from the council and the tenant management organisation that ran the block are likely to be interviewed under caution. now on bbc news, all the latest business news live from singapore. it has been a bumper week of earnings fall the tech names, but is on shares fall after earnings miss their mark. —— is on shares. —— amazon. and as the us company on track to meet president trump's ambitious goals? second—quarter gdp figures are released today. hello, and welcome to asia business report. i'm sharanjit leyl. it has been a big week of earnings from tech companies, household names, with services that are very much part of a everyday lives. we have seen fantastic quarterly results from google‘s parent company, alphabet, as well as facebook. but the latest, twitter, has bucked the trend. its quarterly report card showed the company's quarterly report card showed the compa ny‘s revenue was quarterly report card showed the company's revenue was down about 5% and advertising revenue fell by about 8%. now, the microblogging service hosts about 328 million active users every month worldwide. that is unchanged from the previous quarter. 79% of the accounts are registered to users outside the united states. 0ne registered to users outside the united states. one third of those are right here in the asia—pacific. and one more statistic. eight out of ten of those active users access twitter via their mobile devices. meanwhile, amazonjust twitter via their mobile devices. meanwhile, amazon just reported their profits fell more than 77% as their profits fell more than 77% as the e—commerce giant expands its footprint. 0ne the e—commerce giant expands its footprint. one area is in southeast asia. amazon prime office delivery service to the region, including here in singapore. it promises to bring products like groceries to your door injust two bring products like groceries to your door in just two hours bring products like groceries to your door injust two hours by ordering on their app. it is the current —— the company's first for a into this region, and it is going head—to—head with china's alibaba. earlier i spoke to the chief of a consumer technology website and asked them why these well—known companies had a difficult learning season. companies had a difficult learning season. you companies had a difficult learning season. you never companies had a difficult learning season. you never know what happens in the financial world. it is quite interesting in terms of the innovation. for example, amazon prime, promising to our delivery times in singapore, that is quite exciting for the south—east asian market. we have never had anything like this before. let's look at twitter. twitter is failing to grow meaningfully beyond its 328 million monthly active users, at a time when its rival, facebook, has reached 2 billion users. so what is the trend? well, it is still a growth market, i think. 0ut well, it is still a growth market, i think. out of the top ten twitter users in the world, the asia pacific has about four or five of them. if you include turkey in that equation, or even russia, that is a lot of growth potential for active twitter users in southeast asia alone you have indonesia, the philippines and thailand. they are very active on twitter. it would be good for twitter. it would be good for twitter to focus perhaps on this pa rt twitter to focus perhaps on this part of the world. they are losing active users in the united states. i think they are down to 68 million active users per month there, down from 70 million. i was thinking that with donald trump's appetite for tweeting early in the morning, unfiltered tweets, that they will actually attract more active users, but that doesn't seem to be happening. 0bviously amazon's problems, part of it is spending so much an expanding globally, including here in southeast asia. you are at the launch of the is on prime service here in singapore. —— amazon prime. do you think it will succeed? it amazon prime. do you think it will succeed ? it is amazon prime. do you think it will succeed? it is promising, if they can deliver in two hours. we have never seen can deliver in two hours. we have never seen anything like that before. it adds convenience to people who can shop at home and wait for their deliveries. that is a good business proposition as far as i'm concerned. that was tim goh. so, how has america's economy been doing lately? we should find out later today when the latest gdp figures, the gross domestic product numbers, are released. this will tell us how much the economy grew in the last three months. it comes at a time in the current administration has been promising growth rates of 3% or more. that is a goal that some experts believe is pretty lofty. as candidate for president, donald trump had ambitious goals for america's economy, believing he could make the country's gdp saw. —— soar. we are bringing it from 1% to 496. i soar. we are bringing it from 1% to 4%. i think we could go to 5% or 6%. but the realities of governing the country has the president singing in a more muted tone. the various players on president trump's economic team have suggested that america's economy could grow around 396. you would need productivity to go back to levels seen only at the peak of the tech boom, in order to get sustainable rates of growth, at 396 get sustainable rates of growth, at 3% or3.5%, or get sustainable rates of growth, at 3% or 3.5%, or better. we have only done that for a few years, in the entire post—world war ii environment. so i think it is very unlikely that anything on the fiscal policy front will get us on a sustainable 3% or better. policy front will get us on a sustainable 396 or better. it was fiscal policy that had the international monetary fund downgrading america's growth prospects both for this year and the next. in the imf‘s opinion, whatever fiscal policy does get made may not be as growth boosting as previously hoped for. the continuing saga of repealing and replacing 0bamacare has had a cascading impact on president trump's legislative priorities. reforming this country's complicated tax code, and passing a $1 billion spending bill, those things that would have a direct impact on america's economic growth. but the likelihood of getting either of those two things anywhere close to the president's desk is looking highly unlikely. in other news, baidu ‘s net profits rose more than 83% as the company bounced back after a crackdown on its core business by chinese regulators. internet search company has been focusing on investing in artificial intelligence and developing cloud capacity as it reshuffles its core business. earlier this month, baidu partnered with ford and nvidia to launch assault driving car platform. starbucks is spending over $1 billion for a full stake in the fast—growing chinese market. the coffee chain said it would buy the remaining shares of its east china business from its joint business partners. starbucks is china's fastest—growing