French President Emmanuel Macron told Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe he wants to maintain the alliance between Renault and Nissan after the arrest of Carlos Ghosn, who led the partnership.
“The exchange on Renault was succinct, with only the reminder that the legal procedure had to follow its course,” the president’s office said after the leaders met Friday on the sidelines of the Group of 20 summit in Buenos Aires. Mr Macron “reiterated his commitment to preserving the alliance as well as the stability of the group”.
Mr Abe told Mr Macron that the future of the Nissan-Renault alliance should be decided among the companies and not by the government, Nikkei reported, citing the Japanese government.
Mr Macron and Mr Abe met just hours after Japanese prosecutors extended the detention of Mr Ghosn by up to 10 days, sources said. He was arrested on November 19 in Japan on accusations of understating his income and misusing company funds. The Franco-Brazilian executive has denied the allegations, according to NHK, Japan’s national broadcaster.
The arrest raised questions about the future of the alliance between Renault and Nissan that Mr Ghosn, 64, built and oversaw for almost two decades. The pact gives more weight to Paris than to Tokyo, a long-running source of frustration for the Japanese. Renault is considered a company of “vital importance” to France by the state secretariat for national security.
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The French car maker employs almost 50,000 people in France, making it a key part of Mr Macron’s effort to revive his country as an economic power. Renault owns 43 per cent of Nissan, while the Japanese car maker has 15 percent of Renault, without voting rights.
Renault has been happy with the status quo, and has been looking to make it permanent. The effort has been championed by its largest shareholder, the French state. Neither Renault, nor Mr Macron’s government, had any idea that Mr Ghosn was about to be taken into custody last week, sources said earlier.
Before the meeting Friday, an official in Mr Macron’s office had said the French president would tell Mr Abe he wanted more information and greater transparency about the Ghosn probe, according to Bloomberg.
Nissan has been eager to equalise power at the alliance level and assert Japanese control over one of the country’s most important companies, according sources. That’s led to fears on the French side that Mr Ghosn’s arrest may have been orchestrated in what amounts to a coup, a charge Nissan chief executive Hiroto Saikawa has denied.
Nissan and Mitsubishi Motors, which joined the alliance in 2016, have both ousted Mr Ghosn as chairman since his arrest. Renault has so far kept him on as chairman and chief executive, while appointing Thierry Bollore to run the company on a temporary basis.
On Thursday, Nissan’s former representative director Greg Kelly denied allegations of financial misconduct at the car maker, his lawyer said.
Mr Kelly and Mr Ghosn were arrested on November 19 on suspicion of falsifying the Japanese firm's annual reports to understate Mr Ghosn's remuneration over several years.
"There was no additional compensation that needed to be stated" in the annual reports, the lawyer, Yoichi Kitamura, told Reuters.
"All Ghosn received in compensation was included in Nissan's annual financial statements," he said.
Real estate tokenisation project
Dubai launched the pilot phase of its real estate tokenisation project last month.
The initiative focuses on converting real estate assets into digital tokens recorded on blockchain technology and helps in streamlining the process of buying, selling and investing, the Dubai Land Department said.
Dubai’s real estate tokenisation market is projected to reach Dh60 billion ($16.33 billion) by 2033, representing 7 per cent of the emirate’s total property transactions, according to the DLD.
Company%20profile
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The specs
Common to all models unless otherwise stated
Engine: 4-cylinder 2-litre T-GDi
0-100kph: 5.3 seconds (Elantra); 5.5 seconds (Kona); 6.1 seconds (Veloster)
Power: 276hp
Torque: 392Nm
Transmission: 6-Speed Manual/ 8-Speed Dual Clutch FWD
Price: TBC
MATCH INFO
Uefa Champions League, Group B
Barcelona v Inter Milan
Camp Nou, Barcelona
Wednesday, 11pm (UAE)
A MINECRAFT MOVIE
Director: Jared Hess
Starring: Jack Black, Jennifer Coolidge, Jason Momoa
Rating: 3/5
DUBAI%20BLING%3A%20EPISODE%201
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Who is Allegra Stratton?
- Previously worked at The Guardian, BBC’s Newsnight programme and ITV News
- Took up a public relations role for Chancellor Rishi Sunak in April 2020
- In October 2020 she was hired to lead No 10’s planned daily televised press briefings
- The idea was later scrapped and she was appointed spokeswoman for Cop26
- Ms Stratton, 41, is married to James Forsyth, the political editor of The Spectator
- She has strong connections to the Conservative establishment
- Mr Sunak served as best man at her 2011 wedding to Mr Forsyth
We Weren’t Supposed to Survive But We Did
We weren’t supposed to survive but we did.
