This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK.
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.
X is marked in Paris as French authorities raid its offices.
It's World Business Express from the BBC World Service.
I'm Liana Byrne.
Then SpaceX plus XAI equals a mega merger in the trillions, and India is relieved after its US tariffs are slashed.
Yes, Elon Musk's social media company X has been raided in France.
A Paris prosecutor's cybercrime unit has been investigating X since January last year.
Our correspondent Joe Tidy can tell us more.
Hello, Joe.
Hi there.
Tell us about this investigation.
Yes, so it's quite rare, isn't it?
It's very rare to see a social network that's run by a Western company being raided in a Western country.
But that's what we saw this morning in the streets of Paris.
They have said that it's part of this long running investigation they've been doing into the X platform and the inbuilt chatbot in X which is called Grok.
It started in January last year when politicians complained about some sort of algorithmic manipulation taking place.
Then it was expanded in the summer to include potential abuse against LGBT communities and also Holocaust denial, particularly from that, bot Grok.
And now it's expanded again.
And we saw this raid this morning.
They said that they said nothing about the previous allegations.
These are kind of new ones.
They've said that.
They've raided it because of complicity in possession or organised distribution of images of children of a pornographic nature, infringement of people's image rights with sexual deepfakes and fraudulent data extraction by an organised group.
The other thing that was interesting about the rap sheet is they've said they've accused the company of the administration of an illegal online platform which, of course, is very reminiscent of what they said about Telegram when they arrested the CEO of Telegram in 2024.
That's a long rap sheet, Jo.
What has Elon Musk or X said?
Nothing so far about the raids, but we know from previous reporting on these accusations that Musk and X have always said that this is a politically motivated attack on free speech.
Interestingly, they've been asked to come by the Paris prosecutors in April for voluntary investigations and some sort of questioning as well.
We'll see if they comply.
OK, we'll see.
Joe Tidy, thanks for coming to this for us.
US President Donald Trump has slashed proposed tariffs on Indian goods from 50% to 18%.
The move follows a call with Prime Minister Narendra Modi after Washington said India would scale back on buying Russian oil.
Here's our India business reporter Archana Shukla in Mumbai.
A lot of the details are still sketchy.
What is clear right now is that the tariffs on Indian goods will come down from 50 to 18, and that will mean a big relief for Indian exporters, particularly labour-intensive sectors like textiles seafood, gems and jewellery, which have all been struggling with these high tariffs.
US is their biggest market, about a third of what India exports goes to the US.
So for the exporters, it means a big positive boost.
But in terms of what the trade deal really encompasses, the details are sketchy.
President Trump says that India has agreed to stop buying Russian oil and that it would buy oil from US and Venezuela.
And the fact that India will charge zero percent tariff on all American goods.
Now, none of this has actually been confirmed by the Indian authorities.
When you say that India is going to stop buying Russian oil, that's a surprise to me.
It really relies on that oil, doesn't it?
It does.
And in fact, since the Russia-Ukraine war, when the oil market was falling, that is the time when India actually started buying Russian oil.
This seems a bit unlikely that India would completely cut off ties and completely stop purchasing Russian crude.
Having said that, over the last few months, India has actually diversified its sourcing of oil as well.
It is buying more oil from the US.
It is also buying more oil from the Middle Eastern countries now.
And this diversification is also something that possibly Prime Minister Modi and President Trump would have spoken about in the agreement.
However, what is the fine print is still unknown.
That was Archana Shukla in Mumbai.
So how are Indian businesses feeling about this news?
Dean Arthur Panu is Director of Baloomi Fashion.
It's a clothing manufacturer and exporter based in India.
We are talking with our clients in the US and everyone is so happy because a lot of slowdowns were there in the trade and many shipments were held up.
Cancellation of orders.
So everyone is so happy.
So of course, there is a big news, big day for us.
When it was the 50% tariff, what did that do to your business?
In terms of trade with the US, it was a little paused.
So we were looking for more into countries like European countries and Australia UK, all these countries.
It's not like all of a sudden market will be explored and new customers will start coming.
It was a little tricky for us because we are largely dependent on US customers.
And did you have to make any decisions in your business?
Did you have to cut down on staff, try to cut down on costs in other ways?
No.
Yes, not massive, but yes, we shrink our business size and we were hoping that if things will change, we will expand it further, because there were massive shortage of whatever order were there in the hand.
It was either under paused.
Many of orders were canceled.
Some of the shipments is still held in transit.