market outside the us by number of stores. the deal would help the company reach its target of operating 5000 stores in mainland china by 22 and one. —— 2021. singapore —based noble group has announced it will sell most of its assets in the us to try to raise cash and focus on its operations here in asia. the firm has been hit bya here in asia. the firm has been hit by a collapse in commodities prices and allegations of improper accounting. the singapore —based company has lost 75% of its market value this year. its share price has plunged by half after the company warned of a quarterly loss of around $1.8 billion. earlier i spoke to simon littlewood, the president at consultancy house acg about why the company is in such trouble. they have made one mistake after another. it is ironic singapore places so much emphasis on commodities trading asa much emphasis on commodities trading as a core industry. there are about 17,400 people employed in the industry in singapore. it has compound annual growth of about 7%. the trade minister last month was talking about how important it is. noble has got in all kinds of trouble by basically expecting commodities to continue to go up. it is not clear that they have a solution to their serious working capital issues. they have raised a number of armed issues in the market. they have burned through that money. the second quarter of this year they lost a staggering 1.8 billion us dollars in one quarter. the share price dropped by nearly 40% overnight. so the outlook is not good. and the responses to that have been to sell—off elements of the core business, essentially selling the silverware, selling capital assets in order to fund what our innocence working capital problems. —— what are in essence. and they have announced they will lay off half their staff in singapore. when a business lays off half the stuff but carries on doing the same thing, you have to wonder what they were doing before. they are going from 800 400, good news if you work for them. let's look at commodities. one of the reasons they are in trouble is that they bet the wrong way on where commodities are headed. where do you see commodities going, and how will it impact on other firms in asia? there is a difference between soft commodities and hard commodities. soft commodities are essentially crops, things like coffee beans and animals and potatoes, stuff like that. as long as the human race continues to expand, which it does, and as long as countries become richer and people have more context diets, the basic level of demand this of commodities will continue to go up. jack complex diets. —— diets. so there are ups and downs in the markets, but broadly it is positive. at commodities are different. iron ore is very important in asia but is driven primarily by chinese infrastructure demand. that demand is tapering off. they have massive —— massive overcapacity in their steel industry. they are seeking to export that by creating foreign initiatives largely funded by chinese loans all across southeast asia and all across central asia. that will explore some of that capacity, but overall demand will be softer for capacity, but overall demand will be softerfor iron ore. capacity, but overall demand will be softer for iron ore. that was simon littlewood, speaking to me earlier. that is all for this edition of asia business report. thank you for watching. this is bbc news. after two years of war, yemen is facing the worst cholera outbreak in history. congress in washington has voted overwhelmingly to impose new sanctions on russia, iran and north korea, despite president trump's objections. figures from the ministry ofjustice have revealed an alarming increase in the number of visitors released by mistake. as well as rising violence and cases of self harm in jails. 0ur violence and cases of self harm in jails. our home affairs correspondentjune jails. our home affairs correspondent june kelly jails. our home affairs correspondentjune kelly has this report. spice in a jailhouse! mobile report. spice in ajailhouse! mobile phone footage which shows one inmate high on spice, egged on by a fellow prisoner. go on, son! this synthetic drug offers brief relief to some but is contributing to deep—seated problems in our prisons. somejails are awash with drugs, and is on the outside, the dealers have the power and the dependence are desperate. —— dependents. all adding to the violence in a volatile environment. 0ne former offender who doesn't want his face show knows this world. he has spent time in six different jails and witnessed attacks on fellow inmates. i certainly saw some pretty horrendous violence. people being slashed with toothbrushes which have had prison raises melted into them. —— razors. and prisoners mixing up there only for cocktail to throw at each other. it causes the most terrible scarring, it is like an acid attack. that sort of thing is used to punish people, for example, for being suspected informers, telling prison authorities about what is going on inside the prison. 0rfor debt. authorities about what is going on inside the prison. or for debt. we asked for an interview with the justice secretary, david liddington, to discuss the situation in our jails. the request was turned down. ina jails. the request was turned down. in a statement the minister said his top priority was improving safety and security in our prisons, and today's figures reinforced how crucial it was that progress was made as quickly as possible. as a serving prison officer, sarah does not want to be identified. earlier this year she spoke to us about the job. i go into work feeling anxious. tensions are high, prisoners are angry and frustrated. when you open angry and frustrated. when you open a door you do not know what you will be faced with. i have had everything from urine, faeces, televisions thrown at me. ministers say that extra staff will make the difference. but every new report seems to underline the perilous state of our prisons. lots more is always on our website. iamon lots more is always on our website. i am on social media. now it is time for all of the sports news in sport today. hello, this is sport today, live from the bbc sport centre. coming up on this programme: england qualify for the women's euro 2017 quarter—finals where they'll play france, who they've never beaten in a competitive match. a controversial run out for sri lanka's upul tharanga as his side struggle in the first test against india. and a fourth gold medal for katie ledecky at the world aquatics championships in budapest. hello and welcome to the programme. we start with the women's euro 2017 football tournament in the netherlands. all eight quarter finalists are now known with england and spain the last two through and katie gornall was watching as england beat portugal 2—1 in tilburg. group d has been decided at a expected england remain with their 100% record and go to as winners. but they didn't have everything their own way