Local media say the building was packed with ham barks and other material all of which helped the farceur grow in strength as well as retail goods the emergency services say some laborers were also sleeping inside the building a common occurrence for India's many poor migrant workers dozens of far appliances rushed to the scene to help extinguish the blaze though the district's narrow streets made access very difficult turns of thousands of pro-democracy campaigners have gathered in Hong Kong wearing face masks and dressed in black the crowd is following the route of previous protests marching from Victoria Park to the financial district many are holding protest signs in umbrella's Nora because is there where just over a kilometer from the part where they 1st got there and still there flowing past I would say there are hundreds of those and many of them are chanting freedom for Hong Kong stands with one they are demanding saying stop their police meddling in the affairs and their similarities civil liberties they say that they were promised land on which Han Chinese were written by 97 you see many of them in the hands by what. North Korea says it's carried out a very important turn satellite launching site and survey Pyongyang earlier warns that it could take a new prophet as the new cries ation talks with the United States remains stalled and Busby reports the state news agency gave no details of the test the said the results would be used to upgrade North Korea's strategic status analysts believe it may have been a ground based test of a rocket engine which could be used to power a satellite launcher or an intercontinental ballistic missile president Trumper said he still hopes to reach an agreement on denuclearization but the North Korean leader Kim Jong un has said that to revive the negotiations the president must come up with a deal involving significant sanctions relief by the end of the year. China's exports have fallen for the 4th month in a row as the trade war with the United States continues to hit the world's 2nd largest economy they were down by more than one percent in November compared with a year earlier analysts had forecast a small increase with imports showing an unexpected rise China's trade surplus with the rest of the world now you're listening to World News from the b.b.c. The Iranian president Hassan Rouhani has presented what he called a budget of resistance to parliament Mr Rouhani said the package was designed to counter crippling u.s. Sanctions Steve Jackson reports President Rouhani is walking a tightrope u.s. Sanctions have dealt a big blow to the all dependent Iranian economy since Washington pulled out of an international nuclear deal with her on but Mr Rouhani is attempt last month to raise domestic fuel prices triggered deadly public protests this budget is an attempt to placate critics at home with the promise of a 15 percent public sector wage rise while digging in to resist the further squeeze from the sanctions the Iranian economy is predicted to contract by nearly 10 percent this year so it will be a difficult trick to pull off the f.b.i. Has appealed for help in tracing the movements of the Saudi Air Force officer who shot dead 3 people at a naval base in Florida investigators have opened a hotline for information about Mohammad Saeed Rani who opened fire in a classroom at the facility in Pensacola on Friday he was later shot dead by a sheriff's deputy Brazilian Federal Police have been sent to the northern state of Marin yond to investigate the killing of 2 members of an indigenous community by unidentified gunman the justice minister condemned the killings and said he was assessing whether to send more federal forces to the region the victims were from the jar ethnic group which would set up armed patrols to prevent illegal logging. The British boxer Anthony Joshua has become one of only a handful of fighters including Muhammad Ali to regain their world heavyweight title after defeat 6 months after being humiliated by the Mexican American and the release Jr New York Joshua outbox a no class his opponent to win a unanimous points verdict in a rematch in Saudi Arabia b.b.c. News. Hello and welcome to in the balance from the b.b.c. The discussion program that digs behind the economic and business headlines I'm on wait us Agartha in this edition we're asking should companies be forced to appoint women to their boards the Netherlands has just joined countries like Norway Spain France Italy and Belgium in passing a law that obliges publicly listed companies to have at least 30 percent of their non-executive boards made up of women meanwhile firms in the state of California have till the end of this year to ensure at least one woman is on the board of its public companies is the 1st American state to mandate gender diversity in companies at board level not everyone thinks this sort of legislation is helpful so what are the arguments and evidence for and against in force quotas when it comes to female representation on corporate boards to discuss the question we have a panel of guests so let me introduce them Tamara box is in the studio with me here she's a managing partner with Lloyd Reed Smith here in London and a founding member of the 30 percent Club a group campaigning to increase gender diversity on boards and senior management teams Anastasia Bowden is a senior attorney with the Pacific Legal Foundation in California it's filed a lawsuit challenging the state's new gender board rule she joins us on a Skype line from Southern California Nellie Cruz is the former European Union's digital commissioner she's a politician in the Netherlands where she also holds numerous board positions at various companies and she joins us from a studio in Amsterdam and Rhonda Vontae shop is the founder and president of the Women's Institute for Science equity and race in the u.s. And not for profit research group she's also coeditor of the review of Black Political Economy and she joins us from a studio in Richmond in the state of Virginia welcome to all of you thank you Linda Anastasia Bowden If I could start with you. Why are you challenging the new legislation in California on female quota supports any time the government makes a distinction based on sex it threatens to harm the very groups it purports to help so this is a long recognized principle of equal protection jurisprudence and us constitutional law that there is no such thing as good discrimination as feminist icon and Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg said sex based laws help keep women not on a pedestal but in a cage here the law perpetuates