News Headlines - 26 November 2019

▽Itochu employee sentenced to 3 years in China | NHK WORLD

NHK has learned that a Chinese court has sentenced an employee of major Japanese trading house Itochu to three years in prison for harming national security.
The male employee in his 40s was detained by Guangzhou security officials in the Chinese city of Qingdao in February last year. He was indicted and tried behind closed doors.

▽Google Fires Four Workers, Including Staffer Tied to Protest - Bloomberg

Google fired four employees for what the technology giant said were violations of its data-security policies, escalating tension between management and activist workers at a company once revered for its open corporate culture.
Alphabet Inc.’s Google sent an email describing the decision, titled “Securing our data,” to all employees on Monday, according to a copy of the document obtained by Bloomberg News. The company confirmed the contents of the memo but declined to comment further.

▽Brazil real hits record low, central bank intervenes twice - Reuters

Brazil’s currency slid to an all-time low against the dollar on Tuesday, forcing two rounds of central bank intervention to ease the pressure after comments from Economy Minister Paulo Guedes that he was not worried about its weakness.
The second of the central bank’s two auctions of at least $1 million, following President Jair Bolsonaro’s calls for a weaker dollar, managed to knock the dollar off its record high perch of 4.2770 reais back down to around 4.2400 reais.

▽Japan's Mitsubishi beats Shell to buy Dutch power firm Eneco - Reuters

A group led by Japan’s Mitsubishi Corp will buy Eneco in a deal valuing the Dutch energy firm at 4.1 billion euros ($4.52 billion), Eneco said on Monday, beating off rival bids from Shell and private equity firm KKR.
Eneco, a company owned by 44 Dutch municipalities and with a strong focus on renewable energy, said it had been swayed by Mitsubishi’s plans to allow the company to continue its strategy and retain its corporate identity.

▽Wada pushes for Russia to be banned from Tokyo Olympics | The Guardian

Russia faces a four-year ban from global sport after World Anti-Doping Agency investigators found that a number of positive drugs tests were deleted from a database it extracted from a Moscow laboratory in January.
The recommendations, if approved by Wada’s executive committee in a meeting in Paris on 9 December, would likely lead to Russian athletes and teams being barred from next year’s Tokyo Olympics as well as a host of other major sporting competitions.