Category Archives: Japan

Coronavirus live: 248,000 children out of school in England due to Covid; Greek cases set new record high

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Pupils out of school due to Covid up in week before England half-term; Greece public health body says 6,700 new infections recorded in 24 hours

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) has issued some data in the UK, suggesting that the number of Covid deaths is raising. The bulletin states:

The number of deaths from all causes in the UK in the week ending 22 October 2021 (Week 42) was 12,935, 15.4% above the average for the corresponding week in 2015 to 2019. Deaths were above the five-year average in all UK countries.

Of all deaths registered in the week ending 22 October, 974 involved coronavirus (Covid-19), 82 more than the previous week (a 9.2% increase). Deaths involving Covid-19 accounted for around 1 in 13 deaths (7.5%).

The policy will remain for a long time. How long it will last depends on the virus-control situation worldwide.

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Seventeen people injured in Tokyo subway knife attack – video

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A 24-year-old man was arrested after brandishing a knife and starting a fire on a train in Tokyo on Sunday night. The incident occurred on a Keio Line train near Kokuryo station in the western Tokyo city of Chofu. Seventeen people were injured, including a 72-year-old passenger who was stabbed on the train.

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Ruling party of Fumio Kishida wins comfortable victory in Japanese election

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Conservative LDP along with coalition partner Komeito retain control of parliament, defying expectations

Japan’s ruling conservative party defied expectations in Sunday’s general election, with a comfortable victory that will boost the prime minister, Fumio Kishida, as he attempts to steer the economy out of the coronavirus pandemic.

Kishida’s Liberal Democratic party secured 261 seats in the 465-member lower house – the more powerful of Japan’s two-chamber Diet – slightly down on its pre-election 276 seats.

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Man dressed as Joker arrested after injuring 17 in Tokyo train attack

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Japanese media report man in Batman villain costume stabbed people and started a fire

A man dressed in Batman’s Joker costume has been arrested for attempted murder after a knife and fire attack on a train in Tokyo, according to Japanese media, with at least 17 people reportedly injured and one in a serious condition after being stabbed.

Witnesses told national broadcaster NHK of the bloody attack which happened on Sunday, when the Japanese capital was full of Halloween revellers, many in costume.

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Pumice stones from undersea volcano wash ashore in Japan – video

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Drone footage shows vast amounts of pumice pebbles, spewed out months ago by an undersea volcano, clogging up a fishing port in Kagoshima prefecture, in southern Japan. The pumice has so far affected 19 ports in Kagoshima, and 11 on Okinawa, putting hundreds of fishing boats out of action and damaging the tourism industry.

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Japan’s governing party set for bloodied victory in weekend election

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Polls show the LDP may struggle to hold on to its sole majority in the 465-seat chamber

The party that has governed Japan almost without interruption for nearly seven decades is expected to win Sunday’s general election, but the new prime minister, Fumio Kishida, could emerge with his authority damaged.

Kishida, who became president of the ruling Liberal Democratic party (LDP) last month, is hoping to capitalise on a dramatic fall in coronavirus cases in Japan in recent weeks and engage voters with promises of a “new capitalism” that will redistribute wealth to the country’s struggling middle class.

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Japan ports swamped by pumice spewed from undersea volcano

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Dozens of fishing vessels and ports have been damaged, with tonnes of the floating pebbles being removed from coastlines every day

Vast amounts of pumice pebbles, spewed out months ago by an undersea volcano, has clogged dozens of ports and damaged fishing boats along Japan’s southernmost coastlines.

Deputy chief cabinet secretary Yoshihiko Isozaki said on Friday that the pumice had so far affected 11 ports on Okinawa and 19 others in the Kagoshima prefecture, on Japan’s southernmost island of Kyushu, and forced the central government to establish a disaster recovery task force.

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Face mask row in Japan over cost of 80m left in storage unused

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Government facing ridicule over ‘Abenomasks’ as it denies wasting large amounts of taxpayers’ money

Wearing masks may be near-ubiquitous in Japan, but the government has come under fire after it was revealed that more than 80m face coverings it procured at the start of the coronavirus pandemic are still in storage, at a huge cost to taxpayers.

The government secured 260m washable cloth masks early last year to distribute to every household in Japan after public anxiety over the virus emptied stores of medical versions.

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‘It is bullying, pure and simple’: being a woman in Japanese politics

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Harassment is common for women who run for office and female MPs comprise just 9.9% of lower house

Mari Yasuda has come to dread checking her social media accounts. While a TV programme has tipped the candidate as “one to watch” in Japan’s general election this month, her anonymous correspondents make no secret of their belief that, as a woman, she should not be standing for parliament at all.

“They accuse me of sleeping with powerful men to get ahead or make abusive comments in calls to our office,” says Yasuda, who is contesting a seat in Hyogo prefecture for the opposition Constitutional Democratic party of Japan. “I receive emails from men remarking on my appearance or asking me for a date.”

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Japan’s Princess Mako marries and loses royal status

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Emperor Naruhito’s niece and her college sweetheart make announcement at press conference

Japan’s Princess Mako has lost her royal status after marrying her “commoner” college sweetheart, Kei Komuro – a man she described as “irreplaceable” – while the couple voiced sadness over a scandal that has plagued their engagement.

After years of criticism of their relationship that has left Mako struggling with her mental health, the couple announced at a press conference at a hotel in Tokyo on Tuesday that they had wed. They declined to take questions from reporters.