the narrative that women are constantly being discriminated against and that they can't make the boardroom without government help when that's just not true if we look at current hiring pattern women are pretty much at parity when it comes to hiring at Morgan level I think a lot also undermine future gains women would have made without government help because now women may be seen as quote hires people will look at the one woman on the board and say oh well there's our quota hire rather than recognizing her merit and the fact that she would have made it there without government help Tamara what do you make of them well there look there's a lot about that I agree with I'm not a constitutional lawyer so because your position is quite new and is nuanced you're right so certainly I and indeed the 30 percent club has been against quotas and almost quotas in force quotas Absolutely and we make a very big distinction between quotas and targets we think that gender balance is an important objective for business what I am concerned about and I think it's why maybe we've nuanced our position and I certainly nuance mine around quotas is that I certainly don't accept that we currently live in the meritocracy that might be described by a world that has no need for such in force or government intervention Indeed I would say you know we have the the statistics we do here in the u.k. Which vastly Excel are rated based on all of the work that was done not only by the 30 percent club but by the Mervyn Davies report now the Hansen Alexander. Commission all of that was government intervention it did not amount to quotas but the threat of those quotas indeed the European imposition of quotas was always in the background and it helped hugely in the efforts that we made to achieve a voluntary progress that voluntary progress is now greater than 30 percent for the Footsie $350.00 So you're saying those changes would not have happened if there hadn't been if threats hanging over these companies I think I'd like to say it was the combination of the 2 for sure but I think we certainly would never seen that progress if we had had that the grade of the government saying we don't currently live in a meritocracy we don't see women hired into board positions or indeed anything other than graduate level positions really at the 50 percent that we make up of the population so something is going wrong and I fully concur that quotas are poorly implemented and all the evidence in most of the countries and certainly in the situations where they have been used has shown they haven't made that difference down the pipeline that we hoped for well let me bring Nelly in to him because you started your career believing that quotas were a bad thing now you've changed your mind on that do you think quotas or good thing what's changed for you well already some time ago so 89 I can a judge Yeah I was a strong believer and I did have the example of myself and I think we are always samples that you can make it but at the certain moment with the facts and figures I was absolutely aware that it's not absolutely guaranteed that won't you and me and all the others that are gathered in this debate have had as an experience that deafness common for all those women so to facts and figures show that you need eternal life before there would be a bit more balance so your position was it. Isn't happening fast enough and that's prompted you to change your mind yeah I'm not I'm not fussed and I'll trust you know that it is prove it was effect and figure that you need Jill 2050 or something like that to get a little bit more imbalance so self-regulation is not helping to get that diversity scene and more imbalance therefore I just change my mind it is not a matter of as being one to abort one is not changing the system of organizing the meetings and so on and I do have experience quite a long time it was the only one in the government that I was the only one in the board and the female uing Yeah. You need a cert anyhow and the experience also in Brussels let me also let me bring Rhonda in here you do want more quotas more inclusive it in general but you have some doubts about their effectiveness so I'm going to say I joined Nelly and supporting them my hesitancy is when we're talking about boards that have more women and I think this tends to be a global phenomenon not us when in the Us women tends to be synonymous with white women or European women but my concern is not just whether or not you're going to have a select set of women who are consistently being asked but whether or not that representation on board of women will be indeed representative of the women in the state of California so there is this notion that we should have more diversity on boards but nobody wants to really provide more access so Anastasia is quoted in a sacrament o.b.e. As saying women are basically capable of getting there on their own and that that that they are. Qualified And I think it is important to note that there's a difference between having women who are qualified and women who have access when you start asking folks to look at their policies about who has access and evitable ie what that means is that somebody isn't going to get who historically has got and so when Anastasia made the point about when you have women on the board and let's say that there is one that there are questions about how they got there that's a question always I think when you have people who are not thought of being in a space historically that somehow you didn't get there by merit and the reality is as I think both Nellie and Tamara have pointed out we do not live in a meritocracy people get where they are through their networks and the networks aren't always judging you by qualifications that I think that's what we need to throw on a stage what do you make of that yes so there's a lot there I'm one thing just to clarify is that I understand that women are not in parity in terms of representation but they actually are near Paris in current hiring patterns at the board level so for example in quarter 2 of 201942 percent of new board members across the top $3000.00 companies in the u.s. Were women so slowly we are making it there because of current hiring patterns and you know I think parity is expected to be achieved in 203040 naturally without quotas so I think there's a positive story he said about the gains that women are making organically I also just want to say there's you know for some nuance that there's a difference between the goal of getting rid of discrimination and parity for the sake of parity of course I agree that we should get