The Food and Drugs Administration has withdrawn nearly a million e-cigarettes from the US market. Does this signal a turning point for the vaping industry? Small manufacturers like Amanda Wheeler, owner of Jvapes in Arizona and president of the American Vapor Manufacturers Association, are concerned about heavier regulation, as she tells Joshua Thorpe. Tim Phillips, managing director of ECigIntelligence, explains the impact of heavier regulation on the wider e-cigarette industry. In the UK, Public Health England promotes vaping as a method to stop smoking, as we hear from Jamie Hartmann-Boyce, associate professor at the Nuffield Department of Primary Care Health Sciences, at the University of Oxford. But Desmond Jenson, a lawyer at the Public Health Law Center at the Mitchell Hamline School of Law in Minnesota argues that regulators need to do more to tackle a youth vaping epidemic.

(Picture: a woman vaping. Credit: Getty Images.)

Today small energy firms among those struggling to stay afloat as world gas prices spiral. Ed Butler hears from Peter McGirr, who runs Green energy, a UK gas and electricity firm supplying about a quarter of a million households. Higher energy prices could lead to all types of additional business challenges. Sven Holester is the Norwegian President and CEO of Yara, Europe's second largest producer of commercial fertiliser. He says the spike in energy prices has already affected his firm's production. The cost of higher gas is affecting food prices, fertiliser, even abattoirs. But is it all Russia's fault? We ask Dieter Helm, professor of economic policy at the University of Oxford.

Producer: Benjie Guy

(Picture: The Slavyanskaya compressor station, the starting point of the Nord Stream 2 offshore natural gas pipeline.)

The new Lebanese government has been in place for a week, but with the economy still spiraling, Lebanese people lack confidence anything will be done in the short term to relieve the extreme economic crisis. Mohamed El Aassar, Middle East journalist with Fortune Magazine, tells the BBC's Rebecca Kesby how the country’s economy got to be in such a dire state. Reporter Houshig Kaymakamian outlines exactly who makes up the new Lebanese government, and why Lebanese people don’t trust them to enact any meaningful reforms. Beirut restaurateur Aline Kamakian describes daily life trying to run a business in the country, and economist Diana Menhem explains just how dangerous the present moment is, and what needs to change.

Producer: Frey Lindsay.

(Picture: The first batch of Iranian fuel oil arrives in the city of Baalbek in eastern Lebanon on September 16, 2021. Picture credit: Sleiman Amhaz/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)

On Business Weekly, we hear how internal research at Facebook found that social media was harming the mental health of teenage girls. In the UK, the Royal Society of Public Health is calling for social media companies to identify which pictures have been digitally altered. Also, green investing or green washing? We hear from a former Blackrock investment officer who says corporate social responsibility policies are not helping to create a carbon-zero economy. Plus, our correspondent in Kenya goes stargazing to learn how African tourism operators are trying to attract domestic customers and diversify their businesses. And, as Broadway theatres reopen, we find out how the first night went - and what the future may hold. Business Weekly is presented by Lucy Burton and produced by Matthew Davies.

Increasingly scientists are using genetic material from wild plants to make agricultural crops more resilient to climate change. To find out how, Rebecca Kesby heads to the Millennium Seed Bank for the Royal Botanic Gardens Kew, in the south of England. There she meets Dr Chris Cockel, one of their project coordinators. We also hear from Asmund Asdal of the Global Seed Vault, which is located in a mountain on the archipelago of Svalbaard, between mainland Norway and the North Pole. We speak to Dr Shivali Sharma, who is developing climate resistant varieties of pigeon pea, a staple crop in many parts of rural India. And Mohamed Lassad Ben Saleh, farmer in Tunisia, tells us how breeding crops that combine properties of indigenous wild varieties has improved the quality and yield of his crops.

Producers: Clare Williamson and Benjie Guy

(Picture: a hand holding seeds. Credit: Getty Images.)

