7, January 2020
Nissan Affair: Arrest warrant issued in Japan for Carlos Ghosn’s wife 0
Prosecutors in Japan on Tuesday obtained an arrest warrant for Carole Ghosn, wife of former Nissan chief Carlos Ghosn, who last month jumped bail and fled the country.
The warrant was issued as the fallout from the escape of one of Japan’s most high-profile criminal suspects continues, with authorities pledging tighter border controls and seizing the bail money that Ghosn forfeited by fleeing the country.
He had been facing trial in Japan on charges of financial misconduct, which he denies, before fleeing the country in late December for Lebanon, where he was reunited with his wife.
In a statement, prosecutors said they had obtained the warrant on suspicion that Carole Ghosn “made false statements” during April testimony to the Tokyo district court about meetings with an unnamed individual.
He had been freed on bail after agreeing to strict conditions, with prosecutors arguing he posed a flight risk.
The conditions included restrictions on contact with Carole, which was reportedly among the reasons he decided to jump bail and flee the country in an elaborately planned escape that has outraged Japanese officials.
– Elaborate escape plan –
Ghosn’s second wife, Carole vocally led the campaign for her husband’s freedom, insisting on his innocence and slamming Japanese prosecutors for what she deemed ill-treatment after his shock November 19, 2018 arrest.
She was initially prevented from seeing her husband, who was held in detention for more than 100 days after his arrest, and petitioned everyone from French President Emmanuel Macron to the White House in seeking his release.
Ghosn, a globe-trotting auto titan who was once a giant of the industry, accuses executives at Japanese automaker Nissan of manufacturing the allegations against him in a “plot” to prevent closer integration with alliance partner Renault.
The warrant for Carole’s arrest comes as Japanese authorities piece together how Ghosn was able to evade surveillance and airport security.
Snippets have emerged suggesting he was aided by a security expert, and took advantage of loopholes in security at Japan’s Kansai airport.
He appears to have left his residence in Tokyo, which was monitored by surveillance cameras under his bail conditions, alone. He reportedly later met up with two US citizens and boarded a bullet train to Osaka on December 29.
In Osaka, he is reported to have been put into a large box with holes drilled into it to ensure he could breathe and then loaded onto a private jet that flew to Istanbul.
Airport security rules meant large items loaded onto private planes were exempt from screening — a loophole that appears to have allowed Ghosn to escape unnoticed.
– Ghosn plans press conference –
In Istanbul he boarded a second private jet that took him to Lebanon, where he entered on a French passport.
Under his bail conditions, his French, Lebanese and Brazilian passports were confiscated and held by his lawyers.
But he was allowed to retain a second French passport — in a locked case with the key held by his lawyers — so he could prove his short-term visa status if needed when travelling in Japan — which was allowed in the terms of his bail.
His lawyers in Japan said they had no idea about Ghosn’s plans to escape, with his lead attorney saying he learned of the news from the media.
Interpol, the international police cooperation body, has issued a “red notice” for Carlos Ghosn’s arrest, but Beirut and Tokyo do not have an extradition treaty.
It was not immediately clear whether a similar notice would be issued for Carole Ghosn.
The shock arrest of the leading executive rocked the auto industry, where he was once a leading figure credited with turning around Nissan.
Ghosn alleges the case against him was manufactured by disgruntled Nissan executives and Japanese officials opposed to his plans to more closely integrate the firm with Renault.
He is due to give a press conference in Beirut on Wednesday, and has told Fox Business that he has “actual evidence” that will prove the charges were a plot against him.
Source: AFP
10, January 2020
‘Designed by clowns,’ Boeing employees ridicule 737 MAX, regulators in internal messages 0
Boeing Corp. has released hundreds of internal messages that contained harshly critical comments about the development of the 737 MAX, including one that said the plane was “designed by clowns who in turn are supervised by monkeys.”
The messages, disclosed on Thursday, show attempts to duck regulatory scrutiny with employees disparaging the plane, the company, the Federal Aviation Administration and foreign aviation regulators.
In an instant messaging exchange on February 8, 2018 — when the plane was in the air and eight months before the first of two fatal crashes, an employee asks another: “Would you put your family on a MAX simulator trained aircraft? I wouldn’t.”
The second employee responds, “No.”
The 737 MAX has been grounded since March after an Ethiopian Airlines flight nose-dived, just five months after a similar Lion Air crash. The two disasters killed 346.
In particular, some of the communications reveal efforts by Boeing to avoid making pilot simulator training – an expensive and time-consuming process — a requirement for the 737 MAX.
The aircraft manufacturer changed tack just this week, saying it would recommend pilots do simulator training before they resume flying the 737 MAX – a major shift from its long-held position that computer-based training was sufficient as the plane was similar to its predecessor, the 737 NG.
The release of the messages, which highlight an aggressive culture of cost-cutting and disrespect towards the FAA, is set to deepen the crisis at Boeing which is struggling to get its best-selling plane back in the air and restore public confidence.
The FAA said, however, that the messages do not raise new safety concerns although “the tone and content of some of the language contained in the documents is disappointing.”
Boeing said the communications “do not reflect the company we are and need to be, and they are completely unacceptable.”
Pearly gates closed
The disclosure, which Boeing said was in the interest of transparency with the FAA, prompted renewed outrage from US lawmakers and puts more pressure on Boeing’s new CEO David Calhoun to overhaul the company’s corporate culture when he takes the reins on Monday.
House Transportation Committee Chairman, Peter DeFazio, who has been investigating the 737MAX, said the messages “paint a deeply disturbing picture of the lengths Boeing was, apparently, willing to go to in order to evade scrutiny from regulators, flight crews, and the flying public, even as its own employees were sounding alarms internally.”
Senator Roger Wicker, who chairs the commerce committee leading the Senate’s probe into Boeing, also said the latest documents “raise questions about the efficacy of the FAA’s oversight of the certification process.”
The US Justice Department has an active criminal investigation underway into matters related to the 737 MAX aircraft.
Some of the messages pointed to problems with the simulators. Boeing said on Thursday it is confident “all of Boeing’s MAX simulators are functioning effectively” after repeated testing since the messages were written.
The messages, however, show Boeing was doing all it could to lobby aviation regulators to avoid the need for airlines to train pilots in a simulator on the differences between the 737 MAX and the 737 NG.
“I want to stress the importance of holding firm that there will not be any type of simulator training required to transition from NG to MAX,” Boeing’s 737 chief technical pilot said in a March 2017 email.
“Boeing will not allow that to happen. We’ll go face to face with any regulator who tries to make that a requirement.”
Before the grounding, pilot training on the differences consisted of a one-hour lesson on an iPad and no time in the simulator, according to the union representing pilots at American Airlines.
Shukor Yusof, the head of Malaysia-based aviation consultancy Endau Analytics, said Boeing should get credit for disclosing the “destructive diatribes.”
“Initially the flying public will understandably have reservations but the aircraft – having been completely and responsibly resurrected – will likely be one of the safest planes around,” he said.
In other emails and instant messages, employees spoke of their frustration with the company’s culture, complaining about the drive to find the cheapest suppliers and “impossible schedules.”
“I don’t know how to fix these things…it’s systemic. It’s culture. It’s the fact we have a senior leadership team that understand very little about the business and yet are driving us to certain objectives,” said an employee in an email dated June 2018.
And in a May 2018 message, an unnamed Boeing employee said: “I still haven’t been forgiven by god for the covering up I did last year.”
Without referencing what was covered up, the employee added, “Can’t do it one more time. The Pearly gates will be closed…”
(Source: Reuters)