Editor Brian Harrod Provides Comprehensive up-to-date news coverage, with aggregated news from sources all over the world from the Roundup Newswires Network
Kurt Campbell says Beijing assessing world’s response to Hong Kong crackdown to understand potential reaction on Taiwan
A senior US official has warned China not to seek emboldenment from its Hong Kong crackdown to move against Taiwan, as Japan’s deputy leader said it would defend Taiwan against an attack.
Kurt Campbell, coordinator for Indo-Pacific affairs on the US national security council, told a forum on Tuesday the US had tried to send a “clear message of deterrence across the Taiwan Strait” and any attempt by China to move on Taiwan would be “catastrophic”.
A woman attempted to extinguish the torch’s flame in Japan with a squirt gun – and she’s far from the first to stage a protest during the torch relay
Are you kind of, sort of, not really into the fact that the Olympics are still going to happen later this month in Tokyo despite the coronavirus pandemic and the fact that the vast majority of our planet’s 7.8 billion people remain unvaccinated, with alarming outbreaks cropping up worldwide?
Number rose after officials in Atami checked residential registers rather than relying on reports of missing people following mudslide
Officials in Japan have dramatically raised their estimate of the number of people still missing after a mudslide ripped through a seaside town at the weekend.
Reports said three people had died in the disaster, which occurred after days of torrential rain in Atami, a famous hot spring resort about 60 miles (90 km) south-west of Tokyo.
More than 1,000 rescuers have arrived in Atami, a Japanese town hit by a landslide on Saturday that killed two people. The rescuers climbed on to cracked roofs and searched cars thrown on to engulfed buildings, as more rain lashed the area.
About 20 people are still missing after the huge landslide, which was caused by days of heavy rain that swept away homes in central Japan. Television footage showed a torrent of mud crushing some buildings and burying others in Atami, a resort town south-west of Tokyo, while residents ran as it crashed over a hillside road
A huge landslide has swept away homes and left 19 people missing at a popular resort town in central Japan after days of heavy rain, local officials say.
Television footage on Saturday showed a torrent of mud obliterating some buildings and burying others in Atami, south-west of Tokyo, with people running away as it crashed over a hillside road.
Only the most hardcore action junkies will have the stamina for what is essentially one marathon sword-fighting scene
The craziness is all in the idea of this singular Japanese action movie: essentially one marathon battle scene, filmed in a single take, in which a master swordsman takes down several hundred assailants. The execution, as it were, is a triumph of stuntwork, strategy and stamina, but in the watching it gets rather repetitive and wearying. Few but the most hardcore action junkies will really be up for it.
The set-up is quickly dealt with: a clan rallies in the forest around its newly anointed leader, a small boy, in anticipation of an attack. Attack there swiftly comes, in the form of Musashi Miyamoto: real-life master swordsman, 17th-century folk hero, and fixture of Japanese pop culture (Toshiro Mifune played him four times; Kinnosuke Nakamura played him seven times). Here, the role is filled with focused athleticism by local action hero Tak Sakaguchi, although acting abilities play a distant second to sword-swinging skills. The battle progresses through woodlands then into an abandoned village, with Miyamoto dispatching most of his inept assailants with a few efficient strokes: a slash to the neck, a chop to the top of the head, slashes across the belly as they practically hurl themselves into the path of his blade.
Beijing lodges diplomatic protest with Japan after defence minister calls island a ‘democratic country’
China and Japan are once again embroiled in a diplomatic row over Taiwan, in the latest example of Beijing’s extreme sensitivity over the status of the self-ruled island and Tokyo’s changing attitude towards Beijing.
Speaking to the US conservative thinktank Hudson Institute on Monday, Japan’s state minister of defence, Yasuhide Nakayama, spoke of a growing threat posed by Chinese and Russian collaboration, and said it was necessary to “wake up” to Beijing’s pressure on Taiwan and protect the island “as a democratic country”.
Japan’s emperor has voiced concern over the possible spread of coronavirus during the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, in an unexpected intervention in the debate over holding the Games in the middle of a pandemic.
Naruhito, who ascended the Chrysanthemum throne in 2019 after his father, Akihito, abdicated, said he shared widespread public concern about the Games, which open in a month’s time.
The organisers of the Tokyo Olympics have been forced to abandon plans to allow the sale of alcohol at venues after public outcry.
The president of the Tokyo 2020 organising committee, Seiko Hashimoto, said on Wednesday that the decision had been made to ensure the Games were “safe and secure” during the coronavirus pandemic.
