TOKYO: Two Americans accused of helping former Nissan boss Carlos Ghosn jump bail and escape from Japan were indicted yesterday and face up to three years in prison. The father-son pair arrived in Japan earlier this month from the United States after losing their battle to avoid extradition.

FRANKFURT: When Volkswagen chief executive Herbert Diess joined Twitter in January, he used his first tweet to warn pioneering electric car maker Elon Musk that he was coming after him. The bold proclamation raised some eyebrows, coming from a carmaker better known for its 2015 “dieselgate” emissions cheating scandal than its green credentials.

ANKARA: Turkish officials yesterday tried to calm the turmoil triggered by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s abrupt decision to sack his reformist central bank chief, insisting they would stick with free market rules. The lira lost as much as 17 percent against the dollar on the first day of trading after Erdogan replaced market-friendly economist Naci Agbal with former ruling party member Sahap Kavcioglu at the key post.

LONDON: British meal delivery app Deliveroo is aiming for a higher-than-expected valuation of up to £8.8 billion when it launches shortly on the London stock market, the company said yesterday following a pandemic-fuelled boom in demand. 

KUWAIT: Kuwait registered 1,330 new cases of COVID-19 in the past 24 hours, bringing the total number to 220,455, while seven deaths were recorded, putting the total at 1,233, the Ministry of Health announced yesterday. 

KUWAIT: The Cabinet yesterday slightly eased the nightly curfew to 11 hours and exempted vaccinated travelers from institutional quarantine. 

NEW YORK: The cold snap that gripped the United States in February not only caused chaos in Texas and the southwest, it also triggered a shortage in plastics that has disrupted a supply chain already under strain from a lack of microchips and growing congestion at ports as a result of the coronavirus pandemic.

RIYADH: Energy giant Saudi Aramco on Sunday posted a 44.4 percent slump in 2020 net profit due to lower crude prices, as the coronavirus pandemic weighed heavily on global demand. Aramco, Saudi Arabia’s cash cow, has revealed consecutive falls in profits since it began disclosing earnings in 2019. 

SHANGHAI: Tighter regulations, billions in lost overseas share value and government pledges to get even tougher-Chinese tech giants are reeling under what looks like a sustained Big Brother assault on innovation and enterprise.