On Monday, David Abel spoke in a video update on Facebook about the mental strain of being quarantined on a cruise ship in Japan amid the coronavirus crisis. ‘It’s all getting to us now – not just me, other passengers as well. It’s the not-knowing factor that is the real challenge,’ he said. The British passenger, who published video diaries from the Diamond Princess, tested positive for the coronavirus, along with his wife, on Tuesday
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Japan’s economy heading for recession, and Germany wobbles
International trade slump and coronavirus outbreak combine to weaken consumer demand
Japan’s economy is heading for a recession this year after figures showed the world’s third largest economy slumped by an annual rate of 6.3% during the last quarter of 2019.
Germany, the world’s fourth largest economy, is also expected to stumble as the coronavirus epidemic and a slump in trade with China combine with weak consumer demand to drag growth lower.
Continue reading...Coronavirus updates: China’s second worst-hit city bans residents from leaving home – live news
People who flout new order in Xiaogan city in central Hubei face detention for 10 days as global death toll reaches 1,775. Follow live news and latest updates
Shares in China have posted strong gains after the country’s central bank cut the interest rate on its medium-term lending to try to cushion businesses from the impact of the Covid-19 outbreak. The bank also injected another 200bn yuan of liquidity into the system.
The move is expected to pave the way for a reduction in the country’s benchmark loan prime rate on Thursday, Reuters reports, to lower borrowing costs and ease financial strains on companies hit by the epidemic.
China CSI 300 erases Covid-19 slump.
Why?
* Short selling ban (in China this means the Gulag!)
* Funds need gov't approval to sell (prove an outflow)
* Record repo injections by the PBoC, rate cuts
* Xi - will cut taxes and record fiscal stimulus
Rally means all is good, right? pic.twitter.com/hCRUaEiHdZ
#PBOC injects 200 bn yuan liquidity via 1-year medium-term lending facility (MLF).
PBOC cut the rate on MLF to 3.15%, from 3.25% in the previous operation. https://t.co/EXAEiLHayq
A reporter is asking about Australians onboard the MS Westerdam cruise ship that docked in Cambodia last Thursday. An American passenger on that ship was subsequently diagnosed with Covid-19, after testing in Malaysia. The foreign affairs minister, Marise Payne answers:
There were some Australians on the vessel Westerdam. 39 of those have remained in Phnom Penh after the ship finally docked. They have been provided with hotel accommodation in the capital.
Continue reading...Britons onboard cruise ship face extended coronavirus quarantine
Changes to Japanese procedure could mean two more weeks on the Diamond Princess
Britons could face two more weeks trapped onboard the Diamond Princess cruise ship as Japan updates its quarantine procedure in an effort to halt the rapid spread of coronavirus among passengers.
Cruise ship guests received a letter on Sunday saying that while those who tested negative for the virus would be allowed to leave on Wednesday, anyone who shared a room with a passenger who tested positive would face another two weeks onboard, starting from the date they were separated from their cabin mate.
Continue reading...Coronavirus: 70 more cases on Japan cruise ship as China infections pass 68,000
US, Canada and Hong Kong offer citizens on Diamond Princess flights home as death toll inside China reaches 1,665
A further 70 people on the Diamond Princess cruise ship quarantined in Japan have tested positive for Covid-19, bringing the total to 355, as three countries say they will fly their citizens on the ship home. It comes as China’s National Health Commission announced the death toll inside the country had risen to 1,665, with 68,500 infections.
The US embassy in Japan announced on Saturday that more than 400 US nationals would be flown home from the quarantined Diamond Princess, currently docked in the port of Yokohama, south of Tokyo.
Continue reading...Pressure grows on UK to rescue citizens from coronavirus-stricken ship
Passengers on Diamond Princess liner ‘disillusioned’ with government over lack of action
Pressure is growing on the British government to airlift citizens stranded on a cruise ship stricken by coronavirus, after a Chinese tourist in France became the first person to die from the disease in Europe.
