May 5th, 2017

1)   A car driven by an elderly woman has rammed into a hospital in southwestern Japan, leaving 13 people injured.

Police suspect the driver, who is 76 years old, made an error and lost control of the car.

2)   Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has said he wants to put a revised Constitution into force in 2020.

3)   North Korea has warned Japan that it would suffer the greatest damage if war breaks out on the Korean Peninsula.

4)   Anti-refugee sentiment is rising in Europe and the United States but in Japan those seeking haven from tyranny and war have long faced daunting legal and social gauntlets.

One of the world’s wealthiest countries, Japan accepted just 28 refugees in 2016

5)   Japanese researchers have succeeded in extracting natural gas from frozen methane hydrate deep in the seabed off the Pacific coast of central Japan.

6)   A Japanese research group has found a new type of computer virus that destroys programs in devices that are connected to the Internet.

7)   US electric car maker Tesla more than doubled its sales in the January-March quarter from the same period last year, thanks to record volume.

8)   Japan’s economy has expanded in the first 3 months of this year thanks to brisk exports and consumer spending.

The growth estimates for annualized real-term GDP range from 1.4 percent to 3.1 percent from the previous quarter.

9)   The number of children in Japan fell for the 36th straight year to another record low, the latest data showed Thursday, indicating efforts by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s government have been inadequate to tackle the long-standing issue of a declining birthrate.

10)   Tokyo risks being one of the unhealthiest Olympic Gamaes hosts in years, as an anti-smoking law exposes deep rifts over tobacco tax revenue, personal freedom and the dangers of passive smoking.