thai people prepared to head to the pole come for an election coming at a pivotal time for the polarised southeast asian country. and new york city passes a law banning weight discrimination in housing and hiring. hello and welcome to asia business report. i'm karishma vaswani. we start the programme in thailand where this weekend tens of millions of voters are heading to the polls to cast their vote in the general election. nearly 70 political parties are contesting the election. the front runner is paetongtarn shinawatra — she's the leader of the country's largest opposition party and the daughter of former

prime minister thaksin shinawatra. the winning candidate, and their party will have to grapple with a slew of domestic issues — including polarised politics and a slowing economy. for more on this, i spoke to syetarn hansakul of the economist intelligence unit, who told me thailand is slowly recovering from the pandemic. economic situation has improved from last year. it is in the middle of a cyclical rebound because coming out of the pandemic recession a bit later than others, but finally, after the country reopened in late 2022, the tourism sector, which has been a key part of the country's gdp, is recovering slowly. that is helping to improve jobs and income, and we are seeing the rebound unfolding. but having said that,

there are plenty of structural issues that are hurting thailand's long—term competitiveness, and that is something the new government will need to look into and correct. what is your outlook for growth this year in thailand and next? the economy will probably grow faster compared to last year. we expect about 3.8% for 2022. and other stories for you today... shares in the american bank pacwest have plunged more than 20% after its deposits fell by one and a half billion dollars last week. there was a run on deposits following reports the bank was considering a sale to bolster its finance. pacwest is one of several us regional lenders whose shares have been hit by concerns over the health of the banking sector, following the collapses of silicon valley bank, signature bank and first repbulic. banks have been told they will need to bear the 16 billion dollar cost of a us

regulator replenishing its deposit insurance fund hit by the recent failures. elon musk says that he has found a new chief executive to lead twitter. mr musk did not name the platform's new boss but said "she" would start in six weeks at which point he would become executive chairman and chief technology officer. our silicon valley correspondent james clayton has more. well, first of all, i think it is important to mention that just because elon musk has tweeted something doesn't necessarily mean it is actually true. you may remember i interviewed elon musk last month and i asked him who is going to be the next chief executive and he told me he had already made a dog chief executive. so it is sometimes difficult to know whether he is joking or not. it does seem like he is actually being serious this

time. that would be a really significant moment for twitter. first of all, he said that the new chief executive is a she. i think that is really important, because the vast majority of tech bosses in silicon valley and elsewhere are men. so that would be a very interesting development. and it will be very interesting to know exactly what the chief executive, what power the chief executive will have, because elon musk will still own the company, will still have a huge amount of power so is this more of a technocratic role where you are basically doing elon musk bidding or will they actually have genuine power? that's really interesting question. i think if you look at his other companies that he already has to run it does seem i've got elon musk would like to run everything. there may well be that the new chief executive actually does have real power. and then the markets too, and the market reaction

to the tweet, they think he's being serious because tesla shares average prices have shot up at this news. tesla shareholders were worried that elon musk would be spending too much time on twitter, and not enough time working on how to make tesla be better and bigger. so, there's lots to unpack here, but worth mentioning once again, this is elon musk we are talking about. we don't know whether he is being serious, we don't know whether there will be a chief executive in six weeks�* time because you never quite know with elon musk. in the last two minutes, a number of media reports are suggesting linda jakarino may be the person who might be the ceo. she's currently a chairman at universal. we are working to confirm this at the bbc and we will bring you that information as and when we get it, so do to stay tuned for more development on that story. it is the 12th time the bank

has raised rates in 18 months. the bank's governor said he no longer expected the uk to enter recession but warned that growth in the economy would be slow while inflation remained too high. that's had now to india. economic crimes continue to be a major challenge for indian companies with nearly 70% of them being affected by some form of fraud in the last two years. this is according to a latest report by pwc in india. the bbc�*s arunoday mukharji has more details from new delhi. well this survey was over across a hundred organisations from diverse backgrounds, from banking, hospitality, manufacturing, and many others. the survey also found that this kind of platform font on social media orfintech platforms had become even more common and risen ever since the start of the pandemic. that is because of the simultaneous rise of people working from home,

growth in e—commerce activity, delivery applications and contactless payments. exposing a new set of challenges for companies, said the report. in fact, the survey has found that 26% of indian organisations have suffered losses to the tune of over $1 million due to platform fraud. one of the key findings was that four out of every ten instances of fraud in india were conducted by internal perpetrators. so in terms of corrective measures the report recommended that if companies had strong internal monitoring over two thirds of all platform frauds can be mitigated. but the report also recognised the need for companies to have a robust risk strategy in place. ever since the pandemic, india has seen a huge boom in e—commerce transactions, as well as digital payments as well, and also the number of smartphone users has increased to nearly 800 million, and that's why we become even more prone to such attacks. new york city has passed

