Authorities hope rock’n’roll song will help people of Iwate prefecture stay safe as number of bear sightings rises
Can rock’n’roll keep people safe from bear attacks? One Japanese region is hoping so, and has commissioned a cautionary anthem warning residents about the threat of its ursine inhabitants.
Bears are common across Japan and regularly spark frantic hunts when they venture into towns, where they have attacked and even killed residents.
Continue reading...Analysis: Election result marks return of pragmatic and centrist policies, spearheaded by a decent, if unexciting, leader
Japan’s governing Liberal Democratic party [LDP] has chosen stability and moderation in electing Fumio Kishida as its new leader – a post that all but guarantees that he will become the country’s prime minister on Monday.
Kishida, like Taro Kono – the man he defeated in a second round of voting on Wednesday – is a hereditary politician in a party packed with MPs who were practically destined at birth to occupy a seat in parliament.
Continue reading...With travel restrictions in place, campervans provide a way of travelling with the family and are currently very popular in Hidaka of Saitama prefecture, a suburb to the west of Tokyo
Continue reading...Former foreign minister to become PM following face off against vaccination minister Taro Kono
Fumio Kishida, a former foreign minister with a reputation as a consensus builder, is set to become Japan’s prime minister after winning the ruling Liberal Democratic party’s presidential election in a runoff against the vaccination minister, Taro Kono.
The LDP-led coalition holds a majority in both chambers of parliament, meaning Kishida is practically assured of the prime ministership at an extraordinary parliamentary session on Monday.
Continue reading...Joe Biden meets leaders of Australia, India and Japan in latest effort to cement US leadership in Asia
US president Joe Biden and the leaders of Australia, India and Japan highlighted their Quad group’s role in safeguarding a stable, democratic Indo-Pacific in a veiled dig at rival China.
The first in-person summit of the Quad held on Friday marked Biden’s latest effort to cement US leadership in Asia in the face of a rising China.
Continue reading...Exclusive: in the first piece in a new Guardian series on China and tensions in the Indo-Pacific, Japan’s defence minister says the international community must bolster deterrence efforts against Beijing’s military
Japan has urged European countries to speak out against China’s aggression, warning that the international community must bolster deterrence efforts against Beijing’s military and territorial expansion amid a growing risk of a hot conflict.
In an interview with the Guardian, Japan’s defence minister, Nobuo Kishi, said China had become increasingly powerful politically, economically and militarily and was “attempting to use its power to unilaterally change the status quo in the East and South China Seas”, which are crucial to global shipping and include waters and islands claimed by several other nations.
Continue reading...Discovery made by a local girl comes decades after the bottle was put into the sea by schoolchildren as part of an experiment to monitor ocean currents
A glass bottle that was released into the sea 37 years ago by high school students in Japan has been found on the island of Hawaii, about 6,000km away.
Students of the natural science club at Choshi High School in the eastern prefecture of Chiba released the bottle in 1984 as part of a project to investigate ocean currents, Japanese newspaper Mainichi reported.
Continue reading...Despite its unpopularity, the ruling LDP party looks unassailable. The country is stagnating because of it
Japan will soon have a new prime minister. Not because there is a general election coming up – although there is – but because the leader of the ruling Liberal Democratic party (LDP), the deeply unpopular Yoshihide Suga, abruptly resigned last week. Following a series of local election defeats, an Olympics staged against the public will, and a related fifth Covid wave that has pushed Japan’s medical system into “disaster mode”, Suga’s approval rating had plummeted to its lowest since the LDP’s return to power in 2012. Resignation was surely a wise decision, one that put the party first.
Given how disastrous the last few months have been, one might imagine that Suga’s replacement – almost certainly a man – would have his work cut out to avoid catastrophe in the general election. But that’s not how Japanese democracy works.
Continue reading...Glue and duct tape used to fit rat snakes with dosimeters and GPS movement trackers to help researchers understand long-term effects of radiation
Researchers have used snakes fitted with tracking devices and dosimeters to measure radiation levels in the area around the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant, which suffered triple meltdowns in March 2011.
