and from cows to coding. we meet the woman with a remarkable career that began on a farm in rural illinois and has taken her all the way to the shining lights of silicon valley. and with polls now open in the uk general election, we promise a politics—free programme. so let us know what you make of the stories we're covering today. get in touch in the usual way. use the hashtag #bbcbizlive. hello and welcome to business live. when we say politics free, we do refer to the uk election and not the politicking going on at the moment in the middle east. we start in the gulf state of qatar, where concerns are growing about the economic fallout after neighbouring arab states cut off diplomatic and trade ties over its alleged support of terrorist groups, something doha denies. late wednesday, top credit rating agency standard and poors cut qatar's credit rating, with a warning it could be cut further still. its stock market is down almost 10% in the last three days, and its currency is at an 11—year low. qatar is a tiny nation, but it's a very important one in business terms. it has one of the world's largest reserves of natural gas. it has seen exports of its liquefied natural gas or lng soar in recent years. that's made the state phenomenally wealthy. it has built up one of the world's biggest sovereign wealth funds, worth around $335 billion. as it's used that money to buy assets across the globe. they range from paris saint—germain football club to big stakes in volkswagen, russian oil giant rosneft and commodities trader glencore to britian‘s barclays bank. not to mention millions of square metres of london, including canary wharf, the shard and harrods. the success of qatar airways has made it a major aviation hub. but more than 50 flights a day have been grounded because of airspace closures. and it's a huge employer of migrant workers, many of whom are working on stadiums for the 2022 world cup. families from india to the philippines depend on the money they send home. there are half a million workers from india alone in qatar. zeynep kosereisoglu is practice leader, middle east, north africa and turkey at frontier strategy group. nice to see you. let's start with some background to this. how are we in this position, and why is qatar looking increasingly isolated 7 in this position, and why is qatar looking increasingly isolated? this is because of long years of tension between qatar and its neighbouring countries, like egypt. we started seeing these problems that in 1985 when we had an attempted coup. we have been watching a lot of these tensions over the last few weeks increase over the foreign policy, through mostly soft power but of course the fact that these measures are taking place today, and to such an are taking place today, and to such a n exte nt are taking place today, and to such an extent that it shows us that maybe a change from a us per spett with to the region could also have been the main trigger for such a large move from these countries.” remember in 2014 there were some similarities with hot what happened then, but it strikes me that this time it is more severe. we have had a lot of talks between these countries about qatar's foreign policy, that was more of a short—term spat, but this time we are seeing unprecedented levels of measures, so different in terms of the extent and the pressure they will put on the economy. so what does it mean day—to—day for the economy and people living in qatar? a few factors are important. the first one, you have seen already some shortages within the economy, it is very much import dependent so we will see domestic prices increasing, but also economic activity in the country depends on imports as well so we will be seeing a halt in the construction activity. qatar airways as you have mentioned as well. but most importantly we will see precious on the peg to the dollar. —— we will see pressure on the peg to the dollar. they do have reserves to maintain the peg, but as this conflict last longer, we will set pressure on liquidity within the banks. and as sally outlined, so many investments from qatar around the world, it has been active in spreading the wealth around the world so it has a diverse economy. how long does this crisis last? no one really knows. but what are those ripple effects around the world? one really knows. but what are those ripple effects around the world ?m is going to be very hard for the qatari authorities to prove to these countries that there will be a change in policy. they are asking for a very big change, so you have to make a big move to showcase and prove that the foreign policy is going to change and that will be quite difficult from qatar's perspective. so this might last a little longer than we saw in 2014. you mentioned some of the investments within the world, but also a lot of investment in the region, from turkey to egypt, so some of them are in projects that can't be moved out, but the liquid ones that are mostly in stocks can be pulled, and we could see that if this lasts much longer. zeynep, it is good to here your thoughts on that. for now, thank you very much, zeynep kosereisoglu, thank you for coming in. let's take a look at some of the other stories making the news. china's imports and exports were up strongly last month. exports in may rose 8.7% compared to the year before. imports were up 14.8%. the latest official trade figures gave the country a trade surplus of $40.81 billion for the month. sony says it has sold more than 1 million virtual reality headsets around the world. the playstation vr headset was released in october, and its relatively low price has seen sales grow faster than rival products from facebook and htc. the headset is designed to work with the playstation 4 rather than requiring new equipment. three events are keeping traders transfixed today. one is the uk election, and of course we won't know the outcome of that until maybe this time tomorrow or earlier. the other one is the european central bank meeting happening at lunchtime today. no policy change expected, but what will be said at the press conference afterwards is critical. and then there is that james comey testimony taking place today. what does that mean for the trump administration? that is playing a pa rt administration? that is playing a part in markets worldwide, we are seeing a lot of caution in terms of trade. data out ofjapan seeing a lot of caution in terms of