Use BBC.com or the new BBC App to listen to BBC podcasts, Radio 4 and the World Service outside the UK.

Find out how to listen to other BBC stations

Episode details

World Service,06 May 2015,55 mins

Anger at French Surveillance Law

Big Boss Interview

Available for over a year

The French parliament approves a new surveillance law and intelligence-gathering measures designed to catch potential extremists. But civil liberties groups are outraged and say politicians are using the aftermath of the murders at Charlie Hebdo to snoop unchecked on the lives of journalists, business figures and ordinary people. We hear from Agnes de Cornulier from campaign group La Quadrature du Net. Microsoft loses its latest legal battle to register an EU trademark for Skype because, lawmakers say, the name and its cloud-like logo might mean people confuse it with the broadcaster Sky. "What a load of rubbish", says trademark expert Peter Groves, from CJ Jones Solicitors in London. Mark Miller, from our US partner radio station Marketplace, tells us about the two big American companies changing the way they produce food for the mass market, and Tianjie Ma, of Greenpeace China joins us from Beijing to explain the efforts there to curb pollution in the air and in the soil. And from Australia, a claim that visitors on working visas are being exploited by unscrupulous companies - our reporter Phil Mercer has the details. We have a special report from inside Britain's oldest cinema, which is flickering back to life after years of being mothballed, then turned into a lecture theatre. And, we uncover the unlikely connection between a Hollywood star and the Vietnamese-American domination of the nail-bar business.

Programme Website
More episodes