Business news live from singapore. Indias Prime Minister, narendra modi, looking to drum up trade ties with myanmar. Turning over a new leaf. How will nissans new car fare ina leaf. How will nissans new car fare in a crowded market . Good morning, asia. Hello, world. Welcome to another edition of Asia Business report. Im sharanjit leyl. Thank you forjoining us. Indias Prime Minister, narendra modi, has gone to myanmar to boost trade ties. It is an important relationship for myanmar because india is the Third Largest destination for the exports of the country. But myanmar is coming under pressure to end the violence it is reportedly inflicting on the Rohingya Muslim minority. I askedif on the Rohingya Muslim minority. I asked if we can expect any deals from this visit. They are looking to increase access between the two countries in terms of ease of travel between the two nations which is important for trade and the risen. Tourism. India is a destination for medical tourism from myanmar. India has been a key market for myanmar. It is no doubt on the agenda. Is india likely at all to use chinas dominance . We know china is well ahead in terms of investing into myanmar and potentially reaping the benefits. Could they exert power there . Myanmar is interested in diversified in its engagements with various countries and not limiting itself to a few. Are they likely to achieve anything . The headlines have been dominated this week by the rohingya reifers. Narendra modi says he wants to deport 40,000 from india. How will they get past that . Among the topics discussed was security matters. This could be grounds for further deepening those ties that we just discussed. We may see cooperation around Maritime Security and these two countries, they share roughly 1600 kilometres of orders, and it is important for both sides to identify ways they can co operate, build trust, Current Issues notwithstanding. Borders. In other news, Facebook Says it has discovered a russian funded campaign to promote divisive social and political messages on its network. The company said 100,000 was spent on three dozen advertisements over a three year period. They did not back any political party, but talked about rights and society and a quality. Hurricane irma hasebe caribbean and inflicted major damage on its way towards florida. It is expected to impact the us as well. It is causing disruption for airlines and oil supply routes and has sent farmers scrambling to protect facilities and farm deals and animals. And of cause the us is dealing with the effects of hurricanes harvey which dropped record rainfall on texas. Hurricane. The refineries are wanting to restart production by early next week. The company that makes sharpies is cutting its earnings due to the impact of the storm. Over to malaysia, where Prime Minister najib says he wants to see more women on boards of directors, ideally 30 of all directors. Norway set 40 back in 2003 and is now nearing that goal. Germany has a 30 target, similar to malaysia. And over here in singapore, the government has a 20 target by 2020. In malaysia, the government also added that businesses without the motherboard directors will be named and shamed. Female board directors. Will this make a difference . It is going in the right direction. He said there is a target, not when it has to be reached by. Whether it will be compulsory, voluntary. It will depend on what follows from now on. But what i do now, i spoke earlier this week at a conference, and a clear message was that the tone from the top matters. What malaysia is doing with this statement from the Prime Minister, it is making it an issue for the entire country, which issue for the entire country, which is good news. In terms of benefits financially for companies, how does it actually benefit a companys bottomline in terms of dollars with women on board . There are many studies. A lot of it is correlation rather than causation. It is hard to say exactly how much the benefit is. But what is important is the mckinsey study which showed you could outperform by 30 with gender diversity. By 35 if you have in addition ethnically and culturally diverse companies. In asia you have cultural differences, inge and cultural differences, inge and cultural norms. That discriminated against women. Ingrained. Where are we seeing good strides in asia . Australia leads the way to be honest. They have a system where if they do not meet the 30 target by 2018, mandatory quotas will come into play. They are doing the best. They also have it in the public sector, which i want to see in asia. We are only talking about private business targets are what about governments . They are in a better position to do this. I dont really know why. They do very well. The worst is singapore is at the bottom of the list along with south korea andjapan. Of the list along with south korea and japan. Once a leader in the electric car industry, japans nissan is now having to compete with other carmakers racing to deliver semiautonomous vehicles. They have announced a Second Generation leaf will fall into the core product line, instead of being niche. Will the plan work . We caught up with the launch. We got sent this report. It was a huge production, with lots of aplomb for what is a dull looking car. It is the new nissan leaf. Why are we here . It matters because this car, the previous oration of this car, the previous oration of this car, is the biggest selling electric vehicle in the world. Itieration. Nissan and other companies believe this and Something Like it is the future. In 10 15 years time, most of us will drive some sort of electric vehicle. But worldwide, electric vehicle. But worldwide, electric vehicles are still a tiny percentage of car sales to be in the us, just1. 