trade. data out of japan as well, about its growth figures. the final figures showing growth at 1%. but missed estimates by quite a distance, so that the pressure on stocks in tokyo. let's have a look at europe right now, so a sense of how things are going. the ftse 100 how things are going. the ftse100 pretty flat, sterling still bubbling along. a slight gain for germany, and that is the state of play here. samira hussain has the details about what's ahead on wall street today. all eyes will be on capitol hill, james comey will testify to us lawmakers. this will be his first public appearance since he was fired by president donald trump. any damaging revelation in his testimony could dampen already flagging momentum for trump's pro—business fiscal agenda. in earning the series, james maco will be reporting, and they have warned that four—year sales will be lower than previously thought. it faces treasure from rising competition and commodity costs. and a little bit of economics news. thejobless claims dipped slightly to 240,000 from 248,000 in the week previous. thank you. joining us is james hughes, chief market analyst, at gkfx, a trading brokerage. let's talk about ecb, because we haven't talked through at least two days since we talked about the european central bank! at the same time this is happening, greece is rearing its ugly head again in terms of the debt crisis, but let's talk debt first of all. there is no change expected, and this has been the case for a long time. it is not necessarily the rates we are looking at now, it is the quantitative easing which is extending to december this year, but there is so much discussion at the moment about the fact that the german economy is overheating, the german economy is performing well and this is having stimulus pumped into it. so much pressure coming from germany to the eec beta start to take that back, but it is getting a balancing act, germany much stronger than the other countries. and you have germany in that position, you have greece in a really dire position still. yesterday we had banks bailed out by santander, the yesterday we had banks bailed out by sa ntander, the whole yesterday we had banks bailed out by santander, the whole banking support system kicking in, and then you have this weekend, parliamentary elections in france. it isjust a mess, isn't it? it isn't a mess, but it is complicated! but it is a mess, as it has been for the last ten yea rs, as it has been for the last ten years, and we have known this story for such a long time. you call a spade a spade! we talked about greece tenures are going exactly the same situation, and they said, but the imf said, we will deal with your debt later. that doesn't work, because later eventually comes around. yes, at the time we talked about them kicking the can down the road, and here we are. yes, we have got to the can, and what will they do? there will be a few more measures, a few more statements from germany about what they will do, and it isa germany about what they will do, and it is a mess, unfortunately, and it doesn't show any signs of changing. we will talk more about that a little later, you will talk as though the papers, but for now, thank you. let's go to australia now, where special k is a special name. you may think of it as a serial. but in australia, it is all about tennis star who is becoming well known. the top 100 tennis player thanasi kokkinakis is trying to use the name commercially. we have seen this sort of row before, but not often between a serial provider and a tennis player! it really is a different type of court case the thanasi kokkinakis! it is over intellectual property. the 21—year—old is known as special k, and what he would like to do because he is trying to bank on his fame and his good health at the time being is to create a special tennis line of clothing, and all the stuff that can come with it, kellogg's is saying that special k is one of its best selling cereals, and they are taking him to court in adelaide. lawyers on both sides of decided not to say nothing, but theyjust showed the crying emoji with the sad words on his account. don't cry over spilt milk, that is what i say. thank you for your input. still to come, we will meet the woman who started out counting cows and now ru ns started out counting cows and now runs her very own tech firm. it is an accounting software company, it has gone from strength to strength. we will hear that story very shortly. you are with business live from bbc news. first, let's focus on some more corporate stories. flybe, europe's largest regional airline has announced a pre—tax loss of £20 million, compared to a £2.7 million profit the previous year. the airline recently created an alliance with eastern airways to operate its scheduled route network under the flybe brand. theo leggett has been looking at the figures — he's in our business newsroom. we have talked about fly be before, auk we have talked about fly be before, a uk regionalairline, it we have talked about fly be before, a uk regional airline, it does all of those routes you don't necessarily want to get a train for but it has not managed to make it a success this year, big turnaround. we knew this year would be bad because in march the company put out a profits warning, saying that there we re a profits warning, saying that there were issues. some of the problems are beyond its control. for example, bad weather which has forced flight cancellations, strikes among air traffic controllers in france, that has had an impact. you say they do routes that people won't necessarily ta ke routes that people won't necessarily take trains for but some of the routes they do, there are rail alternatives and the rail companies have been discounting so that has had an effect as well. but to a certain extent, flybe has also been a victim of its own actions. when things looked better if you years ago it ordered a lot of planes. it has renegotiated some of those contracts, but other planes had to be brought into the fleet and it had to find something to do with it. that has left it with a problem of overcapacity. it has not been able to fill up the planes quite as well, not been making so much money and there is a lot of competition in this market. that is where some other problems have been. it has been insulated from other issues because it mainly flies of the uk, it hasn't had many problems as other airlines with a