Hello, welcome to World Business Report from the BBC World Service.
My name's Ed Butler.
In today's edition, why a Chinese social media app that almost no one in America had heard of before this week is suddenly number one at a US app store, why an airline is suspending flights because of space junk, and one British restauranteur's negative views about pineapple as a pizza topping.
He's willing to sell pineapple pizzas, but only if you can pay him over $100 for them.
We are not in favour of pineapple on pizza, no.
But obviously, if people are that way inclined, then they can fork out £100 for it.
All of that to come later in the show.
First, though, to South Africa, where it has been an increasingly anxious time for relatives of possibly hundreds of illegal miners occupying a gold mine in the town of Stilfontaine.
Yes, protesters like these people have been gathering en masse outside the mine south of Johannesburg, just as the security forces there have attempted to extract those inside.
They've been sending down a metal cage every few hours.
More than 100 people have so far been rescued, according to police, before being taken into detention.
But also 36 bodies have been recovered.
It's the second day of an intensified police operation that's been attempting to deprive those occupying the mine of food and water over recent weeks.
It's a move by that civil rights activists like Mskisie Jam say is completely against the rules of proper police behaviour.
And he says many more miners and bodies remain below the ground.
We made sure that as the cage goes down, it goes with our own volunteers so that they can give us a true reflection of what is happening down there.
Yesterday they told us that about more than 400 people are still stuck down.
They need to be extracted.
And they also told us that the number of dead bodies is actually more than 100.
More than 100 dead, he says.
Well, that is unconfirmed.
The mine has been under siege since August as part of this wider crackdown on illegal mining in South Africa.
The BBC's Mayani Jones has been watching developments outside the mine site.
today was the second day of this rescue operation to recover what's believed to be hundreds of miners we don't know exactly how many of them are trapped our own volunteers so that they can give us a true reflection of what is happening down there yesterday they told us that about more than 400 people
are still stuck down they need to be extracted and they also told us that the number of dead bodies is actually more than 100 more than 100 dead he says well that is unconfirmed The mine has been under siege since August as part of this wider crackdown on illegal mining in South Africa.
The BBC's Mayone Jones has been watching developments outside the mine site.
Today was the second day of this rescue operation to recover what's believed to be hundreds of miners.
We don't know exactly how many of them are trapped on the ground because they're illegal miners, so there's no log of how many there are.
But workers unions and rights groups believe there There could be as many as 800 miners still trapped underground.
Today the authorities say that a total of 82 people have been rescued since the operation started yesterday.
But they've also unfortunately recovered 36 bodies.
Yes. And so 82 people rescued.
Does this mean arrested?
Absolutely. And the authorities say that once they've received some medical care, because a lot of these men, particularly the ones we saw today, were very emaciated.
satiated, some could barely even walk.
But they do say that as a deterrent to other would -be illegal miners, they will be facing prosecution once they're better.
What is the public sentiment about this?
Because it's been going on for ages, hasn't it?
This occupation or these miners being down in this mine and the threat of arrest, throwing the book at these illegal miners.
And I know that that is a scourge of the South African mining industry.
They're cutting off food and water supplies.
A lot of these people seem to be facing close to starvation, don't they?
It's fair to say that public sentiment isn't necessarily in their favour.
A lot of people see them as criminals.
They say what they've done is illegal, and therefore there's not particularly a lot of public sympathy for them.
I mean, the Minister for Mineral Resources today spoke to the press outside the mine, and he says that these illegal miners cost the South African economy 60 billion last year, 60 billion rands.
So, because they're seen as criminals and because they're seen as taking away from the economy rather than adding to it, there isn't huge amounts of sympathy for them.
And then there's the added complication that a lot of these miners are in South Africa illegally.
They come from neighboring countries, countries like Zimbabwe, Mozambique, whose economies have been doing very poorly.