The US announced late on Friday that it would be evacuating more than 400 nationals from the quarantined ship, which has had nearly 300 confirmed coronavirus cases, and British travellers called on their government to do the same.
Continue reading...Coronavirus: Cruise ship turned away from five countries allowed to dock in Cambodia – latest news
MS Westerdam, which has 1,455 passengers and 802 crew, will dock on Thursday as WHO chief warns coronavirus threat is greater than terrorism
- F1’s Chinese GP called off due to coronavirus
- WHO chief says threat of virus is greater than terrorism
- Worthing hospital healthcare worker contracts coronavirus
- Share your stories
A paper in the Lancet medical journal, published online, should dispel some of the worries around reported deaths of some babies born to women who have fallen ill with what is now being called COVID-19 infection.
The authors say preliminary evidence suggests the new coronavirus cannot be passed to the baby in the womb.
Hi, Amy Walker here taking over the blog from my colleague Simon Murphy.
Patients who were treated by the two Brighton GPs who have been diagnosed with coronavirus are being traced by health officials, the BBC has reported.
Continue reading...Briton tells of life on cruise ship as fellow passenger tests positive for coronavirus – video
David Abel says in video update on Facebook that he had been dining with fellow Briton who tested positive for coronavirus on a cruise ship docked in Japan. He said Alan Steele was on honeymoon and would be separated from his wife as he was taken off the ship for treatment. Abel has been sharing videos on social media of life under quarantine on the Diamond Princess
Continue reading...Coronavirus: Briton tells of life on quarantined cruise ship – video
David Abel, a British passenger, has been sharing videos on social media of life in quarantine on a cruise ship off Japan.
Japan on Thursday confirmed another 10 infections among 3,700 passengers and crew stuck onboard the Diamond Princess, a cruise ship moored off the port of Yokohama, near Tokyo. Ten people tested positive for the illness on Wednesday
Coronavirus live updates: China deaths pass 560 as 10 more cruise passengers test positive – latest news
Wuhan authorities warn of lack of ‘equipment and materials’ and consider converting hotels and schools into treatment centres. Follow live news and updates
- Deaths reach 563, with fresh cases on stricken cruise ship off Japan
- Hong Kong faces ‘double devastation’ as coronavirus and civil unrest take toll
- Mother-baby transmission unproven despite case of newborn
- Tokyo Olympics chief says coronavirus could disrupt Games
Here’s a summary of what we know so far today about the spread of the coronavirus.
Here’s the latest tracker image from Johns Hopkins University on the spread of the coronavirus. If you want to check in on the tracker, you can find it here.
Continue reading...Cruise ships quarantined over coronavirus – in pictures
Thousands of passengers and crew on two cruise ships in Asian waters have been placed in quarantine after cases of coronavirus were confirmed onboard. About 3,700 people are facing at least two weeks locked away on the Diamond Princess cruise liner anchored off Japan, while 1,800 passengers and crew are being kept onboard the World Dream, docked in Hong Kong
Continue reading...Fukushima radioactive water should be released into ocean, say Japan experts
Build-up of contaminated water from wrecked nuclear plant has been sticking point in clean-up likely to take decades
A panel of experts advising Japan’s government on a disposal method for radioactive water from the destroyed Fukushima nuclear plant has recommended releasing it into the ocean, a move likely to alarm neighbouring countries.
Related: Fukushima fishermen concerned for future over release of radioactive water
Continue reading...Japan in raptures as outsider wins sumo contest – and bursts into tears
The 188kg wrestler Tokushoryu bulldozes his way into the hearts of a nation unaccustomed to displays of emotion
Sumo fans in Japan are celebrating after the lowest-ranked wrestler beat incredible odds to emerge victorious at the first main tournament of the year.
Tokushoryu, a relative unknown until his incredible winning streak at the new year tournament, shoved and threw his way through a succession of “superior” opponents in Tokyo, ending the 15-day contest on Sunday with an unassailable 14 wins and one defeat.
