Carlos Ghosn, the fallen automotive titan facing trial in Japan for financial crimes, has fled the country for Lebanon.

It's a stunning twist in a saga that began with his shock arrest in Tokyo just over a year ago.

“I am now in Lebanon and will no longer be held hostage by a rigged Japanese justice system where guilt is presumed, discrimination is rampant, and basic human rights are denied,” he said in a statement.

Ghosn had been awaiting trial for what prosecutors called a pervasive pattern of financial misconduct and raiding of corporate resources for personal gain — allegations that he denied.

Find out more: https://bloom.bg/2Qax61p

🇺🇸🇨🇳 President Donald Trump tweeted that he will sign the first phase of a China trade deal Jan. 15. He added he will be going to Beijing at a later date, where talks will begin on the second phase of the deal: https://bloom.bg/2F95IL1

🔵In Baghdad, dozens of Iraqi militia and their supporters stormed the U.S. Embassy complex to protest deadly U.S. airstrikes against their Iranian-backed force: https://bloom.bg/2Qcbv8Z

🎥In 2019, Netflix made more movies than any other Hollywood studio. Now it wants its Oscar: https://bloom.bg/2thtEcn

Happy 2020 🎉 Here’s what we’re following:

🇭🇰 Hong Kong rang in the new year with tear gas. Riot police battled crowds into the night after mostly peaceful demonstrators — including families with children and the elderly — flooded the streets. Organizers said more than a million people took part, while police said 60,000 showed up at the march’s starting point. https://bloom.bg/36htale

📈 If someone told you at the start of the decade to forgo stocks and buy an unknown digital token, you’d call them crazy, right? Bitcoin’s 9,000% rise over the past 10 years has left the skeptics aghast. Nothing else comes even close to beating it. https://bloom.bg/2ZI1PGa

🇦🇺 Thousands of tourists in Australia are being told to evacuate as wildfires destroyed hundreds of homes, cut off rural towns and left at least eight people dead. Officials said anyone in the southeastern tip of the country’s New South Wales state should get out in the next two days. https://bloom.bg/2QjMCIB

📉 For stock market experts, there is at least one easy prediction to make about the next 12 months: Investors are going to earn less. A lot less, probably.

Despite the trade war, political turmoil and more, most major assets posted a once-a-decade performance in 2019, but even uber-bulls know the chances of repeating the feat are slim.

Here's what Wall Street expects for the year ahead: https://bloom.bg/2MPvrwb

🔴 Former Nissan and Renault CEO Carlos Ghosn says his family had "no role" in planning his escape from Japan to Lebanon ahead of his trial: https://bloom.bg/35jple3

💻 Artificial intelligence can spot breast cancer more accurately than doctors, according to a study by Google Health. The technology’s reading of mammograms reduced both false positives and negatives: https://bloom.bg/2QCPbo4

✈ If traveling is one of your resolutions in the new year, we have 24 must-see places to add to your list: https://bloom.bg/36mmRwA

Breaking: One of Iran's top commanders has been killed in a U.S. airstrike in Baghdad.

Qassem Soleimani, the general who led the Revolutionary Guards’ Quds force, died in the attack near the city's international airport. https://bloom.bg/2tqCS62

A strong Iranian response appears certain. The attack is the latest in a series of violent episodes that have further strained U.S.-Iran relations. They began last week when an American contractor was killed in a rocket attack on an Iraqi military base in Kirkuk.

Meanwhile, oil futures in New York and London surged more than 4% after the airstrike. https://bloom.bg/2rQSqQn

Donald Trump ordered the killing of a top Iranian general in an airstrike, and in his characteristic style, the president made sure the world knew the U.S. was responsible. https://bloom.bg/2tmBRMC

Qassem Soleimani was regarded as the second most powerful person in Iran and personified the country's projection of power abroad.

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei vowed "severe retaliation." https://bloom.bg/2sGyOyA

Trump's decision was hailed by his allies as one of his boldest strokes in foreign policy and lambasted by his critics as likely his most reckless.

Soleimani's death heightens fears of escalation between the U.S. and Iran, which could easily pull in other countries. https://bloom.bg/2ttXIkZ

🔽 U.S. stocks drop sharply, heading for their biggest decline since October, following the U.S. airstrike that killed a top Iranian commander.

Oil and gold also surged, with crude jumping 3.4% to $63.24 a barrel: https://bloom.bg/2Fi94eF

🇯🇵 Asia’s biggest dealmaking force right now isn’t China. Over $200 billion of domestic and foreign deals shook up Japan’s business landscape last year, and the buying is set to continue into 2020. https://bloom.bg/35vaXiF

📈 Gold surged to its highest level in more than six years as rising tensions in the Middle East stoked demand for haven assets. Palladium also extended gains to an all-time high. https://bloom.bg/39I87KD

🐟 A bluefin tuna was sold for the second-highest price on record at a Tokyo fish market on Sunday. It weighed a staggering 276 kilograms (608 pounds) and went for $1.8 million. https://bloom.bg/39KU86L

Mourners packed the streets of Tehran on Monday ahead of the funeral of Qassem Soleimani, the top Iranian general killed in a U.S. airstrike last week. https://bloom.bg/2QsS248

The economic costs of the strike are mounting: oil surged above $70 a barrel, equities around the world fell and gold rose to the highest in more than six years. https://bloom.bg/36tAnic

