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Business Matters: Samsung Recalls Note 7 Over Explosive Batteries

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Samsung Recalls Note 7 Over Explosive Batteries

03/09/2016 GMT

BBC World Service - Business Matters, Samsung Recalls Note 7 Over Explosive Batteries

Flagship Samsung smartphone released two weeks ago recalled due to explosive batteries.

Samsung Electronics is recalling its flagship Galaxy Note 7 smartphone and said that battery problems were behind phones catching fire.

Samsung launched its latest smartphone - the Galaxy Note 7 - two weeks ago. But it has an unexpected feature - the battery that seems to explode during or after charging. Ben Parr, the author of the science book Captivology, and an investor in tech firms tells us that while smartphones have got thinner and faster, the batteries have hardly changed at all.

Hanjin, one of the world's largest shipping companies, has filed for bankruptcy protection. Its vessels have been refused permission to dock and offload their cargo because ports are worried they won't get paid. Some big retailers are now trying to work out how to get their merchandise, currently stranded at sea, in to the shops. Marc Levinson is the author of "The Box: How the Shipping Container Made the World Smaller and the World Economy Bigger". He explains why the seaborne freight industry is having a tough financial time.

The tax affairs of big corporations are in the spotlight again after the European Commission said that Apple paid a rate of less than 1 per cent in the Republic of Ireland in recent years. Apple says it paid all the tax that was due. But critics of multinationals say big companies have deliberately put complicated structures in place to minimise their tax bills. That means governments get less tax revenue from businesses than they might otherwise. The Institute of Economic Affairs in the UK is calling on the British government to scrap corporation tax. It says it's a "hugely inefficient" tax and so there's no point keeping it. We ask the IEA's Diego Zuluaga why.

All this and more discussed with our guest  Peter Ryan, from ABC radio in Sydney in Australia.

(Photo: Samsung Galaxy Note7 smartphones are displayed at a Samsung showroom in Seoul. Credit: Getty.)

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