our top story: the white house has officially refused to co—operate with the impeachment inquiry against president donald trump. a letter sent to democratic leaders rejected the inquiry as "baseless" and "constitutionally invalid". three democratic—led house committees are investigating mr trump. ahead of talks with britain's borisjohnson, the ireland's prime minister leo varadkar says he'll work until the very last moment to try to secure a brexit deal by next week , but not at any cost. and this story is trending on bbc.com. the head of america's basketball association says it won't compromise on freedom of speech. it follows a backlash in china after the manager of the houston rockets expressed support for protesters in hong kong that's all. stay with bbc world news. there's lots more on all our

stories on our website. just log onto bbc. co. uk/news. now on bbc news, live to singapore for asia business report. asian stock markets are retreating after wall street ended the day in the red over concerns ahead of us china trade negotiations. there is a new cheese executive, will they steer the trouble car maker back on the road to success? good morning, either. hello, well. it's a wednesday. glad you could join us for another exciting mid week edition of asia business report. i'm rico hizon. we begin

with the ongoing us trainer —— china trade war. investors feel anxious ahead of a meeting between the leaders of the world's two biggest economies. as we leaders of the world's two biggest economies. as we can see asia—pacific markets are in the red. the nikkei down by fourfifths asia—pacific markets are in the red. the nikkei down by four fifths of 196. the nikkei down by four fifths of i%. wall street ended the day in the red after the trump administration slapped visa restrictions on beijing officials connected to the mass detention of uighurs in western china. for more i am joint by my colleague karishma vaswani. yesterday we were talking about the negotiations taking place on thursday. the 13th round. what is your sense and how will it come along? it would be fair to say these negotiations will be tense, at the very least. in the last couple of days you have really seen those tensions ratchet up between the two

sides, what with the united states earlier in the week placing 28 chinese entities and eight of the most prominent artificial intelligence firms in china on an entity list, meaning they cannot get access without approval from the us government first. the united states has tied the staying —— sanctions to human rights. it is also put human rights officials on a visa restriction was because of these alleged allegations. beijing has lashed out and says this is not true and has said stay tuned when it comes to retaliation on the trade front. when they sit down together for this 13th round of talks there will be a lot of stuff to get makoto uchida through before they get to the meat of the two issues between them —— a lot of stuff to get through before. over the past year donald trump has been talking about the trade imbalance between the two

countries. there are also two sticking points. you talked about the foster technology transfers. one sticking point is intellectual property theft. how significant is this? it is still very significant. even as of last year something like 56% of american companies surveyed by the american chamber of commerce in china complained about this issue. they have things like trademark violations that they worry about, they say a lot of their ideas are effectively just about, they say a lot of their ideas are effectivelyjust copied and sold on the chinese market and there is no way for them to be compensated. having said that, the chinese have put in place a new law earlier this year to try to protect intellectual property more. and this is what a lawyer i spoke to had to say about the law. in the past, in a technology input situation, the improvements always belong to the party that makes the improvement. so

you can imagine if it is a us china situation then the chinese party are free to make improvements and by the regulations that they would own that. however, in 2019, this is being removed. parties are being freed to negotiate on who should own the improvement based on their commercial position. rico, the criticism of these new regulations is that the penalties are not harsh enough and that there is no jail time involved. it is still an ongoing process, quite a lot for the two sides to talk about on thursday stop i thank you so much for that update. my colleague karishma vaswani. the trade war is impacting markets. it isn't the only concern on investors people's minds. in her first interview since becoming the head of the international monetary fund, she told the bbc that a

no—deal brexit would be painful and add to the effects of a global slowdown. michelle fleury has more from washington. we moved from a synchronised upswing, 75% of the world rowing faster to a synchronised slowdown. —— growing faster. when you look at the many reasons, these are many fractures in the world economy that are holding growth back. you have pretty pessimistic numbers on how the trade dispute between the world's two biggest economies is affecting the economy. by 2020 a loss of 0.8% of global gdp. this is the equivalent of $700 billion. what

is most significant is that it is not the direct impacts of tariffs that are most harmful. most harmful is the loss of confidence. what is so is the loss of confidence. what is so clear is that everybody loses. we are expecting trade talks to resume. what advice do you have to you offer to these huge two trading partners? eye personally see criticality of recognising different countries have different grievances around trade —— i. we have to talk candidly about these grievances and then see how we can address them. if we fail to do so, then we are worse off. and that is not a good excuse if you can say, you know what, i am a loser, but you area you know what, i am a loser, but you are a bigger loser than me. i don't

think this is what people expect from leadership. and that is the new chief of the international kristalina georgieva monetary fund,, speaking earlier to michelle fleury from washington. expressing support for the hong kong protest could be bad for business. a recent tweet from the houston rockets general manager drew criticism from beijing. the national basketball association's commissioner adam silver came out and defended his right to freedom of speech. now the china state broadcaster says it won't add the nba preseason games. global brand expert stephen mcguinness says the question is should the mbia apologise to beijing? the nba china deal, it is big for the nba. $1.5 billion. and they are a very popular team in china. it is the latest of a lot of incidents, cathay pacific apologised for a tweet and fired people, nikkei pulled shoes from their collection because of a designer, the gap