Despite the fact that the tariffs have gone down now, are you still going to explore other markets, other options, just in case things with the US they get a bit tricky again?
Yes, of course.
We cannot depend on.
I mean, it was a good learning for exporters like us who were highly dependent on any one country.
So efforts to explore new markets will continue.
That was Dinanath Upmanu of Baloomi Fashion.
Now, on other Musk news, let's talk about this mega merger where SpaceX has acquired XAI to create a 12 trillion giant.
Fiona Sincotta, Senior Markets Analyst at Citi Index.
Fiona, why would they do this?
So basically, this is combining two frontier technologies from Musk's two largest private ventures.
And it creates an innovative engine putting AI rockets, space-based internet and media all under one roof, if you like.
And it also enables Musk to pursue this ambition to win the AI race with data centers in space.
So he sees sort of orbital data centers as essential to the future of AI technology, particularly surrounding sort of energy generation.
Now interestingly, this also comes ahead of an expected IPO in June, which could raise as much as 50 billion US dollars.
Now the plan there would be to sort of use those funds to launch satellites and build those AI data centers in orbit.
All right, Fiona Sincottis, thank you so much.
The biggest financial backer to the World Health Organization, says governments around the world should be embarrassed by their cuts to aid budgets.
The CEO of the Gates Foundation, Mark Sussman, has been talking to the World Service podcast, Business Daily.
His comments come as the World Health Organization has launched an appeal for 1 billion to help tackle humanitarian emergencies in across the world, including in Afghanistan Sudan, Gaza and Haiti.
Mark Sussman told Sam Fenwick that the loss of the money from aid budgets is directly impacting on the health of many people.
The proportion of aid is being dropped by nearly 25%.
When you put that into numbers, that's billions and billions of pounds that are cut.
And those billions and billions of pounds not all of them were used for what we would call the highest impact interventions.
But if you're buying vaccines for kids, if you're buying antiretrovirals for patients with HIV, if you're buying bed nets for families to prevent them from getting malaria,
If you reduce the amount of money that's supporting that, most of which has been funded by international aid, you reduce the number of people that you can help.
It's simple maths.
The fact that we are now the world's largest funder of the World Health Organization should be a major embarrassment to every country on this planet.
The World Health Organization exists as a public good to provide global health needs, to provide the norms, the rules, the protection against the next pandemic.
And it should be fully funded.
The fact that the US has pulled out obviously we think is a big mistake and have said so publicly in the US.
Do you worry about the influence that the Gates Foundation could potentially have on where money is spent?
We would call on all member states of World Health Organization to say you should all increase your funding.
The only reason that we are as influential as we are through those resources is because other people are not stepping up.
Governments are not stepping up to fund what they should as a critical public good.
And we would strongly encourage that.
The best way to make us less influential is make us a much smaller proportion of WHO funding.
And we would heartily welcome.
That was Mark Sussman from the Gates Foundation, speaking to the BBC's Sam Fennec.
The European Union has told the BBC it was unacceptable for the United States to threaten trade tariffs during its row over the future of Greenland.
Last month, President Donald Trump warned of a 25% import tax on goods from eight EU countries.
The bloc threatened retaliation before the dispute was eventually diffused in talks.
But the EU's economy.
Commissioner Vladis Dombrovskis told our economics editor, Faisal Islam, that Europe would not stand for trade being used as political pressure.
That was clearly unacceptable and we made it very clear from the EU side also, indicating that we are ready to take countermeasures if necessary.
What's positive is that now we managed to bring this discussion in a more constructive territory, so the question is about strengthening the security in Arctic region.
Neither EU nor Danish nor Greenland authorities themselves have objected towards strengthening the security in Arctic region.
And it's positive that we now manage to focus our discussions exactly on this topic, without removing threats to the territorial integrity of EU member states.
So, to be clear, you feel that that threat was on the table and the European Union's action in threatening the use of the coercive instruments the bazooka as they call it counter tariffs of nearly 100 billion.
You think that that was decisive, that focused the minds of the White House?
Well, I think that was an important element, because it was clear that the EU was ready to react, was ready to take countermeasures.
At some moment, it's clear that you need to also put certain limits.
And it's obviously the questions of respecting sovereignty and territorial integrity of EU member states is one of such limits.
That was the EU's Economy Commissioner, Vladis Jambrovkis, speaking to Faisal Islam.
And that is it from World Business Express.
I'm Leanna Byrne.
Thanks for listening.
Carnaval com segurança, neoenergia.
Mais por você.
