Dotun Adebayo with stories from around the world, and your calls in the phone-in. 
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Port Rates
A company operating in some of the UK's busiest ports is challenging the government to justify demands for tens of millions of pounds in business rates. RMS Group, a ports company which is spearheading an industry campaign, say the Valuation Office Agency triggered a crisis for them because it's re-valued how much they should be paying in rates and then backdated the bill to 2005. We speak with David Johnson, finance director of the RMS Group, about their plans to take the agency to the Lands Tribunal.
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Chinese Exports
China's state run media has announced the country's exports rose 17.7% in December. For the first time the country has overtaken Germany as the world's largest exporter. After a massive £390 billion stimulus plan, China's economy's continued growing at around 8 per cent a year through the global recession. But now a number of experts think China's economy looks very much like a bubble. We speak with Dr Linda Yeuh, who is a fellow in economics at Oxford University and an expert on China.
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Bank Mergers
If you're a customer of Abbey then from today you are now officially a customer of Santander. The Spanish banking giant, which owns Abbey, Bradford & Bingley and Alliance & Leicester, is rebranding 1,000 Abbey branches from today. We ask David Black, a banking specialist at the financial research consultancy Defaqto, if the mergers have been good for bank customers or if competition on the high street has been weakened.
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Poundland Sales
The recession was supposed to have been a boom for discount sellers as shoppers traded upscale shopping for bargains. But a slew of retailers who could hardly be called discount, including John Lewis and Next, saw a better than expected Christmas as consumers loosened their belts and hit the shops. So has this meant the discount retailers haven't seen the bonanza they were hoping for? We ask Jim McCarthy, chief executive of one of the biggest discount shops, Poundland, about its Christmas figures. =
Broadcasts
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BBC Radio 5 liveMon 11 Jan 2010 05:30 BBC Radio 5 live
Podcast
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Wake Up To Money
Award-winning business and financial news, with Andy Verity, Dominic Laurie, Mickey Clarke and...