Continue reading...Weathering With You review – thrillingly beautiful anime romance
A runaway teenager falls for a mysterious ‘sun girl’ who has the power to stop the rain in Japan’s highest-grossing film of 2019
Makoto Shinkai, the Japanese anime director dubbed “the new Miyazaki” after the huge success of Your Name, his swooning YA body-swap romance set against the backdrop of a trippy natural disaster, returns with another apocalypse-tinged, boy-meets-girl adventure. Weathering With You, full of overcharged teenage emotion, was Japan’s highest-grossing film of 2019. Like Your Name, it’s thrillingly beautiful: Tokyo is animated in hyperreal intricacy, every dazzling detail dialled up to 11, but it’s less of a heartbreaker.
During the wettest rainy season on record in Tokyo, 16-year-old runaway Hodaka, homeless and hungry, arrives from the sticks. In a fast-food restaurant, teenage waitress Hina gives him a free burger, and two patches of red flush across his cheeks adorably. (The animation of first love, its highs and humiliations, is gorgeous.)
Continue reading...Koizumi is first of Japan’s top ministers to take paternity leave
Cabinet minister hopes move will improve attitudes to male parenting in country with dwindling birthrate
Japan’s environment minister has announced that he will take paternity leave when his first child is born this month, the first time a cabinet minister in the country has publicly committed to such a move.
Shinjirō Koizumi, a media-savvy 38-year-old, married to a former television anchorwoman, told a ministry meeting it had been a difficult decision to balance his duties as minister and his desire to be with his newborn.
Continue reading...Sake swigging and colourful kimonos: Japan’s Coming of Age Day – in pictures
Holiday celebrates people reaching 20, the official age of adulthood in Japan
Continue reading...Carlos Ghosn issued travel ban in Lebanon after Interpol warrant
Japan hits back at former Nissan boss after fugitive attacks its controversial justice system
Japan has hit back at Carlos Ghosn after the former Nissan boss’s criticisms of the country’s justice system after his dramatic escape to Lebanon, as Beirut prosecutors issued a travel ban for the fugitive.
Masako Mori, Japan’s justice minister, on Thursday accused Ghosn of making “abstract, unclear or baseless assertions” about the Japanese criminal justice system, and said his flight was unjustified.
Continue reading...Man accused of killing 19 in Japanese care home pleads not guilty
Satoshi Uematsu’s lawyers claim he had a psychiatric disorder at time of 2016 attack
A man accused of killing 19 residents at a care home in Japan for people with disabilities has pleaded not guilty, with his lawyers claiming that he was suffering from a psychiatric disorder at the time of the attack.
Satoshi Uematsu, a former employee of the Tsukui Yamayuri En (Tsukui Lily Garden) facility in Sagamihara, south-west of Tokyo, did not deny carrying out the attack in 2016, in which residents were targeted as they slept. Twenty-four other people were injured, most of them seriously.
Continue reading...Japan issues arrest warrant for Carlos Ghosn’s wife
Carole Ghosn accused of perjury, as Nissan says it will pursue former chairman who fled to Lebanon
Prosecutors in Japan have issued an arrest warrant for the wife of Carlos Ghosn for alleged perjury, as Nissan vowed to pursue its former chairman over his “serious misconduct” while head of the carmaker.
Tokyo prosecutors’ special investigation squad said Carole Ghosn – a vocal supporter of her husband during his long detention in Japan – was suspected of making a false statement during testimony to the Tokyo district court last April, according to Kyodo news agency. Details of the allegation were not immediately available.
Continue reading...Carlos Ghosn ‘caught bullet train’ during escape from Japan
Border controls tightened as Japan investigates how ex-Nissan boss skipped bail
Reports have emerged about how the fugitive former Nissan boss Carlos Ghosn managed to jump bail in Japan, as the country’s justice minister said border controls would be bolstered after the audacious escape.
The 65-year-old executive skipped bail nearly a week ago, fleeing Japan where he had been awaiting trial on multiple counts of financial misconduct, which he denies.
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