Business Matters

On Wednesday morning in Vienna OPEC is holding a meeting, aimed at halting the biggest decline in oil prices for a generation. Back in September, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries reached a tentative agreement to restrict output - but they still haven't hammered out individual output targets for each nation. We spoke to Amrita Sen of Energy Aspects about the biggest and most influential producer - Saudi Arabia. The old certainties about politics in America have been turned on their heads, including the twin beliefs that organised labour delivers votes for the Democratic Party candidate, while evangelicals deliver votes for the GOP. This time round things were less cut and dried, as Mitchell Hartman of Marketplace reports. Lithium - or white petrol as it's becoming known - is a hot commodity. Demand for the metal could triple in the next ten years - driven particularly by a rise in demand for batteries in products like smartphones, laptops and electric cars. On Tuesday a group of leading