Assault. Scientists could be closer to discover a vast ocean on one of jupiters moons. Hello, and thanks for joining us. We begin in iraq where governmentbacked troops seem to be gaining the upper hand in their biggest event so far against the groups that calls itself Islamic State. Is militants are being pushed back into the center of tikrit you can see there there on the map as the battle continues. The bbc is on the frontline with iraqi forces. And he sent us this report. Reporter advancing into tikrit. Iraqi Army Soldiers have mounted the largest offensive against Islamic State to date. After months of false starts progress is now being made. The Top Army Generals to the battlefield is a short force and a message that wont be lost on the iraqi people. Lost year, the army collapsed in the face of the wellarmed jihadists. Now they are regaining confidence. Translator deliberation of this city and province will serve as a launch pad for reclaiming the north and the west of iraq. If Is
Region and a third part of the special series. A very warm welcome to countdown. I am manus cranny. Mark england takes on twickenham. I set down with the ceo. He told us its all about the passion in rugby. One of the great things about sport, although we think it is a business, its a passion. There are 82,000 people doing the same. Thats the great thing about sports. Mark its official. Its a deal. Wholesome and lafarge agreed to terms. Wholesome says the new ceo will be proposed. Bruno lafond will move to cochairman. They will become nonexecutive cochairman. The deal is done. Caroline hyde has been following the steel every step of the way. Caroline it was the 11th hour and it has been the 11th month since they first came to this deal. 40 billion back in april of 2014 is when they first struck it. Suddenly problems getting in the way about financial and wanting to rearrange because they helped they thought perhaps lafarge was getting too good of a deal. I want to dig into this deal. Th
Look at these equity markets across the area. Denmark up 27 , portugal up 25 . Japan up 10 on the quarter. This is putting it in context in terms of what the market has been doing. In japan and those markets the japanese markets up 10 over the year. Then in the United States of america, barely up 1 10 of 1 hanging on by its think nails in terms of the overall adding of value this year. The Business World will hear what labour once in terms of their business message. Theyll get a net pretax gain of 365 million swiss francs. Lvmh, what we saw was them saying down as a result of china and they are bringing in the lower priced products. Slightly cheaper than what went before. What they are saying about china and hong kong is something to take across. Morrison has been downgraded by Goldman Sachs. It is down one quarter of 1 . Here is the trend. The dollar just taking. Ticking. It is in the midundecided quadrant. We see them dollar going lower and the yen going a little bit higher. Some of
Im guy johnson. Francine lacqua is off today. We begin with the mega oil deal. Shell has agreed to buy bg group for around 47 billion pounds around 70 billion in cash and stocks. That makes it the biggest deal in the oil and gas industry for at least a decade. Caroline hyde joins us at the touchscreen. Caroline a cool 47 billion pounds. A cool 50 premium on bgs share price. This is record data in terms of size of move, but if you go back, it is only since july 2014 when we last saw this price on bg group. That was the amount that the oil prices plummeted dragging down the price of oil stocks. Suddenly, everything looks a little bit fairer valued. That is what has capitalized this deal to spark the Biggest Energy deal in a decade. Suddenly, assets look well priced. Creating the secondBiggest Energy company in the world this would be the biggest player in the ftse 100. It will have sheer size and scale. Interestingly, shell saying, we will build a company with three pillars. They are goi
Everyone knows greece will repay 4 of gdp from the surplus. Anna later we look at what is best for business in the u. K. And europe in the first of three Bloomberg Politics special debates. We will discuss key issues facing both ahead of the general election with the Panel Including a formal chancellor and the chairman. Mark policy makers reveal a risk on terrain rates we bring you the details, plus, what you need to now ahead of todays bank of england rate decision. Anna good morning. Manus rk coming up, a 29 billion drug deal. Caroline lets head out to hong kong were stocks are surging. The market will catch up with its counterpart, the shanghai composite. Shery ahn has the story. We saw searches in escapes 6 earlier. In excess of 6 . Shery ahn 6. 4 , the most since 2009. Hunghong kong has been rising for the sixth consecutive day. So why are we seeing this sudden surge . Because investors are thinking hong kong shares will catch up to their counterparts in shanghai. The shanghai com