News Headlines - 18 February 2020
▽Nissan CEO tells angry shareholders he is ready to be sacked if no turnaround - Reuters
Nissan’s new chief executive said on Tuesday he would accept being fired if he fails to turn around Japan’s second biggest automaker which is grappling with plunging sales in the aftermath of the scandal surrounding ex-chairman Carlos Ghosn.
Makoto Uchida, who took over the top job in December, put his job on the line at a raucous shareholders’ meeting, where he faced demands ranging from cutting executive pay to offering a bounty to bring Ghosn back to Japan after he fled to Lebanon.
▽HSBC to cut 35,000 jobs worldwide as profits plunge | The Guardian
HSBC has said it will slash 35,000 jobs over three years as part of a major shake-up as it issued a warning over the impact of the coronavirus outbreak in Asia.
The interim chief executive, Noel Quinn, confirmed on Tuesday that plans to cut $4.5bn (￡3.5bn) worth of costs would involve slashing about 15% of the group’s global workforce. “We would expect our headcount to decrease from the current level of 235,000 to be closer to 200,000 in 2022,” Quinn said.
Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad said on Tuesday (Feb 18) that he does not know if the date of Malaysia's most anticipated power transition will be fixed at the Pakatan Harapan (PH) presidential council meeting on Friday (Feb 21).
But he reiterated that he will step down as premier as he had promised, but will do so only after Malaysia hosts November's Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) summit.
▽EU rejects Facebook’s proposals for online regulation | Financial Times
The EU immediately rejected Facebook’s latest vision of how online content should be regulated, warning that the social media company will have to assume more responsibility for illegal material on its platforms... Thierry Breton, the French commissioner overseeing the bloc’s data strategy, rejected the plans after meeting Mr Zuckerberg, saying Facebook was being slow in coming forward with ideas on how to remove illegal content and warning that the EU was preparing to act.
THE Queen is said to have sent a strongly-worded letter to Princess Diana telling her she should divorce Prince Charles, according to Di’s butler.
The letter was sent a few weeks after Diana gave her tell-all interview with Martin Bashir saying there were “three of us” in her marriage, referring to Charles’s affair with Camilla.
Princess Diana’s butler Paul Burrell said a royal messenger arrived at her front door carrying a letter in the Queen’s handwriting bearing the House of Windsor crest.
