Interview: Carlos Ghosn on the dark side of Japan, life in Lebanon and his upcoming documentary

03 Ghosn on paying high price every time he talked to press
0 seconds of 1 minute, 1 secondVolume 90%
Press shift question mark to access a list of keyboard shortcuts
Next Up
06 Ghosn on finding no justice in Japanese trial
00:38
00:00
01:01
01:01
 
Short Url
Updated 19 June 2021
Follow

Interview: Carlos Ghosn on the dark side of Japan, life in Lebanon and his upcoming documentary

  • The former Nissan chairman was arrested in Tokyo in 2018 over allegations of false accounting and financial misconduct
  • In Dec. 2019, Ghosn pulled off a complex and dramatic escape that could have come straight from a Hollywood movie

LONDON: Carlos Ghosn, the auto-executive-turned-fugitive who plotted a brazen escape from Osaka in December 2019 following his arrest by Japanese authorities on charges of financial misconduct, has denounced what he calls Japan’s darker side — its legal system.

Ever since the French-Lebanese-Brazilian former chairman of Japanese car giant Nissan was arrested at Tokyo International Airport on Nov. 19, 2018, before launching a daring escape a year later hidden inside a luggage box on a private jet, the world has watched Ghosn’s capers with rapt attention.




Former Renault-Nissan boss Carlos Ghosn looks on before addressing a large crowd of journalists on his reasons for dodging trial in Japan. (Supplied)

Speaking exclusively to Arab News, the 67-year-old Ghosn, now on Interpol’s most-wanted list, again asserted his innocence and accused a powerful business cabal of being in league with Japanese prosecutors in discrediting him.

“When you go to Japan, you have the impression you are in a mature democracy where your rights are going to be respected, where you’re going to be dealt with with fairness. There is nothing more wrong than that,” Ghosn told Arab News.

“Prosecutors win in 99.4 percent of the cases, which means as long as they turn their eyes on you and for any reason they decide to pursue you on any matter, you have zero chance of getting out.”

Ghosn has denied accusations of underreporting his compensation and misusing company funds to support a lavish lifestyle. The former auto executive insists that he was the victim of a corporate coup linked to a decline in Nissan’s financial performance as the Japanese automaker resisted losing autonomy to its French partner Renault.




Former Nissan Motor Chairman Carlos Ghosn (L) and his layer Junichiro Hironaka (R) arrive for a pre-trial hearing at the Tokyo District Court in Tokyo on June 24, 2019. (File/AFP)

That is why Ghosn says he had to jump his $14 million bail and flee rather than face charges in what he claims to be an unfair trial.

“Whenever you have a coalition between executives in a company, the Tokyo prosecutor, and Hideki Makihara, the minister of industry in Japan, there is no more place for justice. It’s over. It’s a killer coalition where you have zero chance of prevailing.”

Ghosn likened his treatment to the 2011 Olympus scandal and others at Toshiba, Takata and Fukushima, where he claims the same hidden hands have wrangled their favored results.




A portrait of ousted Nissan chairman Carlos Ghosn is seen on a publicity billboard in his support at a street in Beirut on December 6, 2018. (File/AFP)

Mainstream media has picked up on only a fraction of the murky world underpinning the whole debacle, says Ghosn, who intends to set the record straight in a new MBC documentary, “The Last Flight.”

“When you read the articles that are being published, and will continue to be published, they are focusing on one specific aspect, one specific individual, one specific event,” Ghosn said.

“I think this documentary, from what I’ve seen, is really giving somebody who is not aware or has little awareness about what was going on a sense about how it started, who the main actors are, and what forces are at play.”

 

0 seconds of 3 minutes, 21 secondsVolume 90%
Press shift question mark to access a list of keyboard shortcuts
00:00
03:21
03:21
 

 

Among those interviewed are officials in Japan’s justice ministry, a Japanese prosecutor, Ghosn’s Japanese lawyer, France’s former minister of finance, and Ghosn’s former boss.

Despite Ghosn and his wife Carole’s involvement in the feature’s production, he insists the film will offer a balanced portrayal of events.

“The interest into a documentary like this is to try to present the facts in a very objective way, giving the opportunity for the different parties to express themselves. So instead of the public listening to one voice which is biased about what happened, they have the opportunity to listen to the different voices and to the different positions.”