The meltdowns in Japan caused by a giant tsunami released more radiation into the atmosphere than any nuclear disaster except Chernobyl in 1986.
Continue reading...Thousands of ethnic Koreans left Japan for North Korea decades ago lured by promise of a better life
A Japanese court has summoned North Korea’s leader to face demands for compensation by several ethnic Korean residents of Japan who say they suffered human rights abuses in North Korea after joining a resettlement programme there that described the country as a “paradise on Earth”, a lawyer and plaintiff have said.
Kim Jong-un is not expected to appear in court for the hearing on 14 October, but the judge’s decision to summon him was a rare instance in which a foreign leader was not granted sovereign immunity, said Kenji Fukuda, a lawyer representing the five plaintiffs.
Continue reading...A 49-year-old man died the day after taking his second shot of the vaccine, though authorities said a causal link has not been identified
A third man has died in Japan after receiving an injection from one of three batches of Moderna vaccines since identified as contaminated, though authorities say no causal link has yet been found.
The 49-year-old man had his second shot on 11 August and died the following day. His only known health issue was an allergy to buckwheat, the health ministry said on Monday. As with the previous two deaths, the ministry said it had yet to establish if the latest fatality was linked to the vaccine.
Continue reading...Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s old-fashioned drama delivers big performances and intriguing plot twists
Kiyoshi Kurosawa has probably long since got used to seeing the words “no relation” after his name; and this Japanese film-maker has in any case established his own distinctive, valuable presence in Asian cinema. Just two years ago, he released his complex drama To the Ends of the Earth, and now, working with Ryû Hamaguchi as co-writer, he has created this excellent wartime mystery thriller, which won the Silver Lion at last year’s Venice film festival: an old-fashioned drama replete with big performances and plot twists, double-cross and triple-cross. It’s like a three-quarter scale version of a Lean epic, a mid-level Zhivago or English Patient, but all the more intriguing for being relatively modest in scope.
Yû Aoi is outstanding as Satoko, a movie actor in 1940 Kobe in Japan, married to Yûsaku (Issey Takahashi), a prosperous international trader whose liberal politics and contact with foreigners makes him frowned upon in increasingly nationalist Japan. Yûsaku is visited by his old schoolfriend Taiji (Masahiro Higashide), who is now in police uniform, and caught up in the new fascist enthusiasm. A gulf between the two is opening up, despite Taiji having not got over his erstwhile crush on Satoko. Something sinister is in the air, and when Yûsaku comes back from a business trip to Japanese-controlled Manchuria, he is stunned by evidence of war crimes carried out there by Japan’s Kwantung army. Disgusted by his country, he plans to pass on details to the international community and chiefly the Americans: Satoko realises that this makes her the wife of a spy and the question of her own personal and political loyalties, and her husband’s, are a tense enigma to the very end.
Continue reading...Foreign materials including stainless steel identified in batches of Covid-19 vaccine though no safety or efficacy issues have been reported
The Moderna coronavirus vaccine programme in Japan has been hit by a series of contamination incidents, prompting it to recall 1.63m doses found to contain metal fragments.
Other potential contaminants have been identified in separate batches over the past week but so far no injuries as a result of those vaccines have been reported.
Continue reading...Outbreaks of the highly infectious Delta variant have led to closures in some countries, while others push to keep classrooms open
As countries across Asia battle worsening Covid outbreaks, schools face particular challenges in keeping children and teachers safe. Some countries – determined that classrooms stay open – are relying on measures like masks, smaller groups and even bans on talking in class to limit infections. In others, schools remain shut.
Here’s a look at what countries around Asia and the region are doing to prevent Covid spread in schools:
Continue reading...Israel records nearly 11,000 new Covid infections; EU hits its target for vaccinating adults; Ireland’s cabinet to sign off on plans to remove restrictions
Mexico on Tuesday reported 11,146 new confirmed cases of Covid and 835 more deaths, Reuters reports.