We weren’t supposed to remember but we did.
We weren’t supposed to write but we did.
We weren’t supposed to fight but we did.
We weren’t supposed to organise but we did.
We weren’t supposed to rap but we did.
We weren’t supposed to find allies but we did.
We weren’t supposed to grow communities but we did.
We weren’t supposed to return but WE ARE.
Amira Sakalla
Company: Instabug
Founded: 2013
Based: Egypt, Cairo
Sector: IT
Employees: 100
Stage: Series A
Investors: Flat6Labs, Accel, Y Combinator and angel investors
UAE jiu-jitsu squad
Men: Hamad Nawad and Khalid Al Balushi (56kg), Omar Al Fadhli and Saeed Al Mazroui (62kg), Taleb Al Kirbi and Humaid Al Kaabi (69kg), Mohammed Al Qubaisi and Saud Al Hammadi (70kg), Khalfan Belhol and Mohammad Haitham Radhi (85kg), Faisal Al Ketbi and Zayed Al Kaabi (94kg)
Women: Wadima Al Yafei and Mahra Al Hanaei (49kg), Bashayer Al Matrooshi and Hessa Al Shamsi (62kg)
DIVINE%20INTERVENTOIN
%3Cp%3EStarring%3A%20Elia%20Suleiman%2C%20Manal%20Khader%2C%20Amer%20Daher%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3EDirector%3A%20Elia%20Suleiman%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3ERating%3A%204.5%2F5%3C%2Fp%3E%0A
Specs
Engine: Dual-motor all-wheel-drive electric
Range: Up to 610km
Power: 905hp
Torque: 985Nm
Price: From Dh439,000
Available: Now
Key facilities
- Olympic-size swimming pool with a split bulkhead for multi-use configurations, including water polo and 50m/25m training lanes
- Premier League-standard football pitch
- 400m Olympic running track
- NBA-spec basketball court with auditorium
- 600-seat auditorium
- Spaces for historical and cultural exploration
- An elevated football field that doubles as a helipad
- Specialist robotics and science laboratories
- AR and VR-enabled learning centres
- Disruption Lab and Research Centre for developing entrepreneurial skills
The smuggler
Eldarir had arrived at JFK in January 2020 with three suitcases, containing goods he valued at $300, when he was directed to a search area.
Officers found 41 gold artefacts among the bags, including amulets from a funerary set which prepared the deceased for the afterlife.
Also found was a cartouche of a Ptolemaic king on a relief that was originally part of a royal building or temple.
The largest single group of items found in Eldarir’s cases were 400 shabtis, or figurines.
Khouli conviction
Khouli smuggled items into the US by making false declarations to customs about the country of origin and value of the items.
According to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, he provided “false provenances which stated that [two] Egyptian antiquities were part of a collection assembled by Khouli's father in Israel in the 1960s” when in fact “Khouli acquired the Egyptian antiquities from other dealers”.
He was sentenced to one year of probation, six months of home confinement and 200 hours of community service in 2012 after admitting buying and smuggling Egyptian antiquities, including coffins, funerary boats and limestone figures.
For sale
A number of other items said to come from the collection of Ezeldeen Taha Eldarir are currently or recently for sale.
Their provenance is described in near identical terms as the British Museum shabti: bought from Salahaddin Sirmali, "authenticated and appraised" by Hossen Rashed, then imported to the US in 1948.
- An Egyptian Mummy mask dating from 700BC-30BC, is on offer for £11,807 ($15,275) online by a seller in Mexico
- A coffin lid dating back to 664BC-332BC was offered for sale by a Colorado-based art dealer, with a starting price of $65,000
- A shabti that was on sale through a Chicago-based coin dealer, dating from 1567BC-1085BC, is up for $1,950
How Alia's experiment will help humans get to Mars
Alia’s winning experiment examined how genes might change under the stresses caused by being in space, such as cosmic radiation and microgravity.
Her samples were placed in a machine on board the International Space Station. called a miniPCR thermal cycler, which can copy DNA multiple times.
After the samples were examined on return to Earth, scientists were able to successfully detect changes caused by being in space in the way DNA transmits instructions through proteins and other molecules in living organisms.
Although Alia’s samples were taken from nematode worms, the results have much bigger long term applications, especially for human space flight and long term missions, such as to Mars.
It also means that the first DNA experiments using human genomes can now be carried out on the ISS.
