News Headlines - 17 August 2020

▽Japan GDP drop breaks postwar record amid pandemic : The Asahi Shimbun

Japan’s economy suffered its biggest contraction on record in the April-June quarter amid the pandemic, as consumers closed their wallets, businesses shuttered or were spooked out of making investments, and exports plunged.
Japan’s gross domestic product shrank at a rapid clip, falling at an annualized rate of 27.8 percent in the second quarter, marking the steepest drop on record in the postwar era, according to a government report released Aug. 17.
The economy contracted 7.8 percent in the April-June period from the previous quarter, preliminary figures released by the Cabinet Office also showed.

▽Abe hospital visit raises speculation about his health | The Japan Times

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe visited a hospital on Monday, raising concerns about whether he is still fit enough to lead the nation through a pandemic and an economic downturn.
Abe entered Keio University Hospital in the Shinanomachi district of Tokyo at about 10:30 a.m. His aide and a hospital official told reporters the visit was a followup on his regular medical check-up in June.

▽Japanese officials sought a Nissan-Honda merger | Financial Times

Japanese government figures tried to bring Nissan and Honda together for merger talks this year, in a sign of growing concern in Tokyo over the future of the country’s once mighty car sector.
The suggestion to create a national champion was first made to the companies at the tail-end of 2019, according to three people familiar with the matter, amid fears that Japan’s vast car-manufacturing base was losing its edge as the shift towards self-driving electric vehicles unleashed greater competition.

▽Ainu group's fishing lawsuit is first to seek confirmation of indigenous rights | The Japan Times

A group of Ainu, an ethnic minority in northern Japan, filed a lawsuit Monday against authorities to grant them an exemption from a ban on the commercial fishing of salmon in rivers.
While the law stipulates that the Ainu are an indigenous people, it does not guarantee their self-determination and other tribal rights, with the government citing there are no Ainu tribes.

▽World temperature record set in California's Death Valley - Reuters

One of the hottest air temperatures recorded anywhere on the planet in at least a century, and possibly ever, was reached on Sunday afternoon at Death Valley in California’s Mojave Desert where it soared to 130 Fahrenheit (54.4 Celsius).
An automated observation system run by the U.S. National Weather Service in the valley’s sparsely populated Furnace Creek reported the record at 3:41 p.m. at the crest of an extreme heat wave, a more frequent occurrence due to climate change.