Meanwhile, European leaders are scrambling to come up with a response to the escalating tensions between Iran and the U.S. https://bloom.bg/2Qtm1ZJ

✈ Boeing fell following reports that the company is weighing a move to raise more debt after the grounding of the 737 Max and that the jetliner’s return to service could face further complications: https://bloom.bg/2s4bBX2

😐 From Argentina to Chile to Lebanon, we're seeing a high degree of political and economic uncertainty among emerging market economies: https://bloom.bg/2N3o98m

⬇ Stocks fell for a second session as rising tensions in the Middle East rattled investors. The dollar dropped and Treasuries rose: https://bloom.bg/2ZTSsDw

☀️ Why was a $1 billion solar plant obsolete before it ever went online? The Crescent Dunes plant in the U.S. looked like the future of renewable power, but it couldn’t keep pace with technological advances. https://bloom.bg/35uIZnx

👟 Nike’s Vaporfly Next% sneakers have been called “groundbreaking” and described as a “supershoe.” For Japanese shoemakers Asics and Mizuno, they are something else: trouble. https://bloom.bg/2T0Qqjw

🌭 First there was the Impossible Burger. Now there's Impossible Pork and Impossible Sausage. https://bloom.bg/2tzhbRt

🚗 Tesla kicked off production in China, marking a major step in Elon Musk’s global push for electric-vehicle domination: https://bloom.bg/2umuG7q

🌿 Greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S. are finally on the decline as coal-fired power plants continue to close: https://bloom.bg/2sTbDRK

👮 Finland is not considering a four-day work week, dispelling viral reports circulating online: https://bloom.bg/2QSjHKG

Breaking: Iran fired a series of rockets at a joint U.S.-Iraqi airbase early Wednesday morning Baghdad time, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said on its news website.

An American defense official confirmed that an attack was underway against the Ayn al-Asad base in western Iraq’s Anbar province.

U.S. stock futures fell on the news.

Read more here: https://bloom.bg/2N2S1kY

A Boeing 737 jet carrying 180 people crashed in Iran due to technical problems shortly after takeoff, according to state media. It was headed for Ukraine.

Boeing is already mired in crisis following crashes in October 2018 and March 2019. Those disasters, which killed nearly 350 people, involved the 737 Max jet, which has been grounded globally for 10 months.

Keep reading: https://bloom.bg/2FqIb8y

Iran’s targeted missile strikes on U.S. bases in Iraq appear to be carefully calibrated to appease growing anger at home while providing Donald Trump with a chance to avoid war. https://bloom.bg/303c08p

Smoke from deadly bush fires that have devastated Australia has now spread halfway across the world, darkening skies in Argentina and beyond. https://bloom.bg/39NhdG1

Carlos Ghosn is set to give a press conference in Beirut on Wednesday, where he is expected to address his reasons for skipping bail in Japan and fleeing to Lebanon. https://bloom.bg/2QTLQks

🇺🇸 Donald Trump backed away from the precipice of war with Iran after the country attacked U.S. bases in Iraq: https://bloom.bg/2sbMFNm

🚨 Carlos Ghosn went on the attack against Japan’s criminal justice system less than two weeks after becoming the world’s most famous fugitive with a daring escape to Lebanon: https://bloom.bg/2tGwOXk

👑 Prince Harry and his wife Meghan Markle said they’ll “step back” from their roles as senior members of the royal family and “work to become financially independent”: https://bloom.bg/2Qyktxt

Hello, here’s what we’re reading today:

🍕 A SoftBank-backed pizza startup is cutting half of its staff and shutting down its pizza business. Zume, which was known for serving robot-made pies, is the latest in a long line of SoftBank investments forced to slash spending. https://bloom.bg/39PKJLi

🐨 As many as a billion animals may have been killed in Australia’s wildfires since September, a scientist said, doubling his earlier estimate. “We’re probably looking at what climate change may look like for other parts of the world in the first stages in Australia at the moment,” he added. https://bloom.bg/2T1nfgm

💬 Bitcoin enthusiasts are starting 2020 fixated on something that likely won’t happen until May. Here’s what traders are saying about the planned reduction in rewards for mining Bitcoin: https://bloom.bg/2t30Kge

The Boeing jet that crashed in Iran on Wednesday killing 176 people tried to turn back soon after takeoff before plunging to earth in a fireball. https://bloom.bg/35wZIXa

China's Vice Premier Liu He will travel to Washington to sign the first phase of the trade deal with the U.S. next week. https://bloom.bg/39Paziy

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle have announced they are stepping back as senior members of the royal family, but how exactly will that work? https://bloom.bg/2uzUtcF

🔴 U.S. intelligence officials increasingly believe that the Ukrainian jet that fell from the sky after taking off from Tehran on Wednesday was shot down by a missile: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-01-09/missile-strike-seen-by-u-s-officials-as-likely-iran-crash-cause

💼 It was both a great year for the U.S. jobs market, and the worst in almost a decade: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-01-09/a-great-year-for-u-s-jobs-is-also-likely-to-be-worst-since-2011

🇨🇳 China announced that Vice Premier Liu He will travel to Washington to sign the first phase of the trade deal with the U.S. next week, locking in Beijing’s commitment: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-01-09/china-says-liu-to-visit-washington-from-jan-13-for-deal-signing