So, sympathy for them isn't huge, but rights groups say that regardless of the fact that they're criminals or even illegal migrants, insurance showing rows and rows of what appears to be bodies and wrapped in plastic bags showing these men emaciated sitting underground and pleading for help so a lot
of the time we don't get to find out exactly what's happening there but the authorities say it's a huge problem that's why they're trying to crack down on it the kind of the denial of food and water is part of a wider operation which is called you know close the pits and there they are trying to close
disused mines around the country but the reality is a lot of people who work in these mines used to work for mining companies when the mines were operational.
So they know how to get in.
They know these mines inside out.
And once the mining companies decide to cease operations and these men find themselves without work, they decide to go back into their abandoned mines because there's very little prospects of work for them elsewhere.
And they know that it's very lucrative.
They can provide for their families in ways that they couldn't do in other jobs.
The BBC's Mayani Jones at the Stilfontaine goldmine in South Africa.
The US Supreme Court is expected to rule this week on TikTok's challenge to an outright ban.
Following a hearing last Friday, the expectations are high that the preliminary ruling, which went against the Chinese -owned social media platform, will stand.
But now, American social media users have been migrating to another Chinese -made app.
It's called Red Note.
And this week it has become the most downloaded product on Apple's US App Store.
It already has more than 300 million active users worldwide, mainly in Mandarin -speaking countries.
So if the US Supreme Court does ban TikTok, could Red Note take its place?
I'm joined by Ivy Yang.
She's a China tech analyst and founder of the consulting firm Wavelet Strategy.
She's based in New York.
Ivy, first of all, explain to us how Red Note compares to TikTok.
Yeah, well, Red Note, I would characterize it as a combination of YouTube and Instagram.
It's kind of like YouTube in the sense that there's lots of vlog and long form content on it.
It's kind of like Instagram because there's certain aesthetics associated with the platform.
And And it's considered kind of the bougier kind of Chinese social media platform compared to others.
Like you mentioned, there has around 300 million monthly active users, and it's mainly comprised of first and second tier city dwelling Chinese users.
It's a point that the company has always been very keen on promoting because it shows that the purchasing power of the user platform is great.
And there's also a large contingent of Chinese living overseas in the United States, in Europe, in Asia.
So they do. The company has always wanted to kind of brand it as this very global platform with diverse perspective and interests.
Yeah. And I'm reading that company employees are responding to today's news about all these downloads with surprise.
I mean, most of its content is in Mandarin.
The app doesn't even have a translation feature to enable new US users to understand the posts.
In fact, it doesn't even have an official English name I'm reading.
No, no. Like on the app store right now, if you search Red Note or Xiaohongshu, it's a Chinese name, it will literally pop up in like three Chinese characters Xiaohongshu on the app.
So I feel like this has really taken the company and the app by surprise.
But I think the popularity has become this movement, right?
You have all these TikTok refugees moving to retinal, and they're creating their own community within the platform.
Their own community.
I mean, is it a protest, do you think, by TikTok fans?
What do you think motivates them?
I think it is a form of protest, and I think it's a demand for user choice and digital sovereignty.
It's TikTok users saying that if you're going to claim TikTok is too Chinese, then watch us switch to an even more Chinese platform.
There's definitely a layer of dark irony there.
It's been led by influencers, I'm reading, protesting against the move.
And it may also point, I suppose, to rising dissatisfaction with Meta's platforms, which people presumed would be a beneficiary of the TikTok ban.
What does it say to you, though, more generally about the likely fate of this US legislation?
I mean, you know, you're just swapping one Chinese firm for another here.
I think it's really interesting because the TikTok ban, in a way, it really threatens this whole perception of America and its whole commitment to market openness.
If a Chinese affiliated company cannot succeed here, then what does that mean to the rest of companies, this kind of go global trend of Chinese companies are trying to enter into the U .S.
market. And while the U .S.
Supreme Court is really working hard to avoid setting a broader precedent with this TikTok ruling, I feel like the forced shutdown, right, and the forced sale, if you will, with a platform that has more than half of the U .S.
population on it, it really sends a powerful message about the stance toward foreign competition and the role of national security, how it plays in all of that.
