Business Matters

The BBC has exclusive evidence of the large-scale destruction of a reef in the South China Sea by Chinese poachers and the theft of valuable and endangered giant clams. The Philippines, which is pursuing its own legal claim to many of the islands, says the Chinese navy is allowing the poachers to plunder the reefs with impunity. Rupert Wingfield-Hayes has the story. All public schools in the Los Angeles area were closed on Tuesday after a ‘credible threat’ was received via email. Almost 700,000 students were affected. A similar threat was received by police in New York, but was not deemed credible - schools remained open. We hear from families caught up in the California alert. Also in the programme, the US central bank the Federal Reserve is expected to raise interest rates tomorrow, for the first time in almost a decade. Our economic commentator Roger Bootle offers his assessment. We discuss big data, as the EU announces new laws requiring companies to ask permission to keep clients data. Customers