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Asian stocks have finished Tuesday's trading higher with only Japanese shares edging ever so slightly down after fresh data showed household spending declining even further. 

The Nikkei 225 finished trading 0.1% lower. 

In China, the mood was slightly better with the Shanghai Composite closing 0.2% higher and Hong Kong's Hang Seng wrapping the day 0.9% higher. 

Elsewhere in the region, Australia's ASX 200 closed 0.2% higher while the Kospi index in South Korea finished the day 0.4% up. 

BBC Radio 5 Live

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As we've been reporting, Apple could be ordered to pay billions of euros in back taxes in the Republic of Ireland by EU officials.

Heather Self is a tax partner Pinsent Masons and one of the leading experts on tax disputes and she's on 5 Live Breakfast.

"It's a very odd situation," she says. "This is the competition part of the European Commission, it's not the tax guys who are going after Apple, it's the competition guys. 

"And there's a real turf war developing because the competition guys are saying we know how tax should be calculated, but tax is a matter for national governments, it's not a matter for the European Commission, except where it becomes state aid. And so there's a real battle going on between countries being allowed to set their own tax rules - and Ireland has a low tax rate anyway of 12.5%, which it's allowed to have, The argument there is that it's gone beyond that and given Apple a special deal."   

BBC Radio 5 Live

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More foreign firms invested in the UK in the year to April than at any time on record. That's according to the Department for International Trade which recorded more than 2,200 inward investment projects - up 11% on the previous year. 

It's not just about numbers - more than 100,000 jobs are thought to have been 'created or safeguarded' by the investments. The figures don't cover the period after Brexit though. 

Lord Price, the trade minister and former boss of Waitrose is on 5 Live Breakfast.

"In total foreign investment into the UK is worth about £1 trillion and these figures are really good news for the UK," he says. "What they show is that last year we were the Number One destination in Europe for foreign direct investment, and both from developed and from developing economies, so in that sense it was a really good news story. 

"I think that's because we have got some fundamental strengths in the UK. Our corporation tax is one of the lowest in the G20, geographically we're well positioned, we have got a great workforce, we have got four of the top ten universities in the world, so there's lots of reasons why businesses are investing in the UK and so we should see these figures as being a real sign of confidence in our economy and our country," he adds.  

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Reuters is reporting that Japan's transport ministry says car firm Mitsubishi Motors  overstated the fuel economy of more models than first thought. It comes after the company in April said it had falsified the fuel economy of two of its models, along with two similar cars produced for Nissan.

The admission led to a suspension of sales of the vehicles, prompting a slump in Mitsubishi's market value. The company sought financial assistance from Nissan, which agreed to buy a controlling one-third stake for $2.2bn.

The FTSE 100 has been drifting between negative and positive territory in early trading. But mining shares are heavy losers on the back of falling metals prices. Antofagasta, Randgold, and Rio Tinto are down more than 4%. Glencore is 3.7% lower.

On the currency markets, the pound fell 0.3% against the dollar to $1.3068, and dropped 0.1% against the euro to €1.1703.

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A French minister says France will call on the European Commission to suspend negotiations on a massive EU-US trade deal, because it is unfairly weighted in favour of the Americans. 

"There is no more political support in France for these negotiations" and "France calls for an end to these negotiations," trade minister Matthias Fekl told RMC radio.

The EU and US began work on the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership in 2013, aiming to create the world's largest free-trade area by the time President Barack Obama leaves office in January.

But the talks have got bogged down amid widespread suspicion in the 28-nation EU that a deal would undercut the bloc's standards in key areas such as health and welfare. 

Today Programme
BBC Radio 4

Apple's huge back-tax demand - expected to be announced by the European Commission later this morning - is a re-assertion of government power over corporate power, says British Green Party Euro-MP Molly Scott Cato.

She tells Today: "This is a question of who runs the economy." Apple has billions of dollars stashed in Ireland, thanks to the country's favourable tax regime. Ireland, and Luxembourg, are tax havens within Europe, she says. But larger countries are just as guilty. 

What the EU is trying to do is get countries to co-operate on tax, not compete, she says. "If we don't co-operate, we all lose."

The FTSE 100 has opened down slightly at 6,844 - a fall of just 0.09%

The five biggest fallers are all miners - Antofagasta is down nearly 3.5%, Rio Tinto nearly 3%, Glencore 2.76%, Randgold, 2.67% and Anglo American 2.41%. 

Leisha Chi
Business reporter in Singapore

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It looks like South Korea's biggest shipping company may be taking on water.

Shares of Hanjin Shipping have been suspended from trade after plunging by as much as 29% on concerns it faces receivership.

Creditor banks, including its biggest lender Korea Development Bank, have reportedly refused to provide fresh loans to the firm.

Hanjin has been unprofitable for four of the last five years.

Korea's shipping and shipbuilding industry is one of the hardest-hit by a prolonged downturn in global trade. A drop in orders has led to overcapacity and depressed freight rates, as well as an increase in debts. 

The government is now looking to undertake a painful restructuring which will see tens of thousands of jobs lost.

Today Programme
BBC Radio 4

On Today last week Sir Martin Sorrell, the boss of advertising giant WPP, said continued uncertainty over the Brexit vote would harm the economy. But do other business people share his view, the programme's business presenter, Dominic O'Connell, wants to know?

