Drop in Oil Prices Blamed on US Shale Producers

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The price of oil has hit a new six year low and the UAE's energy minister has blamed shale producers in the US. Rachel Lu of Tea Leaf Nation in Hong Kong and Dave Shaw of our partner station programme Marketplace in Washington DC join Fergus Nicoll to discuss the effect the fall has had on their respective countries. The court case of Ross Ulbricht - the man accused of founding the Silk Road website - has begun in the US. Russell Brandom at Theverge.com explains how Ulbricht's legal team will defend allegations of ill-gotten bitcoins, drug dealing and attempted murder by passing the blame to an as-yet-unknown third party. We debate GM crops as the EU allows more freedom to individual countries over whether to use them. Mark Lynas, a visiting fellow at Cornell University who supports GM goes head to head with Liz O'Neill, a scientist and director of GM Freeze, a group critical of GM. Farmers in North and South Dakota in the US are in growing competition with oil producers over use of railways to move their goods. Nancy Marshall-Genzer from Marketplace has the story. The relaxation of China's one child policy in 2013 was expected to see a surge in the country's birth rate. Author Chai Ling discusses why only a million families have so far come forward to request permission for another child. Last but not least, we have news on Woody Allen's latest venture into the world of online television.