Because the fact is that the action is really, we all assume that this would benefit US social media companies, and it will raise legitimate questions about competitive fairness.
Okay, well, we'll have to see how the Supreme Court rules.
And of course, Donald Trump remains a fan of TikTok, or at least he says so now.
So we'll have to see what the new administration things.
For now, thank you, China tech analyst Ivy Yang there.
Now, time for a quick check on the markets.
Kerry Lee, he is with us, an economist at Columbia University.
Hi, Kerry. Meta plans to lay off 5 % of its global workforce, we're hearing today.
Yes, they're saying they're going to make a performance -based initiative.
They've already started doing this in the last couple of years.
So in some sense, it's not new news.
But I think made us a little worried that if they open up their platform in the way that the firm now currently known as X did, they may lose some business from corporations because the corporations will be upset that perhaps Maida is going to be too open and there'll be too many posts that may affect
their business adversely.
So I think he may be getting ahead of the curve thinking some of his advertising driven businesses revenue may slow down.
So he needs to cut back some of the staff.
OK, now we're also seeing Snapchat down nearly seven percent today.
I'm wondering, we've just been talking about the TikTok ban.
Is this in some way related to that?
Oh, absolutely. There was there was this relatively strong belief that TikTok was going to be out of the U .S.
market and the refugees have moved to places like Snap and Meta.
But there's this possibility of a last minute takeover talk by someone.
Could he could be Mr.
X himself, Egan Musk.
But that sense that there wasn't going to be a migration, that maybe TikTok would still live by the end of the month, was really hurting firms like Snap and Beta.
Final quick thought about the California wildfires slowly dying down this week.
We understand, or at least the signs are good, but an economist at J .P.
Morgan has said the L .A.
wildfires are shaping up to be the costliest climate disaster in U .S.
history, stemming both from their size and the high value of the residential real estate that's been destroyed.
I mean, this is something that's going to be a big reckoning on this, isn't there, presumably?
Absolutely. The reckoning you have in Florida and the reckoning you're having in Southern California are all related to global warming.
One has problems with water damage, the other has with fire damage.
And so this is a reckoning for the insurance business and for the whole viabilities of these two areas.
It's just going to take a very long time to get anything anywhere close to normal, particularly back in South California.
Kerry Leahy, thank you very much indeed.
Now, remember, you can contact us on WhatsApp or send us a voice note.
If you have anything to tell us about the stories you're hearing, plus 44 -330 -678 -3033.
You're with World Business Report from the BBC World Service.
The incoming US President Donald Trump has threatened to impose big trade tariffs on Mexico from next week.
He said he wants to deport millions of undocumented Latino migrants as well from the US.
And he's threatened to take control of the Panama Canal and rename the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America.
So what will Trump's second presidency truly mean for Latin America?
It's a region often referred to as America's backyard.
hard. Gideon Long has been finding out.
When Mexico sends its people, they're not sending their best.
They're bringing drugs.
They're bringing crime.
They're rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.
Donald Trump campaigning for the presidency first time round.
Since his second election victory in November, his main focus when it comes to Mexico has been not so much crime and rapists, but trade and tariffs.
President -elect Trump says on the day he takes office he will impose a 25 percent tariff on Mexico and Canada.
Trump says he wants to stop border crossings and drugs coming into the U .S.
So he says he will impose massive tariffs that could have momentous impacts on North American trade, the potential for higher prices and higher costs for businesses and industries across the board.
If Trump does impose big tariffs on Mexican imports it could have a huge impact on both countries.
Bilateral trade is worth $800 billion a year.
That's the biggest trading relationship between two countries anywhere on the planet.
Here's one business that operates on the border.
Right now we're in the warehouse that we have the lumber.
My name is Jose Mario Sanchez And what I do is that I sell supplies for furniture manufacturing in the border region, both in the U .S.
side and in the Mexican side.
I have two businesses, one in El Paso, Texas, and another one in Juarez, Chihuahua, Mexico.
Right now, everything is in a standby.
You know, we do not know what is going to happen.