He asks Better Capital's Jon Moulton, a veteran venture capitalist who was pro-Leave. 

Mr Moulton says he's sure that uncertainty over Brexit would hurt investment over time - which is why he wants to "get on with it as quickly as we can".

"What we don't need is what Sir Martin has put forward, which is a second referendum... If you want to maximise uncertainty that does it," he says. 

"We'll be quite lucky if we have a clear way forward before Christmas. There are immense vested interests here. Some industries want things to stay as they are - that's good for that industry, but might be bad for the country.

"Some industries want things that other industries don't want. The negotiations - sorting out these vested interests - is going to require very good leadership and lots of it." He's worried, though, that some ministers are getting into a power struggle for control of the negotiations.

Today Programme
BBC Radio 4

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Former City minister Lord Myners is not happy about SoftBank's £24.3bn takeover of ARM Holdings, one of the UK's few tech world-beaters. There is an ARM shareholders' vote today that will probably approve the takeover by the Japanese firm.

"We are selling out our winners, and are left with companies that are not globally successful," he tells Today. He doubts such a takeover would happen in other countries - especially so quickly. "If ARM was an American, French, German, or even Japanese company, it would not be able to be sold in 60 days," he says.

Softbank has given guarantees about job creation and investment at ARM. But Lord Myners, a former chairman of Marks & Spencer, is sceptical. "The commitments make no mention of R&D, or tax, or whether the jobs will high or low paid," he says.

A top HSBC executive has pleaded not guilty to charges of fraud in the US.

Mark Johnson, HSBC's global head of foreign exchange trading, is being accused by the US Department of Justice (DoJ) of using inside information to profit from a $3.5bn (£2.6bn) currency deal.

He was arrested in July along with a former colleague, Stuart Scott, who has also been charged over so-called "front-running."

The two men are believed to be the first to people facing criminal charges in the US following a probe into potential manipulation of the foreign-exchange markets.

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Design flaws and a series of problems over six years led to the collapse of a dam and the loss of 19 lives in Brazil's worst environmental disaster, mining giant BHP Billiton says. A technical report commissioned by the world's biggest miner and Brazil's Vale - the co-owners of the mine's operator Samarco - found a chain of events from 2009 to 2015 caused the 5 November,catastrophe.

Samarco is facing billions of dollars in legal claims for clean-up costs and damages. The 76-page report by an expert panel led by Canadian geotechnical engineer Norbert Morgenstern did not assign blame.    

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Wake up to Money has focussed on takeovers today and examined their impact on wider prosperity - on how the economy is faring across the United Kingdom. 

Well, Barclays Bank has been crunching the numbers and it reckons every region of the UK is now more prosperous than last year - with increases in either household wealth, expenditure and earnings - and a decrease in unemployment. 

Akshaya Bhargava, the chief executive of business banking and wealth management at Barclays is on the programme. 

"I think any investment in our economy is a good thing," he says. 

"What we're seeing in the Prosperity Report is not a direct indicator of investment but really an outcome of investment and what is really good to see is that this impact of prosperity, growth and all the indicators like unemployment going down, household income going up, GDP going up expenditure going up is spread across the UK and I think that's really good for the UK economy. 

Financial information provider Morningstar is looking to take on the "big three" credit ratings agencies of Moody's, Standard & Poor's and Fitch.

It's won approval from the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to rate corporate and institutional debt - meaning investors can use their service when looking to meet regulatory requirements.

The New York-based firm first entered the rating business through the acquisition of Realpoint.  

The SEC recognises 10 rating agencies, including Morningstar. 

However the big three maintain a stern grip on the market. They accounted for more than 90% of all credit ratings at the end of 2014.

Today Programme
BBC Radio 4

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A huge back-tax bill facing Apple should be seen as part of a wider, longer-term, shake up of the corporate tax system, Panmure Gordon's chief economist Simon French, tells Today. Demands that corporation tax should be based on revenue rather the profits are gathering steam, he says. That would go a long way to stop multi-nationals shifting around profits to avoid tax. Getting countries to sign up to a change won't be easy. But Mr French believes the political mood is changing. "There is a public appetite to address this issue," he says.   

BBC Radio 5 Live

Simon French, chief economist at Panmure Gordon, is the markets guest on Wake up to Money.

Ahead of a clutch of surveys due out this week he says economic activity remains fairly elevated, aided by some very loose credit markets. Therefore, he says the economic picture is "fairly decent" going into what will be a difficult winter as the government tries to define the UK's relationship with the EU.  

However he says: "What we need from government is whether it's gong to pursue soft Brexit, hard Brexit, no Brexit. There's uncertainty coming through in the surveys but actually businesses are reporting that activity remained fairly elevated because most people have put their hands up and gone well we don't know what the future looks like so we'll carry on trading and shopping regardless," he adds.

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Mondelez, the maker of Oreo biscuits and Cadbury chocolates, has abandoned its takeover bid for American confectioner Hershey after its $23bn (£18bn) offer was rejected. The deal would have created the world's biggest confectioner. Hershey turned down the cash and stock offer in June. 

Japan's jobless rate has fallen to its lowest level in two decades.

The seasonally adjusted unemployment rate fell to 3% in July, compared with the previous month.

Other data released on Tuesday also beat market expectations, including household spending and retail sales.

Economists said the figures show a recovery in Japan's consumer spending.