It brings the total number of infections in the country to 3,352,410 and the death toll to 259,326, according to health ministry data.
The latest on the Covid situation in Australia:
Related: Morning mail: Taliban takes control, mixed vaccines ‘don’t make sense’, love in lockdown
Continue reading...Case rates rising in England except London and Yorkshire & the Humber; thousands of shots from Moderna batch given before use suspended
UK ministers have been accused of doing the “bare minimum” to curb companies charging “misleading” prices for Covid travel tests and instead have been urged to name and shame the firms.
Ahead of a review of the traffic light system of quarantine rules which government sources said was unlikely to result in many major changes, Labour urged the transport secretary, Grant Shapps, to take tougher action against businesses “exploiting” the pandemic by imposing “rip-off” prices.
Related: Ministers doing bare minimum to stop Covid travel test ‘rip-offs’, says Labour
Newquay is reeling after health officials said that almost 5,000 cases had been linked to the music and surfing festival Boardmasters, which took place in the Cornish town earlier this month, my colleague Steven Morris reports. About three-quarters of them were aged 16-21 and about 800 live in Cornwall. Many of those who attended believe the number of infections is probably much higher.
It prompted tourism bosses to urge people not to visit the region unless they had pre-booked and to test themselves for Covid-19 before, during and after their stay.
Related: ‘It’s really hit us now’: Newquay becomes England’s Covid capital
Continue reading...Analysis: Tuesday’s meeting called by Boris Johnson may include postmortem on Joe Biden’s handling of crisis
The emergency meeting of G7 nations on Tuesday – called by Boris Johnson as this year’s chair of the G7 – is in essence a gathering of the vanquished but faces a threefold agenda: how to ensure as many Afghans as possible can leave Kabul, and whether the US is prepared to stay beyond the original 31 August deadline for the withdrawal of all US forces; how a resettlement programme can be coordinated for the medium term; and finally, how to encourage the Taliban to form an inclusive government, including by threatening sanctions or withholding recognition.
But each country will bring its own concerns and an ugly postmortem on Joe Biden’s handling of the crisis cannot be ruled out.
Continue reading...• Obama’s former chief of staff also served as Chicago mayor
• Emanuel joins long list of ambassadors awaiting confirmation
Joe Biden plans to nominate Rahm Emanuel, a former US lawmaker who served as chief of staff to President Barack Obama and as mayor of Chicago, to be ambassador to Japan, the White House said in a statement on Friday.
White House officials lauded Emanuel’s experience and long years of public service in announcing the nomination.
Continue reading...Chiba made his name with the 1970s Street Fighter trilogy, before Quentin Tarantino’s admiration brought him fame in the west
Sonny Chiba, the Japanese martial arts movie star who found late-career renown in Hollywood after outspoken admiration from Quentin Tarantino, has died aged 82 from a Covid-related illness. Variety reported that it had received confirmation of the news from Chiba’s agent.
With an acting career beginning in the 1960s with a string of roles in Japanese martial arts films and TV shows, Chiba became widely known in the west after being name-checked in True Romance, the 1993 thriller written by Tarantino and directed by Tony Scott. By then, Chiba had become a star in Japan, appearing in titles such as the 1970s Street Fighter trilogy (and its spin-off, Sister Street Fighter), Bullet Train and Champion of Death.
Continue reading...Critical care beds are reaching capacity in Japan while New Zealand is racing to contain a cluster in Auckland that has grown to 21
An update on the British man sentenced to six weeks in prison in Singapore for refusing to wear a mask:
Benjamin Glynn, 40, was released today and will be deported, the country’s prison department said.
This is an interesting story by Edward Helmore about an Australian psychologist living in Canada who penned a book on pandemics just before Covid-19 hit.
Stephen Taylor’s book, The Psychology of Pandemics, was rejected by his publisher because “no one’s going to want to read it”.
Related: ‘No one wanted to read’ his book on pandemic psychology – then Covid hit
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