apologise for a t—shirt. it is standard practice. a celebrity or somebody says something, they backtrack, everybody says it is silly for the company to do. but what is more important, the principle of freedom of speech or locating the chinese market any money involved? what is more important for the mba, is of the or the $1.5 billion? they're looking for growth, every company wants growth. china wants growth. it is much biggerfor china, but they growth. china wants growth. it is much bigger for china, but they will say it is growth coming. that is china. at the moment china and the west have two fundamentally incompatible views of expression of thought. but, of course, down the road it is notjust about china, you have bigger markets. they broke ground in indiajust have bigger markets. they broke ground in india just recently and that could be a huge market as well that could be a huge market as well that could be a huge market as well that could replace the chinese market. absolutely. but right now the eggs are in the china basket.

america and the west values freedom of expression, no matter what. but china, china is a concept and it has to be adhered to the idea of what china is and where china is and it cannot afford anything pricking the bubble. global brand expert stephen mcguinness. the troubled japanese carmaker nissan has a venue chief executive. makoto uchida, the head of its chinese business, known with close ——is having close ties to renault. theo leggett has the details. since rugby metaphor seem to be all the rage in japan since rugby metaphor seem to be all the rage injapan at the moment because of the welcome, let's start off with one. it does seem very much as they makoto uchida has received something of a hospital pass. that is because nissan is a company in crisis. it is still feeling the effects of the dramatic departure of its former chairman carlos ghosn following his arrest last november. on top of that, profit that the company have been plummeting. there is rampant infighting in the boardroom and, of course, its relationship with its industrial

partner, renault, is on the rocks. so makoto uchida will have to sort all of that out. he will have to smooth over ruffled feathers at renault while appeasing people within nissan who want to protect the compa ny‘s autonomy within nissan who want to protect the company's autonomy and he will have to boost profits, which means cutting costs. sorting all of that out means he will have to keep is a very much on the ball all of this will start to be a very bruising encounter indeed. briefly, let us have a look at the asia pacific markets and how they are faring in mid—morning trade. they are mirroring the fall on wall street ahead of the us china trade negotiations on thursday. thank you so negotiations on thursday. thank you so much for investing your time with us. so much for investing your time with us. i'm rico hizon. bye for now. the parents of a ten—year—old boy who died after contracting hiv

through infected blood products, were given a standing ovation at the public inquiry after describing the family's ordeal. lee turton died in 1992. his mother told the year—long inquiry she believes the government knew the blood products being used were infected, as did the pharmaceutical companies, but that they did nothing. around 3,000 people died and at least 30,000 were infected with contaminated blood products in what has been called the biggest treatment disaster in nhs history. our health editor, hugh pym, has been speaking to lee's parents. good morning, son, merry christmas to you. are you all right? i've got a stomach ache. huh? i've got a stomach ache. it was lee's final christmas. he was ten and only had weeks to live. he'd been infected with hiv because of his treatment by the nhs. i can't get to sleep. he was just four when his parents were told he'd contracted hiv after being treated for his haemophilia with contaminated blood products. he never had a childhood, he couldn't do the things other children did,

that was all taken away from him. he used to say how frightened he was. and what can you say? you know, there's a little boy of eight, nine, telling you he's so frightened and you can't take that away. they said they were shunned by other parents. one teacher even refused to have him in the class. they were harassed by the media and felt they had to move. today, denise told the inquiry about lee's final days. they actually told us he had between two and ten days to live. sorry. so they said that... they said he had an infection on the brain. so we insisted that he went home that day, because that's what he wanted to do. he kept asking to go home.

we got him home, with a nurse and he lived for another eight days at home. in that time, he sort of... ..demanded that he wanted to go down and see the beach for the last time, so we managed to carry him down to the beach. i think the hardest thing is not knowing the truth about what happened and knowing that it's all been covered up. like other affected families, they hope the inquiry will finally get to that truth. hugh pym, bbc news. as always, we have much more on our website. that is all from me. mike embley will be here at two o'clock. now on bbc news — sport today. hello, i'm gavin ramjaun. and this is sport today,

live from the bbc sport centre. coming up on this programme: paying the price — marco giampaolo is sacked at ac milan, with ex—inter boss, stefano pioli, poised to takeover. roger federer cruises into the next round in china, on his quest for a third shanghai masters title. and, the nba goes on the defensive, over a freedom of speech row in china. i regret having communicated directly with friends in china that so directly with friends in china that so many people are upset. hello and welcome to the programme. news from the italian serie a to start with. ac milan have sacked manager, marco giampaolo, afterjust three and a half months. former inter boss, stefano pioli, is expected to take over, with the i8—time champions currently three points off the relegation zone. earlier i spoke to italian football

journalist daniele verri,