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Japan’s Princess Mako leaves royal family to marry college sweetheart – video

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The now former Princess Mako of Japan has married Kei Komura, losing her royal status. The couple struggled with a financial scandal that plagued their engagement but said in a press conference to announce their marriage that they were ready to move forward with their lives together. The couple did not have a formal wedding ceremony or hold a reception banquet or any of the traditional rites associated with imperial weddings

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Japan royal wedding: subdued ritual looms as Princess Mako marries amid controversy

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Princess’s union to Kei Komuro has attracted public and media attention for all the wrong reasons

It is perhaps fitting that the weather forecast is for cloud and drizzle in Tokyo on Tuesday, when Princess Mako – the eldest niece of Japan’s emperor – will marry her college sweetheart in a subdued ritual marred by years of criticism of their relationship.

Despite the imperial backdrop – and a public craving for distraction after 18 months of the coronavirus pandemic – their nuptials will involve lots of paperwork and rather less festivity.

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Volcano spews ash two miles into the sky in Japan – video

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A volcano blasted ash two miles into the sky after erupting on Japan's southern island of Kyushu on Wednesday.

Officials warned of a risk of large falling rocks and lava flows within a radius of about half a mile around the mountain's crater, but there were no immediate reports of casualties. 

Mount Aso erupted at about 11.43am local time (0343 BST), and the ash falls have been showering nearby towns in the prefecture of Kumamoto


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Defectors tell court they were promised ‘paradise on Earth’ in North Korea

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Five people seeking compensation say they were lured to country and then denied basic human rights

Five people who say they were lured to North Korea decades ago as part of a resettlement programme have told a court in Japan they were promised a “paradise on Earth” but were instead denied basic human rights.

The plaintiffs – four ethnic Korean residents of Japan and a Japanese woman who went to the North with her Korean husband and their daughter – are seeking 100m yen (£644,000) in damages from the regime of Kim Jong-un.

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Back from the brink: how Japan became a surprise Covid success story

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Covid infections fall to lowest levels in more than a year, but experts warn winter could spark a fresh wave

Just days after the Tokyo Olympics drew to a close, Japan appeared to be hurtling towards a coronavirus disaster. On 13 August, the host city reported a record 5,773 new Covid-19 cases, driven by the Delta variant. Nationwide the total exceeded 25,000.

Soaring infections added to resentment felt by a public that had opposed the Olympics, only to be told they could not watch events in person due to the pandemic. Hospitals were under unprecedented strain, the shortage of beds forcing thousands who had tested positive to recuperate – and in some cases die – at home.

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Japan’s island-shaped curry inflames tensions with Korean neighbours

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Restaurant plants Japanese flag in seafood dish moulded in shape of islands that are also claimed by South Korea

A simple bowl of curry is at the centre of the latest row in a long-running territorial dispute between Japan and the Koreas.

Media in North and South Korea reacted angrily after an online media report about a seafood curry sold in Japan that includes mounds of rice shaped to resemble the Takeshima islands, which Koreans refer to as Dokdo.

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‘People arrived for work and got vaporised’: how Kikuji Kawada captured the trauma of Hiroshima

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The holy grail of Japanese photobooks, Kawada’s Chizu was five years in the making and changes hands for £25,000 a copy. Now a new edition revisits his personal archeology of a nation’s pain

Kikuji Kawada was 25 when he visited Hiroshima for the first time. It was July 1958 and he had been assigned by a Japanese news magazine to assist Ken Domon, a renowned photographer 14 years his senior. As Domon worked in and around the Hiroshima Peace Park, Kawada found himself drawn to the ruined shell of a once ornate, steel-framed building that had been badly damaged, but somehow remained standing, when America dropped the first atomic bomb on the city at 8.15 am on 6 August 1945, obliterating everything else within a mile radius.

“That’s when I found them,” he would later recall, “the stains on the walls of the rooms beneath the dome.” The bomb had been dropped from almost directly above the building, which was then called the Hiroshima Prefectural Industrial Promotion Hall. Alone in the dank ruins, Kawada realised that the stained walls held the only traces of some of the dead. “When the place was destroyed,” he told Aperture magazine in 2015, “there were about 30 people (who) had arrived for work and ended up vaporised. The place had a horrible atmosphere. Just looking at it was overwhelming.”

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Coronavirus treatments: the potential ‘game-changers’ in development

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After positive clinical trials for antiviral drug Molnupiravir, it joins other medicines that have shown promise

The first clinical trial results showing a positive effect for a pill that can be taken at home has been hailed as a potential gamechanger that could provide a new way to protect the most vulnerable people from the worst effects of Covid-19. Molnupiravir joins a growing list of medicines that have shown promise. Here are some of the main developments in treatments so far.

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Princess Mako wedding announcement stirs up media frenzy in Japan

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Marriage with non-royal Kei Komuro to take place against backdrop of scandal, tabloid intrusion and public disapproval

When they announced their unofficial engagement four years ago, they were cast as a perfect match: the young princess and the clean-cut trainee lawyer, for whom she was prepared to sacrifice her imperial status.

Now the sound of wedding bells is within earshot, after the Imperial Household Agency announced on Friday that Princess Mako, the niece of Japan’s emperor, would marry her non-royal fiance, Kei Komuro, on 26 October.

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