Sep 11, 2019 (Nikkei) - Japan's real gross domestic product retreated 0.5% in July compared with the previous month as rising imports led to negative external demand, the Japan Center for Economic Research reported Wednesday.
The GDP decline was the first in two months. The increase in imports outweighed gains in exports, dragging down Japan's growth by 0.9 percentage point.
Domestic private-sector demand, however, lifted economic growth 0.3 point.
Typhoon No. 26 (Surigae) intensified into a very strong storm by 3 p.m. on September 27 and is expected to approach Okinawa through September 28, bringing violent winds and heavy rain before continuing northeast over waters south of Japan, where it could strengthen a stationary autumn rain front and trigger further downpours across western and eastern Japan.
Yokozuna Onosato captured his sixth career championship at the Autumn Grand Sumo Tournament on September 27, defeating Ukrainian ozeki Aonishiki in a winner-takes-all showdown at Tokyo's Ryogoku Kokugikan to finish the 15-day competition with 12 wins and three losses, ending a year-long title drought after a dramatic final weekend.
A fire broke out at the observation deck of Chubu Electric Power MIRAI TOWER in central Nagoya on Saturday, prompting 30 visitors to evacuate, although no injuries were reported.
Japan's teenage skateboarders delivered two gold medals and two bronze medals on September 25, with 15-year-olds Mizuho Hasegawa and Ian Nagahara winning the women's and men's park competitions at the Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games.
A major traffic accident involving 10 vehicles, including trucks and passenger cars, left one man seriously injured and nine others with minor injuries on the Daini Shinmei Road in Kobe on September 24, forcing the closure of part of the expressway.
A 25-year-old father has been arrested on suspicion of attempted murder after allegedly throwing his two young daughters from the sixth-floor balcony of an apartment building in Kakamigahara, Gifu Prefecture, in the early hours of September 26, with police investigating whether a dispute between the suspect and his wife was behind the incident.
Princess Aiko, the only daughter of Emperor Naruhito and Empress Masako, attended the opening ceremony of the World Congress of Medical Laboratory Science in Chiba, where she expressed condolences to victims of recent natural disasters and called for a swift recovery in affected areas.
A major traffic accident involving 10 vehicles, including trucks and passenger cars, left one man seriously injured and nine others with minor injuries on the Daini Shinmei Road in Kobe on September 24, forcing the closure of part of the expressway.
Police in Tokyo's Shibuya district are dealing with a steady stream of thefts, drunken altercations and late-night accidents, including a 17-year-old boy who stole a sleeping man's bag on a whim, a dispute outside a karaoke bar and an injured man who lost his memory after a night of drinking.
Two men robbed a man in his 30s of a bag containing 1 million yen in cash and his shoes in Osaka City before dawn on September 24, leaving him with minor injuries after pushing him to the ground.
Police in Yamagata Prefecture are working to identify a body found on the coast of a remote island on September 23, the 19th day since a 6-year-old boy went missing in Sakata, after discovering that the body was dressed in clothing similar to the Spider-Man outfit the child was wearing when he disappeared.
An emu that escaped from the home of a traveling zoo operator was captured after wandering through a residential neighborhood in Moriyama, Shiga Prefecture, on September 23, following a police report from a resident who mistook the bird for an ostrich.
People aged 65 and older accounted for a record 29.6% of Japan's population in 2026, the highest proportion among major countries worldwide, while the number of elderly people in employment also reached an all-time high as Japan marked Respect for the Aged Day on September 21.
