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If journalism is the first draft of history, what happens if that draft is flawed?
In 1999, four Russian apartment buildings were bombed.
Hundreds killed, but even now we still don't know for sure who did it.
It's a mystery that sparked chilling theories.
I'm Helena Merriman and in a new BBC series I'm talking to the reporters who first covered this story.
What did they miss the first time?
The History Bureau, Putin and the apartment bombs.
Listen on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts.
Jeff Bezos is moving into satellite based comms.
What does that mean for Elon Musk's Starlink?
It's World Business Express from the BBC World Service.
I'm Gideon Long.
Plus, after Greenland, the conversation in Davos switches to the economic future of Venezuela.
And which is the richest football team in the world?
Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, has said his rocket company Blue Origin plans to launch a new satellite-based communications network which sounds like it could be a rival to Elon Musk's Starlink.
I spoke to Dr Megan Argo, an astrophysicist at the University of Central Lancashire here in the UK, and I asked her if that is indeed what Bezos is planning.
It inevitably will be a rival to Starlink.
And it's not the only one.
There are an awful lot of satellite constellations.
And, of course, Jeff Bezos is the founder of Amazon, who already have their own satellite constellation well underway and operational.
So, there are lots of competitors.
This one, I think, is targeting a slightly different market.
They're aiming for the enterprise market.
So, they're aiming at high end customers that have desires and requirements for higher data rates.
So thinking governments businesses, people that need to move large amounts of data around the planet very, very quickly.
Why do you think that is?
Is that because they just can't compete with something like Starlink when it comes to customers?
Possibly.
I mean, as I say, it's not just Starlink.
There are lots of constellations looking at targeting that market.
And at the moment there aren't many operators doing what this new constellation, what the TerraWave is the name of it, what TerraWave is planning to do, providing those really high bandwidths, really high data rates for serious users.
There's also talk of putting things like data centers in orbit.
Again, a lot of the point of this is to try and reduce latency, to try and make communications as fast as possible and to give yourself redundancy.
Lots and lots of the internet still travels over big fiber optic cables on the ground.
If those fiber optics get cut, as has happened in various places around the world over the last 10 years or so, then a large part of your internet infrastructure disappears instantaneously.
If you've got access to a high bandwidth orbiting constellation of satellites, then you have a backup system.
Essentially, you've got an alternative.
You're not dependent on one piece of infrastructure.
And the fact that this has Jeff Bezos behind it and his financial muscle.
Presumably that gives it more chance of success.
Yeah i, i would say so.
I think the blue origin certainly have a lot of finances behind them.
They have taken on an awful lot, though.
I mean they are.
They're building several different types of rocket.
They're trying to get their new glenn rocket operations ramped up.
They're aiming to put landers on the moon.
They're planning to build a space station, get a crew capsule operational.
They have a lot of irons in the fire at the moment And there is a little bit of concern or there seems to be a little bit of concern that maybe they're biting off an awful lot.
Maybe they need to think more carefully about where they put the resources.
Dr Megan Argo.
Now, we've talked an awful lot in recent days about Greenland, haven't we?
At the World Economic Forum in Davos yesterday, Donald Trump rode back on his threats to take it by force and to impose more tariffs on European nations that oppose him.
But what's the mood in Greenland itself?
And has the turmoil over its future hit visitor numbers?
Christian Keldsen is Managing Director of the Greenland Business Association.
We've had very few cancellations in tourism, but we also had the people that say oops, we've got to get out to Greenland before it becomes American.
So it works both ways.
We haven't seen stop in projects or investments short term.
But what we're looking for is long term stability.
And obviously having this hanging over our heads with the wording that's been used up until recently does not do anything good for the long term environment here.
Well today, the focus in Davos shifted away from Greenland to other issues, including Venezuela, following that dramatic seizure of its president, Nicolas Maduro, at the start of the year.
US Energy Secretary, Chris Wright, said the Trump government has no plans to offer security guarantees to oil companies that plan to operate there.
Jason Bordoff is an energy policy expert who took part in today's discussion on Venezuela in Davos.
I think most of the statements we've seen, including from Secretary of Energy Chris Wright here at Davos, have been pretty accurate.
He talked about production increasing by a third.
