| schema:articleBody
| - Here are the latest developments from Asia related to the coronavirus pandemic: Japan dived into its first recession since 2015, according to official data, with the world's third-largest economy shrinking by 0.9 percent in the first quarter as it wrestles with the fallout from the coronavirus. The drop in gross domestic product followed a 1.9 percent decline in the fourth quarter of 2019 as a tax hike and typhoons hit Japan hard -- even before the pandemic shut down much of the economy. A recession is defined as two consecutive quarters of negative GDP growth and some analysts predicted the Japanese economy would suffer worse as the effects of the coronavirus become clearer. One of South Korea's top football clubs apologised for causing "deep concern" after being accused of using sex dolls to fill empty seats at a weekend game. FC Seoul insisted the mannequins -- used in the absence of fans, who are banned because of the coronavirus -- had "no connection to sex toys". But some of the artificial spectators, deployed for Sunday's game against Gwangju FC, wore T-shirts with the logo of SoloS, a sex toy seller. Hundreds of thousands of New Zealand children returned to school after two months of home education as part of a COVID-19 lockdown. Excited youngsters greeted classmates for the first time in eight weeks, while teachers reinforced messages about social distancing and hand-washing to combat the coronavirus. Wallabies forward Izack Rodda and two Queensland Reds teammates who refused to take a pay cut negotiated during the coronavirus shutdown were suspended as the team resumed training. The 21-cap Australia Test second row Rodda, Isaac Lucas and Harry Hockings rejected a deal that sees the country's professional rugby union players take a 60 percent pay cut over six months to help the game avoid insolvency. Struggling Japanese conglomerate SoftBank Group reported record losses, as the coronavirus pandemic compounded woes caused by its investment in troubled office-sharing start-up WeWork. The telecom and investment giant had already sounded the alarm, warning last month that the "deteriorating market environment" would hit its bottom line. Asian markets rose as a further easing of lockdowns around the world offset another round of data highlighting the sharp economic pain being inflicted by the virus. Traders also looked past a warning from the head of the Federal Reserve that a full recovery would likely not come until next year, warning that a vaccine would be needed to get things back to normal. burs-sr/qan
|
![[RDF Data]](/fct/images/sw-rdf-blue.png)
![[cxml]](/fct/images/cxml_doc.png)
![[csv]](/fct/images/csv_doc.png)
![[text]](/fct/images/ntriples_doc.png)
![[turtle]](/fct/images/n3turtle_doc.png)
![[ld+json]](/fct/images/jsonld_doc.png)
![[rdf+json]](/fct/images/json_doc.png)
![[rdf+xml]](/fct/images/xml_doc.png)
![[atom+xml]](/fct/images/atom_doc.png)
![[html]](/fct/images/html_doc.png)