Carole, the wife of former Renault-Nissan boss Carlos Ghosn, leaves a press conference in which her husband addressed a large crowd of journalists on his reasons for dodging trial in Japan. (File/AFP)

The trials of Ghosn’s former colleague Greg Kelly and the two Americans who helped him escape — father and son Michael and Peter Taylor — were continuing at the time of this interview.

On Monday, both Taylors confessed to aiding and abetting the auto executive’s escape from Japan to Lebanon via Turkey in December 2019 in exchange for $1.3 million. Ghosn believes the documentary will have no impact on the outcome of the Kelly and Taylor trials.

Nevertheless, he said he is the victim of a character assassination orchestrated by the Japanese government, the French media and his former employers in response to his role in the Nissan-Renault-Mitsubishi alliance — an attack he was unable to challenge in the public domain.




French carmaker Renault CEO Carlos Ghosn (C) arrives on February 17, 2016 at the French National Assembly, before addressing the Economical and Financial commissions during a hearing. (File/AFP)

“Between November 2018 and December 2019 when I flew out, I was not authorized to talk. I couldn’t talk to the press. Every time I tried to talk to the press, I paid a very high price for it,” Ghosn said.

“So for 14 months, we had a litany of information about a character assassination, the source of which was Tokyo, with the collusion of the Japanese government, the Tokyo prosecutor’s office and Nissan from one side, relayed unfortunately by French public officials, some Renault accomplices, and the media in France, around the angle that they didn’t support this guy because there was something fishy about what he has done in the companies.”

Ghosn has already tried to tell his side of the story in two books: the first, published in French and Arabic, and soon to be translated to English and Japanese, setting out to counter the allegations made against him, while the second, co-written by his wife, describes the “human side” of the story, “how we have been, from her side and my side, dealing with this ordeal during these 14 months.”




Carole, the wife of former Renault-Nissan boss Carlos Ghosn, attends a press conference in which her husband (L) addressed a large crowd of journalists on his reasons for dodging trial in Japan. (File/AFP)

Following his escape from Japan, Ghosn headed to his native Lebanon, where his wife was waiting for him. He has been there ever since.

With his days as an executive in the automotive industry over, Ghosn has occupied himself with pro bono work with the Holy Spirit University of Kaslik, where he has developed a business program. He is also involved with several local startups.

Dubbed “Mr. Fix It” for essentially saving Nissan from bankruptcy, Ghosn strongly denies he has designs on a career in politics to help rescue Lebanon from economic ruin.

“I’m dedicating my time to re-establishing my reputation, defending my rights, fighting the different legal battles that have been launched against me or that are launching against the company that treated me so badly,” he said.




Former Renault-Nissan boss Carlos Ghosn looks on before addressing a large crowd of journalists on his reasons for dodging trial in Japan. (Supplied)

Lebanon faces an unprecedented crisis on multiple fronts. Its currency has lost more than 90 percent of its value on the black market and the country is struggling with shortages of gas and electricity.

Following 10 months of deadlock, Prime Minister-designate Saad Hariri is still trying to form a cabinet amid seemingly endless squabbling with Michel Aoun, the country’s president, and his son-in-law, the US-sanctioned former foreign minister Gebran Bassil.

On top of all this, the country is reeling from the Aug. 4, 2020 Beirut port blast, which leveled a whole city district and left more than 200 dead and thousands more wounded. Ghosn nevertheless believes Lebanon can find workable solutions if it implements proper reforms.

“I think there is a perception that this problem is so complicated that there is no obvious solution. This is wrong. There is no problem that man has created that man cannot solve.

“This requires choices. This also means that whoever the Lebanese public decides to back makes choices, that they implement reforms, and that these reforms are successful.

“This is not the only country in the world that has this kind of economic dysfunction.”

Twitter: @Tarek_AliAhmad


State of the Saudi media sector and investment opportunities it offers

Updated 04 May 2025
Follow

State of the Saudi media sector and investment opportunities it offers

RIYADH: The General Authority for Media Regulation has released a report, “The State of the Saudi Media Sector and Investment Opportunities for 2024,” which provides an overview of the media landscape in the Kingdom and highlights the significant transformations the sector is undergoing to keep pace with Saudi Vision 2030.