fall in the value of sterling. they does have the pay aircraft leasing products in dollars but it has hedged against those in done rather well from those hedges. it is struggling at the moment in a broad brush. it thinks it will be able to reduce the size of its fleet when leases come up for renewal later in the year so that should help sort itself out. so it is saying things should get better in the future, on the other hand there are big cost involved as well because it is revamping its it systems and expect over the next year to have £6 million worth of costs associated with cancelling existing contracts. so a mixed picture but the past year has not been particularly good. thank you very much. a reminder of course, in case you had missed it, it is the general election today. a reminder, bbc coverage begins on bbc one at five to ten this evening, the first results around midnight. top story today. qatar has had its rating cut. reuters reporting that qatar's central bank has asked commercial banks to provide it with details and frequent updates on their foreign exchange trading. lots of people scrabbling to get hold of us dollars. we are also hearing anecdotal evidence ofjust quite how this rift is affecting people. we have heard women the last half—hour that the emirates postal service is stopping all post a qatar, and says if the posters midway there it will come back. —— all post—to qatar. let's remind you how market are doing in europe, trading has been underway for nearly 15 minutes. pretty flat really. rent crude up nearly 8%, but at $48.43 a barrel. the ftse100 nearly 8%, but at $48.43 a barrel. the ftse 100 fairly flat. keep an eye on the pound, tomorrow, in the wa ke eye on the pound, tomorrow, in the wake of the vote of the uk general election. and now let's get the inside track on coding — an industry that's often faced accusations of sexism. it is very male dominated. therese tucker runs a financial software firm — black line — and is one of only a handful of female tech entrepeneurs to take her company public. originally from a farming town in illinois, she took one of the first ever programming courses offered by apple in the early 1980s. in 2001, she founded blackline, funding the business herself. she's had to battle sexism in the tech industry — some funding for the business was only offered on the condition that she was replaced as chief executive by a man — but she's seen off these challenges and joins us now. still the boss. quite an achievement just to be here given all of that, welcome to the programme, good to have you here. let's start with the business. we said during the programme, your background was very rule, talk us through this course. you went to university and you took the apple course. that is when you fell in love with coding and that is pretty where you are. focus through that. the beautifulthing pretty where you are. focus through that. the beautiful thing about programming is that you can direct a computer to do something for you, and you can then run that on a million computers. the power is amazing for what you can do for business with that, and i fell in love with it. and i have spent my entire career doing that. take me back to the 1980s, and that apple course. we all see at full a certain way now and we see what it has done an transform the business, what was apple—like back then? an transform the business, what was apple-like back then? it was radically new. at that time, most of the computers were still mainframes with cards, and is terrible to work with. apple was this amazing new innovation that actually made it fun. not that different from today, in many ways. tell us about the journey, it sounds like it has been pretty tough. any journey journey, it sounds like it has been pretty tough. anyjourney is tough. but if nutley in the tech industry. it is very male dominated, and that is true, starting in university. i would be in classes weather might be —— where there might be one other woman in the class of 500. it has not held you back, have you heard had to overcome certain things or have you just ploughed ahead regardless? how have you tackled it? i believe it has both a good and bad side. if you were the only woman in the room, you absolutely get noticed. you do have to have a bit ofa noticed. you do have to have a bit of a thick skin however, so that certain thingsjust of a thick skin however, so that certain things just don't bother you, you just move on from them. you have also got to be pretty persistent. i'm just looking at some of your journey. you persistent. i'm just looking at some of yourjourney. you drained your bank account, emptied your pension, second mortgage to your home, and you maxed out your credit cards and baked your friends. that is quite a gamble! it is a little scary at times, i had many sleepless nights. the funny thing about being an entry to nor is when you are doing people think you are crazy, and when you are think you are crazy, and when you a re successful think you are crazy, and when you are successful they think you're brilliant. and they love you. but you are exactly the same person throughout the entire journey. putting all of that money on the line, your livelihood on the line from your friends, family, line, your livelihood on the line from yourfriends, family, it could have gone the other way. from yourfriends, family, it could have gone the other waylj from yourfriends, family, it could have gone the other way. i could have been completely poor, starting overin have been completely poor, starting over in my 405, it was terrifying. and put this into perspective as well, you were facing a woman with two children at that time as well. ye5, two children at that time as well. yes, it was terrifying. so you must have just absolutely believed in this company you created, which is 5till black line. this company you created, which is still black line. yes, it is still black line. being an entrepreneur, you have this overwhelming desire and drive to build something. i knew that if i gave up that six months later i would be thinking about the next company. when you were looking for venture capital funding and the u approach said yes, we are interested but we want this man to run the company, not you, what was your reaction? i wanted to evaluate it, i was the new ceo, i wanted to do what was best for the company, so idid do what was best for the company, so i did have a