So you're taking 800000, a million barrels a day to something like 13 14, a few hundred thousand barrels a day of increased production.
But the idea of going back to the heyday of Three, four million barrels a day is tens of billions of dollars at least, and years and years of investment.
Companies are not doing that, even with the strong encouragement to put it modestly of the US president, unless they have confidence that there's an investable framework, because these are investments that are going to have to pay back long after President Trump has left office.
Jason Bordoff.
Let's have a look at a few other stories.
I'm joined by Emma Wall, chief investment strategist at Hargreaves Lansdowne.
Emma, some pretty vigorous comments from Jamie Dimon today, the CEO of JPMorgan Chase, saying Donald Trump's proposals to cap credit card interest rates would be an economic disaster.
He said it would hit restaurants and retailers and travel firms.
Just bring us up to date on this story.
Remind us what Trump is proposing and what the reaction to it has been.
Yeah, it's not hugely surprising that a CEO of a major financial services company is against something that would hit banking profitability.
But what's interesting about Jamie Dimon's comments is he's saying that actually the policy which is to cap credit card interest rates at 10 for a year it was supposed to be from the 20th of January.
But Trump has been somewhat distracted by important goings on in Davos and the World Economic Forum.
It hasn't quite come in yet.
But what Jamie Dimon is saying is actually it would have the opposite effect of what it was proposed to do.
And that was to boost the economy by alleviating the pressure on consumers.
Dimon is saying that actually what would happen is banks and lenders would withdraw credit and therefore not offer credit cards to people, particularly people who are on lower socioeconomic income, you know, higher risk clients.
And therefore it would have an impact on the economy.
Emma, thanks for joining us.
Now Spanish football giants, Real Madrid, have once again emerged as the richest football club in the world, generating 14 billion in revenue during the 2024-2025 season.
Their arch-rivals Barcelona, were second in the annual soccer rich list compiled by accountancy firm Deloitte, followed by Germany's Bayern Munich and France's Paris Saint-Germain.
Jenny Haskell is knowledge and insight lead at the Deloitte Sports Business Group.
I think the two key takeaways for me are that on pitch performance still does help generate and is the growth engine for driving money across the Deloitte Football Money League clubs.
But we're also seeing this push towards revenue diversification and clubs that are taking greater ownership of their revenue generating capabilities.
We saw in the 2024-25 season that the Money League clubs cumulatively reported record revenues of about 145 billion, which is an 11 increase on the previous season.
Yeah, the thing that really struck me is that if you look at the matchday revenue, it's actually a very small part of the overall pie, just 19 of the total.
It really is the broadcasting, and even more than broadcasting, the commercial revenue, that's really pushing growth, isn't it?
Absolutely.
I think we are seeing growth in match day.
So it was one of the quickest growing parts of the revenue.
And so we're seeing a lot of that due to expanded offerings at new stadiums, but also more premium match day offerings elsewhere.
But that broadcast revenue and on pitch performance is still really important.
What we're seeing in the top 10 is they're really starting to utilize that commercial revenue and that international brand equity to drive new opportunities.
Now, I know many of our listeners around the world follow English Premier League clubs and they might be slightly surprised to find that there are no English clubs in the top four.
But there are plenty of them in the top 20 in the richest clubs in the world, aren't there?
Absolutely.
And Liverpool emerged as the highest revenue generating English club for the first time, and also for the first time in Money League history that we haven't had an English club in the top four
That's probably due to on pitch performance that might not have been at their traditionally very high standards over the past couple of years.
For now, Real Madrid top of the list, even though they didn't win a trophy last season, a major trophy.
Correct.
Real Madrid topped the list, generating close to $1.4 billion.
So again, the only club that's broken that billion dollar barrier.
And what we're seeing with Real Madrid is utilization of their stadium both match days, but also on non-match days.
Jenny Haskell from Deloitte there, bringing us to the end of this edition of World Business Express.
If journalism is the first draft of history, what happens if that draft is flawed?
In 1999, four Russian apartment buildings were bombed, hundreds killed.
But even now, we still don't know for sure who did it.
It's a mystery that sparked chilling theories.
I'm Helena Merriman and in a new BBC series I'm talking to the reporters who first covered this story.
What did they miss the first time?
The History Bureau, Putin and the apartment bombs.
Listen on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts.