News Headlines - 20 November 2015

▽Militants target Westerners in Mali hotel seige - Telegraph

France appears to have been primary target of another terrorist attack after gunmen stormed a hotel filled with Western visitors in Mali’s capital, killing about 27 people

▽Japan Considers Sending Navy to Aid U.S. in South China Sea - Bloomberg Business

The comments in a bilateral meeting Thursday on the sidelines of an Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Manila came after the U.S. sparked an angry reaction from China last month by sailing a warship close to an artificial island in waters that China views as its own territory. Japan and the U.S., its only formal ally, have occasionally conducted joint exercises in the South China Sea, but never in such close proximity to features claimed by China.

▽Japan ends ‘love hotels’ affair in favour of hostels - FT.com

Mr Kozawa said love hotels made ideal hostels because they were easy to convert. “All customers want to stay somewhere a bit unique,” he said.
Japan is on course to meet its 2020 goal of 20m foreign visitors five years early thanks to the weakness of the yen and a surge in Chinese tourists. Tourism is a big part of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s growth strategy.

▽Shock UK deficit figures dent George Osborne's economic plan | The Guardian

The deficit, or the gap between what the government spends and takes in, swelled by 16% from a year earlier to ￡8.2bn in October, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS). It was a larger shortfall than the ￡6bn forecast by economists in a Reuters poll.
The chancellor wants to eliminate the deficit on the public finances by the end of the decade. As part of that push, he will unveil plans in his spending review on 25 November to cut government department spending by around ￡20bn over the next four years.

▽Snow storms and icy blizzards sweep in across the UK - Telegraph

Parts of the UK saw a flurry of snow overnight at the start of a wintry weekend which could see temperatures plummet to minus 5C.
Snow showers were reported in parts of Scotland, Wales, northern England and the Midlands.