2 of percentage of car sales to be in the us, just 1. 2 of cars sold last year we re us, just 1. 2 of cars sold last year were evs. Why are they convinced . We are convinced it is coming. Migration from hybrids to evs is coming. We are more convinced than seven coming. We are more convinced than seve n yea rs coming. We are more convinced than seven years ago. It is certainly a better looking car than the previous model which was kind of bug eyed and an acquired taste. But the difference is the size of the battery pack. With the new battery, the car can battery pack. With the new battery, the carcan go battery pack. With the new battery, the car can go up to 400 kilometres on one charge. Normal daytoday usage, this is more than that for japanese people. Range anxiety will not be an issue for the future. That figure of 400 kilometres is very optimistic. But kessler and chevrolet are already offering some with ranges over 300 kilometres. Tesla. And now nissan says they can do it as well. And that was at speaking to the new chief executive of nissan. The markets now and how they are faring at the asian open. We are seeing japans nikkei getting something of a lift from the slightly weaker yen. We did see it actually fall to four month lows just on wednesday. It is coming back somewhat as investors look for a bargain on the market. Also seeing a lift to a lot of the energy shares, taking cues from wall street where we saw gains from us markets. A lot of worry still lingering over the korean peninsula. But Hurricane Irma did lift oil prices. And that is it for this edition of Asia Business report. Thank you for watching. The top stories this hour. Hurricane irma kills at least two people on its path through the caribbean. There has been widespread damage. It is now threatening the us territory of puerto rico. Bangladesh has accused myanmar of planting landmines along the border, as thousands of Rohingya Muslims flee across it. Myanmar denies the accusation. Over the past 10 years, scientists in the uk have received eight billion pounds in funding for Research Projects from the european union. But since the brexit vote last year, thereve been concerns that the money will be lost. Pallab ghosh reports. British science is among the best in the world. Much of its funding comes from the european union. The decision to leave the eu of that funding uncertain. But now, the government has said it wants to negotiate to have access to those funds after brexit. I think it is very encouraging in both its tone and its aspirations, but it is clear that there is going to be a lot of work that needs to be done to hammer out the details of an eventual agreement. The France Institute in london is one of the most prestigious in the world. The government has said it values the relationship the uk has with European Research funders. It wants that to continue. That has obviously been welcomed by research is here, but many are concerned about restrictions on immigration coming into force after brexit researchers. This group received £3 million from the eu. They are working on much better vaccines. We 12 researchers, only ten are from the eu. It is possibly leading to at least some people beginning to contemplate offers elsewhere which they may not have contemplated before. Full membership of the main eu body requires Free Movement of people. That has been ruled out by the government. Campaigners are calling for a quick and simple visa system to make it easy for scientists to work you. A big concern is the future of the visa system. It is important to scientific institutions to attract people from the eu and the rest of the world to work and study science in the uk. There are also issues over Nuclear Research in the uk. The government wants to withdraw from the government that regulates it. Ministers want to have a special status for the uk so it can continue to have eu funds and they say in how it is spent. Pallab ghosh, bbc news. Dont forget, you can get much more on all of the stories on the website. That is bbc. Com. I am on twitter as well. That is it for now from it. Now it is time for sport today. Hello. This is sport today, live from the bbc sport centre. Coming up on this programme rafael nadal is through to the us open semifinals after a straight sets win over andrey rublev. The womens world number one is out though as Coco Vandeweghe beats Karolina Pliskova to keep alive hopes of an all american semifinal line up. And india win their one off twenty 20 match against sri lanka in colombo with skipper virat kohli leading the way for the tourists. Hello and welcome to the programme where we start with tennis and the news that mens world number one rafael nadal is through to the semifinals of the us open after a crushing straight sets win over 19 year old russian andrey rublev. The spaniard, a twice winner of this event needed just 96 minutes for victory as he ruthlessly took apart his opponent dropping just five games against a player who idolised nadal growing up