BBC Business Daily (Business)

Business Daily talks to the head of research at the world's biggest drug company about the long, hard process of developing a new drug. What happens when bad results pop up - do they ever get suppressed? And - Israel's wealthiest businesswoman on why she can see the future.

Business Daily looks at the vast ambitions of tiny Dubai - we talk to a real estate boss about the former feeding frenzy of property speculation that helped to cause the current debt crisis. Can Dubai really change its spots?

Business Daily today presents the sceptical environmentalist. Steve Evans talks to a prominent doubter who argues we're in danger of over-reacting. Who needs oil anyway when you can engineer cleaner substitutes genetically with biotechnology, Feike Sijbesma, chairman of Royal DSM, a Dutch company developing this type of industrial biotechnology, explains. And Lucy Kellaway asks do smiling shop assistants mean unhappy customers?

On Business Daily we look at how making goods for your own home markets, rather than for foreign consumers, can be hard to do. Lesley Curwen talks to one Indian manufacturer who's done it. And how the small signals you give off - your voice, your fidgeting in the office - can actually affect the bottom line of the business.

Business Daily today eschews hot air over wind power. Steve Evans will be analysing the cool-headed economics and asking if wind farms can work without hand-outs from consumers and tax-payers. And, mobile phones in Africa - are they calling up a load of wrong numbers?

Why should the developing world trust the promises of the rich world when it comes to money to address climate change? We investigate how it all went wrong after the Kyoto agreement and why poor countries think they've been shortchanged. And how serious is Indonesia's government about tackling corruption?

In Brazil energy rains from the sky to power the country's huge dams, it rises from the sea bed as oil, it even grows in the fields as the sugar cane that drives the country's cars. Steve Evans reports on a super abundance of clean power in a power hungry world.

Business Daily today takes an unsentimental look at Africa and offers some hard-headed solutions. It's not about aid. Nor about fancy schemes. It's about simple ideas that might make a difference. Is the African problem too many African borders?

In Business Daily should world leaders concentrate on fighting the fires of a global recession, or on re-building the worlds financial architecture and stopping beggar my neighbour trade rows? - And we ask, is the fast flow of information of the internet making the whole economic mess worse, does fear spread faster online?

Business Daily has bracing thoughts about the global downturn - one, some companies do emerge stronger from recession - two, parts of the world are still desperate to hire skilled workers - and three, its not the end of the world if you are downsized, retrenched or just plain sacked - it might just be the best thing that ever happened to you.

Here's a thing - is a recession the ideal time to start a business? Business Daily grapples with this counterintuitive idea - and hears from a former boss at Google who reckons you can get ahead - when all around you are panicking!

Business Daily cuts through the controversy over genetically modified crops and reports on how the technology has worked out on the ground. Does it live up to its promise? What about farmers who want to farm in the traditional way? Are fears well-founded?

The credit crisis - on the face of it - has nothing to do with Africa. But will Africa suffer because of it? We hear from the World Bank about fears that some of the worlds poorest will get even poorer.