We do not know if it's going to be, for example, Trump is going to go in a full compliance of what he says.
or if he's going to do it only in specific areas of the economy.
You see that everything is stopping.
You know, the factories, the business chains are not flowing regularly because everybody is waiting to see what is going to happen.
To have a commercial war is going back to the 19th century.
Mexico is the key Latin American economy for the United States, but it's not the region's biggest.
That title belongs to Brazil.
In his first term, Trump headed off with Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro, a right -wing populist often called the Trump of the tropics.
But Bolsonaro is no longer in power and Trump is unlikely to have such a warm relationship with Brazil's current president, Luiz Ignacio Lula de Silva, or Lula.
Monica de Bol is a Brazilian economist at the Peterson Institute for International Economics.
Lula, of course, is a centre -leftist.
And given that the far right in Brazil has these connections with the far right in the US and with the Trumpian movement, it doesn't bode very well for Lula that the incoming administration will be headed by Donald Trump.
And so how do you feel the relationship between the two countries will be under these two presidents, under Lula and Trump?
Very tense. I do see the potential for misfired statements back and forth, both from Trump regarding Brazil, as well as from the Lula administration towards the US.
Despite all his bluster over migrants, tariffs, drugs, criminals, the Panama Canal and the Gulf of Mexico, there is at least a chance of a reset in US -Latin American relations under Trump.
Not least because he'll start his second term with a Latino, Marco Rubio, the son of Cuban migrants, as his Secretary of State.
Rebecca Bilchavis served in the U .S.
government under Barack Obama and is now President and CEO of the Inter -American Dialogue, a Washington think tank.
Marco Rubio knows the region well.
A fluent Spanish speaker.
And so this does create an opportunity.
The U .S. historically has not paid enough attention or devoted enough resources to Latin America.
And this is true for both Democrats and Republicans.
And so this is an opportunity for the US to expand engagement.
I very much hope that there is emphasis on increasing investment in the region, trade.
We really need to work with the countries of the region.
That report from Gideon Long.
And you can hear more on that story by searching for Business Daily wherever you get your BBC podcasts.
Now, the Australian airline Qantas says that several of its flights have been delayed at the last minute lately due to warnings of falling space debris.
Rockets from Elon Musk's SpaceX company have been blamed.
They've been re -entering the Earth's atmosphere over the Indian Ocean.
It's one of the first instances of space junk seemingly becoming a hazard for commercial aircraft, although it is cropping up elsewhere.
Here's a resident of Mukuku, for instance.
It's a village in Kenya where recently a 3 -metre wide 500 -kilo chunk fell to Earth.
i was sitting at home then i had a very loud sound i got out of the house to see what was going on i saw something huge it was going in circles coming down from the sky and coming towards the direction of my house when it hit the ground it made a very loud bang i was so scared my house was shaken in the tremor it
caused One very surprised Kenyan there.
Well, I'm joined now by Alice Gorman, an associate professor of space archaeology at Flinders University in Adelaide in Australia.
Hi, Alice. Now, just on the Qantas thing, this is due to advice that the airline received from the US government, right?
Has there been any word from SpaceX itself about, you know, the timings of its re -entry over the Indian Ocean and why that might interfere with civil aviation?
As I understand, SpaceX hasn't specifically responded to this, which is what we've seen before, some SpaceX debris landed in the mountains outside New South Wales a couple of years ago.
They were very slow to respond.
And we also know in instances of near collisions of debris in Earth orbit, SpaceX have, again, not really been forthcoming with communications.
So no surprises there, I guess.
I thought that SpaceX Falcon rockets didn't jettison any of their sections.
I mean, what kind of debris would we be talking about?
Although they have been tremendously successful in having reusable booster rockets that can land again, there's all kinds of debris that comes off when you launch a rocket.
One of the most frequent to reenter are tension rods that actually hold parts of the fuel system and other things together.
so they re -enter the atmosphere all the time a couple of them have landed near occupied areas and there's other things like separation rings and various bits and bobs so although we have the the success of reusable booster rockets there is an uncontrolled re -entry they have been tremendously successful
in having a reusable booster rockets that can land again there's all kinds of debris that comes off when you launch a rocket.