meeting with him, and was not terribly impressed. so you didn't go ahead? we didn't go ahead, and we did not go ahead with that venture capital. i have since found many people that are quite supportive, regardless of my gender, and that was the right move at that point in time. time is really tight but i'm interested in your view, i have a bit of a perspective on this. are things changing, are more women able to succeed in the tech industry? no. enrolments in university in technology courses is atan university in technology courses is at an incredible low, it is hard to find women programmers and subsequently there are less people promoted, less women technology entrepreneurs. why is that? i don't think they teach it correctly, they need to teach it with much more of a will real—world perspective so that it reaches out to women who like to solve problems. sounds like another venture for you. it could be. therese, thank you very much. president trump's plans to ease regulation on us banks will have dire consequences — that's according to the former congressman who orchestrated major reforms after the financial crisis. barney frank helped introduce the dodd—frank act after the banking collapse of 2008. but the us house of representatives will vote later on a new bill to replace it. mr frank has been speaking to the bbc‘s mariko 0i. what they are talking about undoing are the rules that keep large inch ocea ns are the rules that keep large inch oceans from getting so indebted that the government is faced with a choice between paying taxpayer's money to bailout their debts or letting them go under and causing a crisis. but do you agree with some of the proposals made by the choice act? you yourself said there were some mistakes in the dodd—frank law you would like to change. some mistakes in the dodd—frank law you would like to changelj some mistakes in the dodd—frank law you would like to change. i do believe that the $50 billion level we set to be in the super jurisdiction was too low. that was a mistake we made of the time. there isa mistake we made of the time. there is a bipartisan coalition ready to raise that. i think the smaller banks and the 10 billion should get some explicit relief. there were rules we didn't think would apply to them. in fact they are concerned about them, they spent about of money showing they are affected by them, so i think there would be a consensus to do those two things. beyond that, everything that the republicans pill verse, the rules we put in place to prevent irresponsible behaviour. i would argue for any of those. barney frank of the dodd—frank act. ken dodd, a comedian in the uk, let's not go there. joining us again is james hughes, chief market analyst, at gkfx. this is an interesting story from our transport correspondent on the bbc website today, does ba's explanation stack up? this is to do with their delays. their explanation has some people worried a little bit. the explanation being it was human error? yes, someone accidentally cut the power, then messed up the reboot and fried the circuits, and that is the language that was used, it was like me saying to my dad what happened, that is the kind of excuse i would have for smashing the tv or something like that, not bringing down a multibillion—dollar company. that, not bringing down a multibillion-dollar company. james, thank you, thank you for your company, sorry it was so brief. goodbye. hello, our weather this week is being driven by areas of low pressure and there is not one but two on the chart behind me. this is saturday's weather. we will talk about this later in the forecast. this is what we are seeing, already had some heavy weather overnight in south—west england and wales, a swathe of cloud draped across the country, and more rain to come through today, especially across western parts of the uk. moving its way northwards through wales, north—west england, into northern ireland, eventually into scotland. the hide of the cloud will break, spells of sunshine but also some showers around and if you catch one of those you are likely to be on the short side. blowing through quickly on the brisk south—westerly wind and very few if any getting through to central and eastern england, you could see highs of 18 or 19. quite a few showers across northern ireland. some localised flooding in the heavier downpours. some persistent rain slowly pushing northwards through scotland. may not reach the far north till later. a cool feel here with a breeze and rain. that pushes northwards through scotland overnight, clearing northern ireland. the hide it, some drier and clearer conditions but also a few showers, especially across western areas of the uk. a mild night, temperatures now lower than ten or 11 for most of us. still some showers around tomorrow, especially in the west first thing, but through the day they will start to ease and many places will have a largely dry day, that rain eventually easing through northern scotland by lunchtime. in the sunshine and with slightly lighter winds tomorrow afternoon, we could see 20 or 21 celsius across eastern and south—eastern parts of england, 17 or 18 kameni tomorrow. here is that area of low pressure i spoke about, pushing its way towards us for saturday. please don't write off the weekend, there will be some rain around but it won't be raining all the time. some heavy and persistent rainfora time the time. some heavy and persistent rain for a time on saturday across western parts of the uk, as you head further is not as much rain. a bit warmer here as well, quite a humid field by saturday afternoon. as we go through sunday, that system sweeps eastward across the country, and leaving with it a showery day on sunday, such is the nature of showers, some of us will miss them entirely but it will be quite breezy but at least it should be a dry day for most. hello. it's thursday, it's nine o'clock. i'm victoria derbyshire, welcome to the programme. after a ll after all the way to come election day is finally here. leaders are all voting this morning — we'll bring you those pictures as they come in. internet scammers keep finding new ways to trick you out of your cash, but networks of volunteers are fighting back. i hear that i have won the lottery! yes, you need to see the information we require from you for me to process your file. i am an agent for the promotion, the payment department agent assigned to your payment. we will