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Why contact tracing technology has been slow to make an impact. Ed Butler speaks to Jenny Wanger from the Linux Foundation Public Health in the US where many states are only now rolling out contact tracing apps, months after many countries around the world. We hear from Colm Harte, technical director at NearForm, the company behind Ireland's app, which has been downloaded by about a quarter of the population. Chan Cheow Hoe, the chief digital technology officer for the Singapore government, talks about the success of digital contact tracing in his country. And the BBC's technology correspondent Rory Cellan-Jones explains why contact tracing apps are no longer being seen as the silver bullet in the fight against Covid-19.

(Photo: The National Health Service contact tracing app rolled out in England and Wales. Credit: Getty Images)

The US government has filed charges against Google, accusing the company of violating competition law to preserve its monopoly over internet searches and online advertising. As the Department of Justice sues the search engine google for being a monopoly, could all tech giants be under threat? We hear from Eric Schmidt, the former CEO of Google and Jack Poulsen, a software engineer and former Google employee. We also get the view of Sally Hubbard, a former New York anti-trust attorney and current director of enforcement strategy at the Open Markets Institute. (Pic of Google logo by Jakub Porzycki via Getty Images).

When President Trump came to power in 2016 he vowed he would scrap the international trade agreements he believed had cost a huge number of US jobs, and declared his intent to tip the trade balance back in America's favour. He wanted to take on China and what he saw as its dominance in the global marketplace.

How has this 'America First' policy worked out in the ensuing four years, and what has it meant for the US's trading partners?

As part of our look at the US elections 2020: and What the World Wants, Manuela Saragosa examines whether President Trump has succeeded in his aim, and she finds out what companies from China to Canada hope will come out of the next presidency. Manuela talks to Herbert Lun, managing director of Wing Sang electrical, whose factory is in China's Pearl River Delta. He produces electronic hair products for the American market - how has his business coped with the threat of US tariffs? While Mark Rowlinson, counsel at the United Steelworkers of Canada, tells Manuela that tariffs have brought some Canadian steel and aluminium producers - operating in an already very tight market - to the edge of bankruptcy.

The BBC's economics correspondent, Andrew Walker, is on hand to provide context and analysis throughout, and you can read more on the BBC website and hear more about the USA and the rest of the world, across the World Service this week.

Manuela and her guests also consider the alternative to President Trump - a Joe Biden presidency - and whether that would make it any easier to do business with the US. There might be a change of tone, but would he actually dismantle the protectionist policies of the last four years?

Picture: Trump Tower in New York. Credit: Getty

A commodity associated with the destruction of tropical rainforest in South East Asia may soon have a synthetic replacement.

But can it match palm oil's magic properties? Will consumers accept it in their food? And what will it mean for the farmers whose livelihoods depend on palm oil plantations?

Manuela Saragosa speaks to Shara Ticku, co-founder of the biotech firm C16 Biosciences, which is pioneering the new plantation-free product, as well as Anita Neville of Indonesia's largest privately owned palm oil grower, Golden Agri-Resources. Plus Veronika Pountcheva of the international food wholesalers Metro Group explains why they are actively looking at the synthetic alternative.

Producer: Laurence Knight

(Picture: A tub of palm oil; Credit: Edwin Remsberg/Getty Images)

Golden passports and cash for citizenship - a legitimate way to for countries to get investment or a scheme open to abuse and corruption? That’s the big question we’ll be looking at on this episode of Business Weekly. We look at why the wealthy want to acquire them. We also hear from Cyprus where a passport corruption scandal has rocked the nation. Meanwhile, the winner of this year’s Nobel Prize for Economics tells us about the unusual way in which he discovered he'd won, and of course, about the game theory that netted him and a colleague the award. And we hear from the African animators who are taking on the world. Business Weekly is presented by Lucy Burton and produced by Matthew Davies.

As talks between the EU and the UK enter their final stretch, what sort of Brexit are businesses preparing for? Manuela Saragosa speaks to Chayenne Wiskerke of the Dutch onion growing company Wiskerke Onions which exports to the UK. She also speaks to Martin Bysh the founder of Huboo, a UK fulfilment company which works mostly with the e-commerce industry and exports all over the world. They tell her how they've been coping with the years of uncertainty around the Brexit negotiations.
(Picture credit: Getty Creative)