News Headlines - 09 March 2020
Japan’s biggest contraction in more than five years adds to escalating concerns among policymakers about the length of a likely recession in the world’s third-largest economy as the impact of the coronavirus and a plunge in oil prices causes markets to slide and the yen to gain.
Revised data showed gross domestic product shrank faster than first thought in the October-December quarter, contracting at an annualized pace of 7.1 percent as a tax hike walloped consumption amid a global slowdown, and businesses cut capital spending at the fastest pace since the global financial crisis. The preliminary annualized figure was 6.3 percent.
▽North Korea has launched at least three unidentified projectiles - CNN
North Korea fired at least three unidentified projectiles Monday, according to US and South Korean officials, the second such move by the Kim Jong Un regime in two weeks.
South Korea's Defense Ministry said it detected different types of short-range projectiles fired from the Sondok area on North Korea's east coast into the waters between the Korean Peninsula and Japan. The projectiles had a maximum flight distance of 200 kilometers (124 miles) and maximum altitude of 50 kilometers (31 miles), according to the ministry.
▽MH17 plane crash trial opens in the Netherlands | The Guardian
The trial of three Russians and a Ukrainian accused of murdering 298 people in the shooting down of flight MH17 over eastern Ukraine has begun in the Netherlands.
The presiding judge, Hendrik Steenhuis, said “the loss of so many lives and the manner in which they so abruptly ended is barely conceivable” as he opened the case on Monday at the Schiphol judicial complex, close to the airport from where the Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 took off for Kuala Lumpur on 17 July 2014.
The aircraft was shot down over the conflict zone in eastern Ukraine by a Buk anti-aircraft missile, killing everyone onboard. The victims came from 17 countries. Most - 193 people - were Dutch nationalsOthers were Malaysian, Australian, Indonesian and British.
▽Protests and celebrations mark 2020 International Women's Day - CBS News
Women filled the streets of the world's largest cities Sunday to protest gender violence and inequality on International Women's Day, with the mothers of murdered girls leading a march in Mexico City and participants in Paris inveighing against the "virus of the patriarchy."
While many protests were peaceful celebrations others were marred by tension, with security forces arresting demonstrators at a rally in Kyrgyzstan and police reportedly using tear gas to break up a demonstration by thousands of women in Turkey.
▽Harry and Meghan bow out at final working royals engagement - BBC News
Prince Harry and Meghan joined the Queen and other senior royals at the Commonwealth Day service at Westminster Abbey on Monday afternoon.
The couple have been carrying out a series of public appearances in the UK before stepping back as working royals.
From 31 March, they will stop using their HRH titles and receiving public money.
