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Business Matters: Shares Slide as Brexit Fears Take Hold

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07/07/2016 GMT

Shares Slide as Brexit Fears Take Hold

BBC World Service - Business Matters, Shares Slide as Brexit Fears Take Hold

Britain’s Brexit vote continues to impact the global economy

Britain’s referendum vote over European Union membership continues to roil equity and currency markets

Is the global economy facing the 'second wave' of share market and currency chaos after Brexit? That has been the suggestion of the last 24 hours as the pound suffered record falls and the dollar has come under pressure too. After the referendum result showed the UK wanted to leave the European Union, the initial market mayhem settled down a bit, so is this new instability a sign the storm is not over?

The Italian authorities have detained an Eritrean who they say has revealed a huge network of people smugglers across Italy and southern Europe. He also revealed that the same people were were smuggling khat. It is a narcotic stimulant hugely popular among Somalis. Khat or chat as it is called in Ethiopia, was made illegal two years ago here in the UK. But it remains legal across East Africa, and continues to be chewed socially here in the UK. Communities are divided. For some, visiting the mafrish - or khat house - is as commonplace and sociable as drinking beer at a pub. For others, the physical and mental health implications, added to the disruptive element of khat means work and family life is being negatively affected by low-level addiction.

After seven years of investigation, the official verdict on Britain's involvement in the Iraq war has landed in London with a heavy thud - 6.5 million words which say that Britain need not have gone to war, was ill-prepared to fight, and should think very carefully before doing it again. Sir John Chilcott, who chaired the enquiry, laid out the costs of what happened. The man blamed for the Iraq morass by many in Britain is the former Prime Minister Tony Blair, who defended his role today. Of course the UK was not the main player in Iraq. America was, and it has a few troops there now, fighting the Islamic state group. However the US has never had a self-examination of its role in Iraq like the Chilcott report. 

We are joined throughout the programme by two guests on opposite sides of the Pacific - David Moser, Academic Director, CET Beijing Chinese Studies,  who's in Beijing, and Peter Morici, professor of international economics at the University of Maryland,  in Washington.

(Photo: A man waves an EU and Union Jack flag around. Credit: Justin Tallis/AFP)

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