News Headlines - 31 January 2016

▽Cost of Rio's 2016 Olympics Rises by Almost $100 Million

The price tag for the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro has risen by 400 million reais ($99.3 million) since August, mainly because of rising costs of supplying temporary power and seating at venues, the head of the group monitoring spending said Friday.

▽Swiss investigators say US$4bn stolen from Malaysian state-owned companies | The Guardian

Swiss prosecutors on Friday requested assistance from Malaysian authorities in investigating massive theft from a state-owned firm at the centre of a graft scandal.

▽Obokata, Author of Retracted Stem-Cell Papers, Tells Her Side in Book - WSJ

Haruko Obokata, the Japanese scientist who was accused of research fraud over a purported new method to create stem cells, published a book Thursday in which she chronicles the unfolding of the scandal and alleges that one of her mentors was partially responsible for the controversy.

▽HSBC to 'freeze global pay in 2016' - BBC News

The UK's biggest bank, HSBC, plans to impose a global freeze on pay and hiring in 2016, sources have said... In June, London-based HSBC outlined to investors that it would slash $5bn (￡3.5bn) in costs by 2017.

▽Bill Gates memorised his employees’ number plates to monitor when they left the office - Telegraph

Bill Gates used to memorise all his employees’ number plates so that he could monitor the time they arrived and left the office each day.
While he is now lauded as a generous philanthropist, the co-founder of Microsoft had a reputation early in his career for being an intense boss and tough negotiator.