One of the most frequent to re -enter are tension rods that actually hold parts of the fuel system and other things together.
So they re -enter the atmosphere all the time.
A couple of them have landed near occupied areas and there's other things like separation rings and various bits and bobs.
So although we have the success of reusable booster rockets, there is an uncontrolled re -entry problem with all of the other bits that come off during a launch.
We were always been told, haven't we, that the bits that do come off spacecraft generally burn up when they come into the Earth's atmosphere.
And so what are realistically the odds of space debris hitting a person or a commercial aircraft?
I mean, has that ever happened?
Well, there's good and bad news on that front.
It has happened a couple of times.
But that's a couple of times in all of the flights every day across the world.
It's not a very big number.
However, we have seen an exponential increase in the number of launches, particularly from SpaceX, in recent years.
And a study from the Outer Space Institute at the University of British Columbia says that the global south is more at risk from uncontrolled re -entries, exactly what we've seen here.
So I don't think people need to stop buying flights.
The good news about this story is that the system worked.
Warnings were received, action was taken to preserve lives, equipment, all of that stuff.
So things are working well so far.
But briefly, this could be the new normal, and there could be many more disruptions, I guess, for aircraft everywhere.
Well, yes. We'll see an increase in the number of launches, an increase in the amount of space debris, and the interaction between space and airspace is going to become more frequent.
Alice Gorman, thank you very much indeed.
Now, should pineapple be on a pizza?
One pizzeria in the UK is so reluctant to put the fruit on their pizzas that they've told their customers that although they won't ban the stuff, they will charge you $120 if you're mad enough to order it, saying this is a tropical menace.
Those are their words.
It's caused a fair bit of chat in the UK this week.
Giorgio Locatelli is a Michelin -starred chef and a judge on Masterchef Italia, the TV show there.
He was asked, is pineapple popular on pizzas in Italy?
Not in Italy. It's not that widespread in Italy, but it is one of these flavours that people like, especially kids, really likes it.
This great cuisine, which is Italian cuisine, it's just a cuisine that is growing.
It's growing all over the world.
And the fact that it can add some of the other ingredients or some local ingredients or some of the local flavours into it, I think is a great thing.
It's not a bad thing at all.
Well, back here in the UK, I've been speaking to the man responsible for this extremely pricey pizza.
How did it happen that he was charging so much for one pizza?
I asked the co -owner of the restaurant Looper Pizza, Francis Wolfe in Norwich.
It started off as a bit of a joke we were going through our online menu and we thought we'd put up Hawaiian pizza for £100 this was a couple of weeks ago and it got picked up by our local paper which they thought it was news and since then it sort of snowballed from there to be honest with you.
Yes the media being the media it really becomes news doesn't it?
I love what you've actually written there on the menu um it says yeah for a hundred pounds that's 130 or so you can have it order the champagne too why not go on you monster so um you are not in favor of pineapple on the pizza we are not in favor of pineapple on pizza no but um obviously if people are that way
inclined then they can they can fork out 100 a quid for it.
Yeah which presumably they don't?
Not as yet although for the last two days we've been uh closed so um we open again tomorrow and we we're hoping that one or two people will will do it for a laugh and and you know obviously if if that happens we'll we'll make sure we chuck in a few sort of extras to see to um.
You better had for that much money it's an expensive pizza so it's interesting this isn't it it's attracted attention I suppose because the nation appears to be split down the middle.
There was a survey not so long ago suggesting that while 80 % of Britons liked pizza and they liked pineapple, only half of those people actually like pineapple on a pizza.
Absolutely. And I think 100 % of Britons like to have a strong opinion about something.
So as with most things these days, it's a polarizing topic.
I'm just glad that this one's a little bit more light -hearted than some of the other ones that we've had to face.
Do you see this as a dividing line that needs to be pursued, that there is
