News Headlines - 18 April 2019

▽Abe aide hints at delay in consumption tax hike - NHK WORLD

The government is preparing to increase the tax from 8 to 10 percent on October 1, but comments by the Liberal Democratic Party's Acting Secretary General, Koichi Hagiuda, have cast doubt on that plan.
Hagiuda told a net-cast program on Thursday that the Japanese economy is weakening slightly. He said the timing of the tax increase will depend on the results of the Bank of Japan's quarterly "tankan" survey of business sentiment. The next report is due out in July.
Hagiuda said if the survey shows that executives feel a sense of danger, the government won't "be able to take everyone to the edge of a cliff."

▽Tencent wins key approval to sell Nintendo's Switch in China - Reuters

China’s Tencent has won a key approval to start selling the Nintendo Switch in the country, paving the way for the console to enter the world’s largest video games market two years after it was first released worldwide.
Authorities in the southern Chinese province of Guangdong gave the green light on Thursday to Tencent Holdings to distribute the Nintendo Switch console with a test version of the “New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe” game, a statement on the government’s website showed.

▽India's Jet Airways Ceases Operations Amid Financial Woes : NPR

But earlier this week, that once-dazzling fleet of 120 planes was down to just seven. And before dawn Thursday, after months of wooing investors for cash that just didn't come, Jet Airways landed its last plane on the tarmac at its home base in Mumbai - at least for now.
Creditors say they're "reasonably hopeful" that a bidding process with potential investors would be able to save the company. Otherwise, if it declares insolvency under India's new 2016 bankruptcy law, Jet Airways' creditors may seek to dismantle the company and recover their debts within 180 days.

▽Egypt to vote on extending Sisi's term on April 20-22 | Al Jazeera

Egypt will hold a three-day referendum starting on Saturday over proposed constitutional changes that could allow President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi to stay in power until 2030.
The ballot will run between April 20-22 and will also see voters decide on whether an upper parliamentary chamber should be created, Lasheen Ibrahim, the chairman of the National Election Authority, said in a statement on Wednesday.

▽N.Korea's Kim oversees test of new weapon with 'powerful warhead'

North Korea's Kim Jong Un has supervised the test-firing of a new tactical weapon with a "powerful warhead", state media reported Thursday, in the first test of its kind since nuclear negotiations with Washington stalled.
The test marks a ratcheting up of tensions weeks after a summit between Kim and US President Donald Trump collapsed without agreement.
It also comes after satellite imagery suggested heightened activity at a nuclear test site.