rid of discrimination but when you instill quotas for the sake of Perry because you want to see equal numbers based on immutable characteristics for the sake of it that's. Where you actually start causing discrimination to happen what about says what about the point tomorrow's making about the fact that the changes here in the u.k. Of happened because there's been this threat hanging over companies they haven't put in place any in forced quotas but they've said if you don't do this then there will be quotas. What do you make of them I make 2 things I mean the 1st thing is the experience in Norway has been just and just to clarify the ways been the the muscle that everyone points to on this because they've had in force quotas for quite a long time longer than anyone else right so I won't be seeing your way is that you do have this golden skirt phenomenon where you have a select number of women being hired for multiple boards in order to satisfy the quota can I jump in this is Rhonda I'm going to jump in and push back on that I think that there is a more important question for Anastasia and that is she made the comment that organically in the u.s. There is expected to be parity by 2034 so it seems to me that the appropriate question for her is if in 2034 we're not at parity then would you support quotas what would you on the study you know I wouldn't you know I don't think like I said I don't think we want parity for the sake of it I think parity most oftentimes is some sort of artificial thing because we wouldn't expect parity in a discrimination free world but I'm just pointing out the gains that women are making arcana glee but the other thing I want to point out you know apart from Norway is that in the u.s. People are making choices by themselves that are leading to a growing number of women we have institutional shareholder several large institutional shareholders that are saying we will vote down you know your bar proposals we will vote down board nominees if you do not place a woman on the board. Tomorrow you agree with all of all of that in that there are other means but don't think they're making these decisions by themselves or making these decisions because groups like the 30 percent club 30 percent coalition in the u.s. 2020 for boards the female quotient you know you name it they're there campaigning just like we have you know here in the u.k. And we've been helped so while I may be with you in that I think the implementation of quotas is very likely to be lazy you know lazy choices and I think to Rhonda's point will not wouldn't be by lazy 12 they'll choose women who frankly look just like the men. On the boards right they'll choose when we're going to go away but who are already on board or who are already on board say because they because they know who they are that's exactly it we used to always get the joke was why I wanted to put a woman I board but you know pick a name Hillary Clinton Helena Morsi you know wasn't available because that's the only woman they can imagine somebody extraordinary is all that they can imagine being suitable for their boards but look at the ordinary men that sit on boards or that frankly make up the upper echelons of corporates around the world what we're trying to get to is a position where we make women in leadership and indeed you know all forms of women whether that be you know ethnicity socioeconomic and then again I think that across the board trying to create diverse boards not for the sake of it not for you know some sort of politically correct representation but because our world looks that way what we need is to try to get to a position where we don't automatically assume women aren't qualified and that I think is what we've had to work so hard with all this campaigning is to get paid sick leave the men on boards to recognize that their positions are privileged by virtue of the advantages that they were given in the assumptions that were made about their capabilities that we simply don't get and just as you do recognize maybe that the where you where you say that there the recruitment pattern in America is now that more and more women are being recruited for these positions but do you recognize that that is also partly as a result of all this campaigning. Well I think there's a very positive story to be said on that no I mean that's that's a great story right they knew she can continue campaigning I'm speaking only to the quota you know that's my lawsuit I'm a constitutional lawyer that's what I oppose is a California law I think that we don't need a mandate because we have groups out there like you doing their job advocating for women convincing people you know not to discriminate not to make assumptions about women and that's a very positive story and I think you know the quote and maybe we maybe many of us agree about this that the quota and I think perpetuates a very negative narrative and that's all we have not already said that let me tell you that agree a round of doesn't agree Nelly do a really doesn't agree with that at all Nelly do you think it perpetuates a negative narrative and that narrative that demeaning to women that women have to be given special opportunities to sit on boards just a couple of remarks from and let's be honest there is a golden old boys' network that is already for decades busy to appoint each other and branch the circle is a little bit larger but all in all that is happening and that is still happening so we need to force it to come out of that circle number 2 when we're talking about discrimination I'm always asking people what is your definition of discrimination and discrimination didn't happen for says women so far for their books perhaps a couple of us didn't get the opportunities but we are the Queen Bees and we need far more normal women so to say that was a let me also has it has it been difficult for you to find positions on these on these company boards as you are a member of White as a number of companies boards eyeballs but the Quite a number of boards I was the only one or we were with and that is not enough to change the rules of the game. So we need the diversity and diversity means that it's not that you are appointing that you're asking a room and that is the same profile as the men it is just talking about what type of profiles do we need in a board to get the best team let me remind everyone that you're listening to in the balance from the b.b.c. And we're asking should companies be forced to appoint women to boards. Now one of the issues about diversity on boards one of the justifications off often made is that companies that have more d