Editor Brian Harrod Provides Comprehensive up-to-date news coverage, with aggregated news from sources all over the world from the Roundup Newswires Network
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.
Sports fans in Japan could be allowed to attend Olympic events in Tokyo this summer if they have proof of vaccination or a negative Covid-19 test, a newspaper reported on Monday.
While many athletes are expected to have been fully vaccinated by late July, poor planning and staff shortages mean most Japanese citizens will still be waiting for a jab when the Olympics begin in less than two months’ time.
Japan is expected to extend emergency coronavirus measures in Tokyo and several other regions by about three weeks, according to officials, as the country struggles to rein in a fourth wave of infections less than two months before the Olympics.
The state of emergency – the third in the capital since the start of the pandemic – was called in late April and was originally due to end on 11 May, but was extended until the end of this month, as restrictions on businesses failed to make a dent in infections. Media reports said the latest extension could last until 20 June.
Senior Games figures John Coates and Thomas Bach criticised for attitude amid calls for event to be cancelled
The International Olympic Committee’s insistence that “sacrifices” must be made to ensure the Games go ahead in Tokyo regardless of the coronavirus situation in Japan has sparked a backlash and more calls for them to be cancelled.
John Coates, an IOC vice president, drew criticism in Japan after saying the Games would proceed even if the host city was still under a state of emergency due to the coronavirus. “The answer is absolutely yes,” Coates, who is overseeing preparations, said when asked on Friday if he thought they could be delivered despite the restrictions.
A conductor, who was not qualified to drive the train, sat in the driver’s seat during his three-minute absence, in breach of the rules
A driver on one of Japan’s shinkansen bullet trains is facing disciplinary measures after he abandoned his cab to go to the toilet while the train was carrying passengers and travelling at 150km/h.
The 36-year-old driver, who has not been named, reportedly had a stomachache and asked a conductor to take his place while he went to the toilet.
Analysis: Seoul’s navigation of geopolitical landscape in east Asia hints at limits of united front with US
When the South Korean president goes to Washington DC on Friday, his discussions with Joe Biden about China will test the limits of the US president’s rhetoric to “work with [its] allies to hold China accountable”. It will also exhibit the dilemma faced by middle-sized powers such as South Korea.
The White House spokesperson, Jen Psaki, said last month that Moon Jae-in’s visit “will highlight the ironclad alliance between the United States and [South Korea], and the broad and deep ties between our governments, people and economies”.
A vivid rainbow heralds the arrival of dusk in Tokyo, but the fabled promise of a pot of gold must seem like a cruel joke to restaurateurs in Shimbashi, where office blocks stand in happy proximity to hundreds of watering holes.
In pre-coronavirus days, nightfall would be the cue for the neighbourhood’s neon lights to flicker into action and for touts armed with laminated menus to beckon office workers inside with promises of cheap food and drink.
The Tokyo Olympics are due to begin on 23 July, but calls for the Games to be cancelled are growing due to the worsening Covid-19 situation in Japan. The Guardian's Tokyo correspondent, Justin McCurry, looks at the current state of play.
A recent spike in coronavirus cases has caused many prefectures to enter a state of emergency, including Tokyo. Japan has been reporting nearly 7,000 daily cases and the surge has put pressure on the country’s healthcare system, with the rollout of its vaccination programme slower than anticipated.
Organisers says tough anti-virus measures, including regular testing of athletes and a ban on overseas fans, will keep the delayed Games safe, but a new poll indicates more than 80% of Japanese people oppose hosting the Olympics this year. In addition, some elite athletes including tennis star Naomi Osaka have expressed their own concerns.
More than 80% of Japanese oppose hosting the Olympics this year, a new poll published on Monday showed, with just under 10 weeks until the Tokyo Games.
The latest survey comes after Japan expanded a coronavirus state of emergency Friday as the nation battles a fourth wave of virus infections.
Experts convened to consider changing male-only succession laws amid preponderance of women in the royal family
A panel of experts has begun talks on addressing the shortage of heirs to the Japanese imperial throne, as a poll showed that four in five members of the public are comfortable with the idea of women becoming reigning empresses.
Solving the succession crisis has taken on greater urgency due to a scarcity of males in the world’s oldest monarchy and the abdication, for health reasons, of Emperor Akihito.
A surge in coronavirus cases in Japan is forcing exhausted medical workers to make “heartbreaking” decisions about treatment as healthcare services are close to being overwhelmed, medics have said.
In Osaka, at the centre of the country’s fourth wave of infections, hospital beds are almost at capacity and reports say an estimated 17,000 people with virus symptoms are being treated at home or waiting to be admitted to a medical facility. In recent weeks more than a dozen have died before they could be hospitalised.
For many years China watchers have been concerned that its ageing population will slow economic growth, causing social as well as political problems. So today’s census data may be an alarm bell for leaders in Beijing.
But it is not just China that is witnessing this trajectory. Most countries in east Asia, even without fertility control policies such as China’s one-child or two-child policies, share the same predicament: how to continue economic growth while encouraging people to have more children?