The report reflects promising investment opportunities, in addition to the technical and regulatory shifts that support the growth and sustainability of the sector. It also illustrates the magnitude of the boom in the Saudi media sector, which has achieved remarkable development driven by digital transformation and technological advance, improving the efficiency of media content and enhancing its global competitiveness.

The media authority’s estimates in the report indicate that the contribution of the media sector to the direct and indirect gross domestic product increased to 0.57 per cent in 2024, amounting to SAR16 billion ($4.26 billion), compared with 0.52 per cent in 2023.

The authority continues to work towards achieving its ambitious goals of raising this percentage to 0.8 percent by 2030. In terms of investment in human capital, job growth reached 67,000 jobs, with a rate of 22 percent by the end of 2024, with the aim of reaching 160,000 jobs by 2030.

The report also identified six key transformations in the media industry in the Kingdom, including the increasing demand for local content, developing media infrastructure, adopting modern technologies such as artificial intelligence and augmented reality, improving the regulatory environment, supporting national talents and competencies, and expanding investment opportunities.

The report confirms that the Kingdom has become a prominent destination for media investment, providing a flexible regulatory environment and mega-projects aimed at enhancing the media industry.

It also addressed the opportunities available to investors in content production, the development of electronic games, investment in media infrastructure, and international partnerships in the Saudi media market. In addition, the continued innovation and adoption of modern technologies to enhance the competitiveness of Saudi media globally is a crucial factor because the sector has elements that make it one of the main drivers of economic and cultural development in the Kingdom.

The report details the opportunities and challenges in the sector and covers the five media divisions supervised by the General Authority for Media Regulation: publishing; audio; visual; advertising; and games sectors.

The authority, through the report, hopes to improve understanding of the local media landscape and provide clear and accurate data to media entities and local and international investors, to highlight the promising opportunities in the sector.

The report is a comprehensive reference for the state of media in the Kingdom and is provides a guide for local and international investors and researchers in the sector. The authority urges interested partis to view the report on its website at https://gmedia.gov.sa/ar/media-status-report


Algerian TV channel suspended for racism against African migrants

Echorouk News TV. (X @echoroukonline)
Updated 03 May 2025
Follow

Algerian TV channel suspended for racism against African migrants

  • Since the start of April, Algeria has expelled some 5,000 Africans to neighbouring Niger, according to state television. About half were from Niger

ALGIERS: Algerian authorities on Friday suspended broadcasts by a television news channel for 10 days after it used a racist word on social media to describe African migrants.
Echorouk News TV used the derogatory word in a Facebook post after police raids in which migrants from sub-Saharan Africa were detained.
The ANIRA broadcasting authority called the publication "extremely serious".
The report contained "a racist and discriminatory term, an attack on human dignity, conveying hate speech against a category of people because of their race," said ANIRA which demanded that the channel's management make an official apology.
Tens of thousands of undocumented African migrants have used Algeria as a staging post to attempt to get to Europe. Many have sought jobs in the North African country.
Since the start of April, Algeria has expelled some 5,000 Africans to neighbouring Niger, according to state television. About half were from Niger.
 

 


Eurovision lifts ban on Palestinian flags as scrutiny of Israel’s participation grows

Updated 02 May 2025
Follow

Eurovision lifts ban on Palestinian flags as scrutiny of Israel’s participation grows

  • Fans will now be allowed to bring and display any flag that does not contain racist content, hate symbols
  • Iceland, Spain and Slovenia have all raised concerns about Israel’s participation at this year’s contest

LONDON: Organizers of the Eurovision Song Contest have lifted a ban on Palestinian flags for audience members, but maintained restrictions for participating artists, as pressure over Israel’s inclusion in this year’s event increased.

The change, confirmed by Danish broadcaster DR, marks a shift from the European Broadcasting Union’s longstanding rule prohibiting flags from non-competing countries and territories. That policy led to Palestinian flags being banned in previous years.

According to updated guidelines obtained by DR, fans will now be allowed to bring and display any flag that does not contain “racist and/or discriminatory content,” or symbols thought to incite hatred, violence, or linked to banned organizations.

In a statement to CNN, the EBU said the update seeks to “strike a balance to ensure that our audiences and artists can express their enthusiasm and identities,” while offering greater clarity for national delegations.