new regulation banning weight discrimination. award winning rapper lizzo sings about it. life is short. british actress activist, and modeljamila jameel talks about it. essentially i was dismissed because i was a larger woman now so therefore my opinion didn't count as much because i was too lazy to do the work to be slim. more than 2 million people in new york city have been victims of weight discrimination. it is notjust societal stigma. one study says that weight discrimination costs new york city $6.4 billion in 2019. the ayes have it. now the city has added height and weight as protected classes alongside race, age, and gender. this bill was introduced to the city legislature after this man's personal experience of having someone pat his belly. i have known in the past few years that i have

been gaining weight. and so just to have someone else, someone that i considered a close friend, tell me that, it was very hurtful. but also spoke to a societal problem, just the way folks normally think about weight as being lazy, being less productive. and then, there are the beauty standards, which for decades have said skinny is beautiful, fat is not. notions that the likes of lizzo and jamila have outright rejected. for so many people, the fight against body shaming is fundamental to their well—being. it's not a health issue, it's a civil rights issue. this woman is with the national association this woman is with the national association to advance fat acceptance. and works closely with city lawmakers on the bill. the hope is by talking about weight discrimination and body size discrimination, and by changing policies about this type of discrimination that we can bring about cultural change.

new york is the largest city to pass this kind of legislation. so far, michigan is the only state in the country that has laws banning weight this termination. advocates want new york state to be next. that brings us to the end of asia business report at this hour. i want to tell you about how the exercise company peloton is recalling over 2 million bikes over fears that the seeds could detach during use. 0wners over fears that the seeds could detach during use. owners have been advised to stop using the bikes in the company has received numerous reports of injury including lacerations and a fractured west —— wrist. the bikes sold in popularity during the pandemic afterjim's closed but it has since been struggling. it's advertisements have been mocked as sexist and its treadmill was recalled for safety issues and it shares plummeted 75% in 2021, in part linked to the depiction of a

sex and the city character dying from a heart attack on one of their bikes. 3am on the central line and this team is cleaning a mix of human hair, skin, and metal that comes from the brakes and tracks. it's everywhere. the team uses magnetic wands to lift the waste into bags. they take away tons every night. it is hard, hot work. these track cleaning teams work all through the night. what they're trying to do is clean up all of this debris so it doesn't create tube dust which then people breathe in. this section of track was clearjust a month ago. two teams managed to cover 40% of the network a year.

dust has always been a problem on the underground. 0nce tube fluffers, as they were then known, cleaned the tracks. the debris is also a fire hazard. the dustiest lines are central and the bakerloo. research is being done into the health impact of the dust. tfl says the levels of iron oxide are within current health limits and their quality on the tube isn't harmful. tfl says results from research will be known sometime this year. it also wants to use new technologies to clean the tube�*s air. at the moment, though, it says these track cleaners will help keep dust levels down. hello there. tonight a race across the world, trains nationalise and a snappy

situation. first, cost for things that mortgages and student loans also known as interest rates have gone up today. the bank of england has increased rates to 4.5% from 4.25%. this is in an effort to try and curb the spiralling cost of living. 0ur try and curb the spiralling cost of living. our business reporter has more. the decision today could _ reporter has more. the decision today could make _ reporter has more. the decision today could make it _ reporter has more. the decision today could make it more - today could make it more expensive for homeowners who are repaying their mortgage, could even put off first time home buyers. it could also impact credit card and loan repayments. good news for savers with prices rising so high any money put away does not go as far. high any money put away does not go as far-— not go as far. race across the world has _ not go as far. race across the world has reached _ not go as far. race across the world has reached the - not go as far. race across the world has reached the finish l world has reached the finish line. the show shows people competing in pairs to travel across canada without phones, planes or credit cards. a spoiler alert if you have not seen it yet but last night tricia and cathy won the £20,000 cash prize for

finishing first. a train company which mostly run services in northern england and parts of scotland is to be taken over by the government. customers had complained of bad service and cancelled trains. time now to leave you with ten seconds of alligators. an island in alabama where a man spotted a massive alligator in the shallow part of the ocean. a snappy situation. you are caught up, bye for now and have a good evening.

hello, i'm marc edwards, from the bbc sport centre. coming up on our programme: late drama from the old lady — juventus equalise at the death in their europa league semifinal first leg clash with sevilla. record breaking for the rajastan royals — 21—year—old yashasvi jaiswal hits the fastest half century in ipl history. a shock in the eternal city as sofia kenin stuns second seeded sabalenka in straight sets at the rome 0pen.

hello, welcome to the program.