The physical infrastructure of the United States is crumbling and businesses there are feeling the effects. So why is this bill that aims to restore roads, bridges and communications facing such a treacherous political road ahead? Successive Presidents have tried and failed to get something done about it. Now President Biden is having a go. A farmer in Mississippi tells Will Bain about the impact poor roads have on his business. He also hears from Emily Feenstra from the American Society of Civil Engineers who outlines just how bad the situation is and from the former Democratic Governor of Pennsylvania Ed Rendell who now co-chairs the infrastructure think-tank Building America's Future. (Picture credit: Getty Images)

The founders of German biotechnology company BioNTech were researching how to fight cancers using messenger RNA, "the unloved cousin of DNA", when covid-19 first appeared and they realised mRNA could be used to make a vaccine for the disease. Financial Times journalist Joe Miller has been following the company since just before the pandemic and tells Rebecca Kesby how they created the first covid-19 vaccine. Could mRNA help cure other diseases and improve vaccine access to low income countries? We ask Oksana Pyzik of the UCL School of Pharmacy. And how might the technology change the whole pharmaceutical industry? We hear from Dr Richard Torbett, CEO of the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry.

Producer: Benjie Guy

(Picture: a collection of mRNA covid vaccines. Credit: Getty Images.)

Tourism in Africa, even before the pandemic, was still not bringing in as many visitor dollars as it might. But, from stargazing trips to plans for a brand-new museum of evolution, we hear from the people changing perceptions around holidays in sub-Saharan Africa. Safari tours aren't going away, but the industry is changing and that's good news for Africa's underperforming tourism sector. Vivienne Nunis hears from Susan Murabana, CEO of The Travelling Telescope under the stars just outside Nairobi, Dr. Muchazondida Mkono, a Zimbabwean academic and lecturer in tourism at the University of Queensland Business School, and from famous Kenyan paleoanthropologist Richard Leakey.

(Image credit: Supoj Buranaprapapong, Getty Images.)

Is corporate social responsibility, so called "greenwashing", really changing carbon emitting businesses or just making it look that way? Canadian businessman Tariq Fancy used to work as Blackrock's Chief Investment Officer for sustainable investing. He tells Ed Butler why he thinks CSR isn't a good enough tool to achieve a net zero economy.

(Picture: Two climate activists from Extinction Rebellion talk to each other outside the Bank of England during a protest. Credit: Getty Images.).

In this edition of Business Weekly, we look at why one of the poorest countries in Latin America, El Salvador, decided to make Bitcoin legal tender. We also find out what happened when the cryptocurrency crashed on the first day it was rolled out. We hear about the devastating economic effect of covid in Kenya as it rolls out further curfew restrictions. Also, in a few weeks’ time, the matriarch of European politics, the German Chancellor Angela Merkel, will step down. We hear what issues are playing on the minds of German voters as they get ready to head to the polls. And for years Lamu, Kenya’s ancient trading port, has been in decline. But government hopes the opening of a vast, new facility means it can be a commercial superstar once more. Plus, the chief executive of Babbel, Arne Schepker tells us why the company is listing on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange and whether lockdowns have impacted on people’s desire to learn languages. Business Weekly is presented by Lucy Burton and produced by Matthew Davies.

The UK's suffering a huge shortage of lorry drivers, but where have 100,000 drivers gone? The shortage is now having an impact on everything from chicken in restaurants, to mattresses in furniture shops, fuel at pumps and even beer in pubs. So what's going on? We hear from drivers, driving trainers, retailers and the wholesale industry and what's causing the shortfall and what can be done to solve it.

Picture credit: Getty Images

Lamu, once a bustling gateway to the Indian Ocean, has seen its fortunes decline in recent decades, not least because of its position near the border with Somalia, and the threat from militants. But earlier this year a new deep sea port was opened, which, the Kenyan government hopes, will make Lamu a commercial superstar once more. Vivienne Nunis takes a tour of the port with Dolly Okanga from Kenya Ports Authority. We also speak to Famao Shukry about a special kind of sea turtle in the area, and from Atwaa Salim from the Lamu Marine Conservation trust, who explains why the area’s mangroves are so significant to the economy and the environment.

Picture: Dolly Okanga from the Kenyan Ports Authority. Credit: Vivienne Nunis / BBC