However, the relaxed policy applies only to the audience. Participating artists will still be restricted to displaying official national flags in all official Eurovision spaces, including the stage, green room, and Eurovision Village. Artists may show only the flag of the country they represent.

The revised policy comes amid growing criticism of Israel’s participation in this year’s contest to be held in Basel, Switzerland, with semifinals on May 13 and 15 and the final on May 17.

Officials in countries including Slovenia, Spain and Iceland have questioned Israel’s inclusion.

Icelandic Foreign Minister Porgerour Katrin Gunnarsdottir told a local outlet she found it “strange and actually unnatural that Israel is allowed to participate,” accusing the country of committing “war crimes” and “ethnic cleansing” in Gaza.

Despite these objections, the EBU has confirmed that Israel’s entry meets the competition’s rules. As with last year, large-scale protests are expected in Basel against Israel’s participation.

Despite pressure from pro-Israel organizations, Swiss authorities said demonstrations are permitted in principle, including those opposing Israel’s presence, provided they comply with public safety regulations.


Spotify, EA Sports test in-game music integration in Saudi Arabia

Updated 01 May 2025
Follow

Spotify, EA Sports test in-game music integration in Saudi Arabia

  • Players in Kingdom can now link their account directly with video game

LONDON: Spotify and EA Sports have launched a pilot project that allows players to link their Spotify accounts directly with the EA Sports FC 25 video game.

The feature is being rolled out in Saudi Arabia and selected other markets.

The project, which was announced on Thursday, enables Spotify Premium users to log in via a new tab in the main game menu and control music playback during gameplay, including during team selection or from the pause menu.

The Swedish music platform said the partnership aimed at offering players more control over their in-game audio.

It said: “Long seen as the perfect companion to gaming, music boosts focus, amplifies adrenaline, and heightens the emotional highs of every match.

“Through this collaboration, players can now curate their perfect in-game soundtrack, listening to the artists they love.”

Podcast access and curated playlists will also be available.

The feature is currently accessible to Premium users playing EA Sports FC 25 on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S in Saudi Arabia and Australia.

The Kingdom has become a growing market for gaming and electronic sports, driven by a young and tech-savvy population.

Gaming now plays a prominent role in the Kingdom’s Vision 2030 diversification strategy, with plans for the sector to contribute more than $13 billion to the economy and create tens of thousands of jobs, according to Savvy Games Group.

Riyadh hosted the inaugural Esports World Cup last summer, a large-scale tournament featuring 23 events across major titles including Fortnite, Call of Duty, and EA Sports FC, with a record-setting prize pool of $62.5 million.


Jeddah communication conference explores anime’s digital evolution

Updated 01 May 2025
Follow

Jeddah communication conference explores anime’s digital evolution

  • The session focused on anime’s shift from traditional television broadcasts and DVDs to digital platforms, including live streaming, instant subtitling and cloud-based production

RIYADH: The eighth session of the Digital Communication Conference, titled “Anime in the Digital Space,” explored the transformation of Japanese anime over the past two decades, highlighting the impact of digital innovation and the internet.

According to Saudi Press Agency, the session focused on anime’s shift from traditional television broadcasts and DVDs to digital platforms, including live streaming, instant subtitling and cloud-based production.

Streaming giants such as Netflix, Crunchyroll, and Funimation were highlighted as pivotal players in the transition, offering translated or dubbed episodes immediately upon release and funding original series such as “Devilman Crybaby” and “Cyberpunk: Edgerunners.”

Speakers in the session, including Manga Productions CEO Essam Bukhary, said that social media and online forums have opened the door to unprecedented engagement among fans, as well as community and cultural interaction, since audiences now take part in evaluating episodes.

Concerns were raised that heavy dependence on technology could erode the handcrafted aesthetic that defines traditional anime.

Saudi Arabia’s burgeoning interest in manga and anime, which dates back to the 1970s, is helping to usher in a revolution in cultural production.

Japanese art forms have captivated audiences of all ages, gaining significant popularity in recent years. Their ability to combine entertainment, culture and education has made them of great interest to Saudi society.

To support this interest, the General Entertainment Authority has hosted events like the Saudi Anime Expo, drawing international visitors.

In line with these efforts, the ministries of culture and education launched the Manga Education program to nurture student talent, as well as integrate arts and culture into public education.