麻豆约拍

The election campaign has begun in Japan as Shinzo Abe seeks a stronger mandate. We ask Max Sato, Tokyo bureau chief of Market News International, whether Mr Abe's early election gamble is likely to pay off? Also in the programme, we find out why flights have been suspended into and out of Erbil airport in Kurdish northern Iraq. Our regular economic commentator Irwin Stelzer of the Hudson Institute assesses the risk of a transatlantic trade war in light of the dispute between Boeing and the Canadian company Bombardier. We have a report from Norway on whether its border controls with the EU might offer a model for Britain to follow after Brexit. Plus, the founder of the Playboy magazine empire, Hugh Hefner, has died. We consider his legacy with the British writer Joan Smith, and former Bunny Girl Tina Priestman.

(Picture: Shinzo Abe. Picture credit: AFP)