TOKYO — Japanese electronics company Pioneer Corp. will cut 10,000 jobs globally to cope with sinking sales of car audio equipment and flat-screen TVs. It will also withdraw from its money-losing plasma display business.

The massive job cuts, announced Thursday, are the latest in a slew of layoffs by Japanese corporate giants, who are slashing their payrolls worldwide, reducing production and forecasting annual losses amid a global economic slump. Sony Corp. is shedding 8,000 workers while Nissan Motor Co. and NEC Corp. are each cutting 20,000.

Hit by the collapse in demand for car audio equipment and plasma TVs, Pioneer said its net loss in the current fiscal year to March will swell to $1.4 billion. It will be the fifth straight annual loss for Pioneer.

Pioneer also said that it has decided to close two overseas plasma display assembly plants — one in Pomona, California, and the other in Castleford, Britain — by April.

VATICAN CITY — The Vatican said today that Pope Benedict XVI will make his first visit to Israel in May and he told Jewish leaders that it was unacceptable for anyone, especially a priest, to deny the Holocaust.The pope met with Jewish leaders in hopes of ending the rancor over a bishop who denied that 6 million Jews were killed by the Nazis.The Vatican also said the pope's planned visit to Israel — the second official visit by a pope —would be in May.Benedict affirmed the Catholic Church was "profoundly and irrevocably committed to reject all anti-Semitism."In an interview with Swedish state TV on Jan. 21, Bishop Richard Williamson denied that any Jews were gassed during World War II. He said only about 200,000 to 300,000 Jews were killed, but none of them gassed.Williamson has apologized for causing distress to the pope, but has not recanted. Benedict lifted the excommunication of Williamson and three other bishops consecrated by the late Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre without papal consent in 1988.