to get your thoughts. thoughts. Thank you for walking us
00:06:50us through all of that and some of of the pitfalls and some of the challenges challenges that lie ahead. Joshua
00:06:54Joshua mentioned there at Lloyd's Lloyd's List. Thank you. Thanks,
00:06:57Thanks, Ben. Now in the US, markets
00:07:00markets are keeping a close eye on on SpaceX today as the first wave
00:07:04wave of pre IPO investors will be be permitted to sell shares under
00:07:07under so-called lock up agreements. agreements. Around 900 million shares
00:07:11shares are eligible to be sold from from today. So the big question have
00:07:14have they been put up for sale? Apparently
00:07:17Apparently not. SpaceX shares currently
00:07:19currently trading about 6% higher
00:07:21higher and those shares had fallen fallen about 13.6% on Wednesday.
00:07:25Wednesday. Let's get the very latest latest with our North America business business correspondent Samira Hussain,
00:07:29Hussain, who's in New York. Samira, Samira, good to see you. I know you've you've been following this really
00:07:32really closely and give us a sense sense of what's happening today.
00:07:35today. And as I touched on there, there, it doesn't seem like a lot
00:07:38lot of investors are keen to dump
00:07:40dump that stock. No, I think, you
00:07:43you know, if you are an early investor,
00:07:45investor, depending on where you
00:07:48you are in terms of your belief in
00:07:50in SpaceX, I think some real believers believers in the company are going
00:07:53going to hang on. As you know, I
00:07:56I spoke with one early one former
00:08:00former employee who has some 200,000 200,000 shares. He did say that he
00:08:04he is going to sell a first bit of
00:08:06of his that are eligible to be sold
00:08:08sold for now for him though, you you know, he doesn't want to play
00:08:11play the long game necessarily because because in his words, you know, I'm
00:08:15I'm a little bit older and I have have other projects in play. And
00:08:18And you're right though, if you look look at the share price, you know,
00:08:22know, there hasn't been that much much movement on it. It's sort of
00:08:25of up, you know, by just over a percent percent and a half right now. And
00:08:29And as you rightly pointed out, we we saw a big drop in Tesla's share
00:08:33share price on Wednesday, and that
00:08:35that came after their earnings report. report. Just a lot of investors nervous
00:08:38nervous about the again, the same same story of the eye-watering sums
00:08:42sums of capital expenditures that's that's going into building out AI.
00:08:46AI. Yeah, sorry to interrupt. So So you know, that's the point, isn't
00:08:49isn't it? What some of those investors investors will be keeping a close close eye on is not necessarily what
00:08:53what has happened already or what what that trading statement can,
00:08:56can, you know, contained. It's more more about the future. And one of
00:08:59of the things they may be focusing focusing on now is that big investment. investment. Just walk us through
00:09:03through that. Right? So Tesla and
00:09:07and SpaceX are going to be investing
00:09:11investing $1.6 billion into Terra
00:09:12Terra Fab. This is another Elon Musk
00:09:16Musk project and this is one to really
00:09:18really build up the AI infrastructure, infrastructure, namely these chips.
00:09:22chips. If you look at the amount
00:09:25amount of materials that both of
00:09:27of these Tesla and SpaceX need in
00:09:30in terms of, you know, AI infrastructure, infrastructure, I mean, that's way
00:09:33way more than what is available on on the market. And so, you know,
00:09:36know, as ever, Elon Musk has decided decided that he's going to build
00:09:40build that himself to be able to
00:09:43to further supply his own company. company. So I mean, that's a big
00:09:47big facility that's being built up up right now in Texas. So good to
00:09:50to talk to you. Thank you. Samira
00:09:52Samira Hussain that live in New York? York? Well, we're going to stay with
00:09:56with the US because the Trump administration
00:09:58administration has refunded $100 $100 billion of its so-called Liberation
00:10:02Liberation Day tariffs to businesses businesses after they were ruled
00:10:05ruled to have been illegal. It's It's around 60% of the tariff revenue
00:10:09revenue collected by the government government under the policy, according
00:10:11according to recent court filings filings from US customs. While at
00:10:14at the same time 25 Democrat led
00:10:16led states are suing the Trump administration administration over a new wave of
00:10:20of tariffs on imports from dozens dozens of countries that they allege
00:10:23allege are failing to tackle forced forced labour. The states say the
00:10:26the new tariffs are, quote, arbitrary, arbitrary, capricious and contrary
00:10:30contrary to law. We've been speaking speaking to Professor Barry Appleton,
00:10:32Appleton, who testified to the government
00:10:34government over the issue about the
00:10:36the legality of those tariffs. Well,
00:10:39Well, it's kind of complicated. Look, Look, nobody is in favour of the
00:10:42the use of forced labour in imports, imports, right. We're everybody all
00:10:46all the countries have laws that that deal with it. The difference
00:10:49difference is their laws are different different from the way the US does
00:10:52does it. The US has put in a reverse
00:10:55reverse onus. They've said everything everything is deemed to be use of
00:10:59of forced labour. Unless you can
00:11:01can prove it to the alternative. alternative. And so many countries
00:11:05countries like the UK, Australia, Australia, Canada have forced labour
00:11:08labour laws. But they say you have
00:11:11have to only prosecute those who who have an allegation of use of
00:11:14of forced labour. And the Americans Americans have imposed a tax on that.
