News Headlines - 11 August 2019
▽Recession fears grow as UK economy shrinks on back of Brexit chaos | The Guardian
Brexit uncertainty, car plant shutdowns and the running down of stock built up before the original end of March deadline for Britain’s EU exit resulted in gross domestic product shrinking by 0.2% in the three months ending in June.
News from the Office for National Statistics of the first fall in quarterly GDP in six and a half years sparked immediate speculation that a further bout of Brexit jitters leading up to the new 31 October departure date could lead to a second successive quarter of negative growth - the technical definition of a recession.
▽32 dead after Typhoon Lekima sweeps through east China - Global Times
A total of 32 people have died and 16 remain missing after super typhoon Lekima made landfall in eastern China's Zhejiang Province on Saturday, local authorities said on Sunday... Nearly 1.08 million people have been evacuated to safe places, and close to 5 million people in Zhejiang were affected, said the provincial flood control headquarters. Lekima, the ninth typhoon and the strongest this year, landed around 1:45 a.m. Saturday in the city of Wenling in Zhejiang, packing winds of 187 kilometers per hour and bringing heavy rainstorms.
In Zhejiang, the typhoon damaged more than 173,000 hectares of crops and 34,000 houses. The direct economic loss amounts to 14.57 billion yuan (about 2.1 billion US dollars), the headquarters said. Rescue operations are underway.
▽Hong Kong police fire tear gas as protesters hit and run - Reuters
Hong Kong police fired volleys of tear gas to disperse anti-government protesters on Saturday - sending tourists fleeing weeping in Kowloon - only for demonstrators to regroup and gather elsewhere during another tense, hot and restive weekend.
▽Fukushima N-fuel debris removal plan detailed - The Japan News
A government-backed organization in charge of supporting the decommissioning of nuclear plants is considering proposing starting the removal of melted nuclear fuel debris from the No. 2 reactor among three heavily damaged reactors at Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings Inc.’s Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant, officials said Thursday.
Nuclear Damage Compensation and Decommissioning Facilitation Corp., or NDF, believes that the No. 2 reactor is the most suitable for melted fuel removal work to be conducted based on the results of its investigation into radiation levels at the reactors and the conditions inside them.
The Osaka District Public Prosecutor’s Office decided again on Friday not to indict former senior Finance Ministry bureaucrat Nobuhisa Sagawa and nine others over the Moritomo Gakuen cronyism scandal that hit the administration of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.
The secondary decision, which cited insufficient evidence, followed a reinvestigation into allegations that included forgery and breach of trust after the initial decision was questioned by a prosecution inquest panel made up of ordinary citizens.
The latest decision puts an end to the case, as it will not be reviewed by such a panel again under the prosecution inquest system.
