News Headlines - 04 October 2017

▽Catalan referendum: Region's independence 'in matter of days' - BBC News

Catalonia will declare independence from Spain in a matter of days, the leader of the autonomous region has told the BBC.
In his first interview since a disputed vote on Sunday, Carles Puigdemont said his government would "act at the end of this week or the beginning of next".

▽Japan transport ministry raids two Nissan plants over improper checks

The two inspections on Tuesday followed inspections at four more factories last week, the ministry said. The initial four found the automaker had conducted unauthorized final vehicle checks for most domestic models which had not yet been sold, prompting Nissan to suspend new vehicle registrations with the government.

▽Amazon and Apple caught in latest EU tax crackdown - BBC News

Amazon has been ordered to repay €250m (￡221m; $293m) in back taxes after the European Commission said it had been given an unfair tax deal in Luxembourg.
The Commission also plans to take Ireland to court over its failure to collect €13bn of back taxes from Apple.

▽Yahoo admits that all 3 BILLION of its accounts were hacked in 2013 cyber attack - Mirror Online

Yahoo has admitted that all 3 billion of its accounts were hacked as part of a cyber attack in 2013 - tripling its earlier estimate.
The company, now part of Verizon subsidiary Oath, had previously said that personal information relating to one billion accounts was accessed by a "third-party" in the largest data breach in history.

▽Why do Australia play football in Asia and do Fifa rules allow nations to switch continents?

Australia had competed in the Oceania Football Confederation (OFC) until 2006, but grew frustrated with Fifa's continued reluctance to grant the continent an automatic World Cup qualifying spot... Since Australia left, New Zealand have qualified for the 2010 World Cup while Tahiti qualified for the 2013 Confederations Cup and Fiji were represented at the 2016 Olympics.