00:11:18that. So it's not that there's a a proof of any link to forced labour,
00:11:21labour, it's simply that there's there's a difference in the way that
00:11:24that everybody's enforcing it. And And that seems pretty unfair. We're
00:11:28We're going to return to AI now because because it's proving to be a rather
00:11:31rather useful tool. And also tackling tackling the summer's record wildfires
00:11:35wildfires in Europe, coupled with with satellite imagery, artificial
00:11:38artificial intelligence models are are helping emergency services to
00:11:41to detect fires earlier and also
00:11:44also forecast how they may spread. spread. We've been speaking to Doctor
00:11:47Doctor Axel Roenneke, who's from from OroraTech, that helped develop
00:11:50develop Greece's first national wildfire wildfire detection system. He's been
00:11:53been telling us how it works. From
00:11:57From space. We can continuously monitor
00:12:01monitor fires with satellites that
00:12:03that measure infrared, so we measure
00:12:07measure heat rather than visible visible smoke or flames, and we scan
00:12:10scan the Earth's surface surface
00:12:13surface looking for heat signatures
00:12:15signatures frequently and globally. globally. So with that information
00:12:19information combined with weather,
00:12:21weather, vegetation and terrain data,
00:12:24data, our AI turns millions of data
00:12:27data points into a simple alert and
00:12:29and actionable insight like how the
00:12:31the fire evolves, where it goes and
00:12:34and how important it is. Wildfires
00:12:38Wildfires need to be detected earlier earlier if you want to if you want
00:12:41want to act on a manageable size
00:12:43size of the fire once fires get beyond
00:12:46beyond a certain size, there is no
00:12:49no control. So the earlier you can
00:12:51can detect a fire and even predict
00:12:53predict where fires are likely to to happen, you can put forces on
00:12:57on the ground, be prepared and react react when the fire is still manageable.
00:13:00manageable. And this is where we we need to get to go. Some other
00:13:04other stories we're following for for you this hour. And Easyjet has
00:13:07has agreed to be taken over in a
00:13:09a £5.7 billion deal by the US firm firm Apollo. The deal was announced
00:13:13announced after rival suitor Castlelake Castlelake said it was dropping out
00:13:16out of the bid battle for the no no frills airline. Easyjet is one
00:13:19one of Europe's largest, still employs
00:13:22employs more than 19,000 people and
00:13:24and flies around 1200 routes to 35
00:13:2735 European countries. It was founded
00:13:29founded in 1995 by Sir Stelios Haji-ioannou Haji-ioannou to offer cheap airfares
00:13:32airfares to Europe from the UK. Here
00:13:35Here the government has said that
00:13:37that it will not intervene in the the $110 billion acquisition of Warner
00:13:41Warner Bros. Discovery by Paramount Paramount Skydance after receiving
00:13:45receiving legally binding commitments commitments from the US company,
00:13:48company, Britain has said it's minded minded to step in over the deal over
00:13:51over competition concerns, but Warner Warner posted its latest results
00:13:54results showing earnings falling falling short of expectations despite
00:13:57despite a jump in revenues from its its streaming division and Facebook's
00:14:01Facebook's owner Meta has become become the latest tech firm to say
00:14:04say one of its AI models was able able to connect to the internet and
00:14:07and hack into another firm's systems systems during tests. The incident,
00:14:10incident, which Meta says occurred occurred during a test by an independent independent company, is the fourth
00:14:14fourth of its kind that's been disclosed
00:14:17disclosed by AI companies. That's That's your Business Today. See you
00:14:22you soon.
00:15:36editor in chief of The Economist Economist will tell us about her her experience. It's all on The Media
00:15:40Media Show on BBC News. Here at BBC.
00:15:49BBC. Verify we use forensic investigative investigative techniques and tools
00:15:51tools to fact check stories, verify
00:15:54verify information and counter disinformation disinformation using data analysis analysis and the latest technology.
00:15:58technology. Our journalists examine examine the evidence