Olympic organisers cap fans at 50% of venue capacity
Spectators could still be cut if infection situation worsens
Thousands of Japanese spectators will be allowed to attend events at the Olympic Games this summer, organisers said on Monday, despite warnings from health experts that crowds risk fuelling a surge in coronavirus cases.
The president of the Tokyo 2020 organising committee, Seiko Hashimoto, said attendance would be capped at up to 50% of a venue’s capacity or a maximum of 10,000 people.
A wild bear has run through the of streets the Japanese city of Sapporo and made it past the gates of a Japanese defence base next to Okadama airport. According to Japanese broadcaster NHK, the bear reached the grounds of the airport by jumping the fence. The bear was first sighted in the early hours of Friday before it was killed.
Meeting of leaders at G7 reportedly cancelled over Seoul’s decision to stage exercises around Dokdo islands, which are also claimed by Tokyo
South Korea has begun annual military drills near a pair of remote islands that are also claimed by Japan, as the long-running territorial dispute threatened to sour preparations for the Tokyo Olympics.
The exercises near the Dokdo islands – referred to as Takeshima in Japan – began days after a meeting between the countries’ leaders on the sidelines of the Cornwall G7 summit was reportedly cancelled due to Japanese objections to the exercises.
PM resists pressure to commit Australia to 2050 climate deadline as he talks up hydrogen, LNG and carbon capture and storage
Scott Morrison has inked deals with Japan and Germany to develop technology to help reach “a net zero emissions future” – but continues to resist international pressure to formally commit Australia to a firm 2050 deadline.
With the climate crisis taking centre stage on the final day of the G7 summit in Cornwall, England, the prime minister stuck to his preferred approach of focusing on technologies such as hydrogen, rather than signing up to more ambitious medium- and long-term emission reduction commitments.
IOC officials have avoided any mention of the commercial forces driving the Tokyo Games towards their 23 July opening date
The least divisive statement in the saga surrounding Tokyo 2020 – assuming, as many people now do, that it will happen in just over 40 days’ time – is that it will be an Olympics like no other.
Overseas fans have been banned; athletes will spend what for many will be the pinnacle of their career sealed off from the outside world; GPS-tracked journalists hoping to escape their hotel rooms for a late-night fix of ramen risk being put on the next flight home.
Here are some of the key developments over the past few hours:
A quarter of elderly black people in the UK have not been vaccinated, recent figures show, despite signs that hesitancy is improving generally.
Nearly six months after the government kicked off the country’s most ambitious vaccination campaign, almost one in four black people over the age of 70 were not vaccinated as of 26 May, compared with 97% of white people of the same age.
The UK has recorded 5,274 new cases - the highest daily figure since March. There were 18 deaths reported within 28 days of a positive test.
Airlines and travel firms have reacted with dismay to the latest UK government guidance on foreign holidays, saying it has “failed on a promise” to the industry to provide greater notice on its directives.
PA has the story:
Many were angry at the lack of consultation and said it risked the summer being ruined for the struggling sector.
John Holland-Kaye, boss of Heathrow, the UK’s largest airport, said: “Ministers spent last month hailing the restart of international travel, only to close it down three weeks later all but guaranteeing another lost summer for the travel sector.
Messages flood in after tennis player withdraws from French Open saying press conferences worsen her anxiety and depression
Athletes and sponsors in Naomi Osaka’s native Japan have joined much of the tennis world in rallying behind the player after she withdrew from the French Open, citing struggles with anxiety and depression.
The Japanese world No 2 left the grand slam tournament on Monday, days after she had been fined and threatened with expulsion for refusing to attend press conferences, saying she needed to protect her mental wellbeing.
China today re-imposed anti-coronavirus travel controls on its southern province of Guangdong, announcing anyone leaving the populous region must be tested for the virus following a spike in infections that has alarmed authorities, the Associated Press reports. .
Guangdong, which borders Hong Kong, recorded 20 new confirmed cases, all contracted locally, in the 24 hours through to midnight yesterday.
Guangdong’s numbers are low compared with many places in the world, but the rise has rattled Chinese leaders who thought they had the disease under control.
Hello, this is Haroon Siddique. I’ll be updating the blog for the next few hours.
Burkina Faso, one of several countries in Africa that has yet to launch a Covid-19 vaccination campaign, received its first shipment under the global vaccine-sharing scheme Covax yesterday, Reuters reports, citing the country’s health ministry.
The 115,200 AstraZeneca doses were flown into the airport of the capital Ouagadougou and were welcomed by a local delegation led by health minister Charlemagne Ouedraogo.
“In a few weeks other vaccines will probably arrive to supplement what we have,” Ouedraogo said.