Category Archives: Japan

Japan Airlines scraps ‘ladies and gentlemen’ in favour of gender-neutral greetings

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Airline becomes first in Japan to make move as part of commitment to tackle gender-based discrimination

Japan Airlines is replacing “ladies and gentlemen” in its in-flight and airport announcements with gender-neutral expressions, beginning in October.

The formerly state-owned airline will use phrases such as “all passengers”, “good morning” and “good evening” in its English announcements. The standard term used in Japanese “minna-sama” – an honorific form of “everybody” – is already gender neutral.

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Coronavirus live news: concern over case clusters at French schools and universities; Melbourne lifts curfew

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Le Monde reports 32% of outbreaks in France found in schools or universities; Victoria ends curfew

Families are counting down the days to moving into new homes in a Hong Kong estate that had been used as a Covid-19 quarantine centre in what had become a lightning rod for discontent, the South China Morning Post reports.

They included L.N. Siu, her husband and daughter, who were overjoyed when they were finally allocated a public housing flat at the Chun Yeung Estate in Hong Kong last December. They had been waiting eight years.

Romanians go to the polls on Sunday to choose mayors and local councillors, but a Covid-19 surge is threatening to hit the first electoral test after years of political turbulence with a high abstention rate.

Nationwide, the east European country of almost 19 million people has 43,000 seats to fill in the single-round election seen as a test ahead of national polls in December.

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Japan is a ‘democracy without women’, says ruling party MP

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Tomomi Inada makes comment after new prime minister appoints just two women on 21-strong cabinet

A prominent member of Japan’s ruling party has described the country’s politics as “democracy without women”, days after the new prime minister appointed just two female MPs to his cabinet.

Tomomi Inada, a former defence minister from the governing Liberal Democratic party (LDP), added her voice to criticism of Japan’s poor record on gender equality, directing most of her anger at her own party.

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Global report: Donald Trump calls 200,000 US coronavirus deaths ‘a shame’

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US president says it could have been 2.5 million deaths; Japan considers easing border controls; WHO announces record weekly cases

President Donald Trump has said the 200,000 US deaths from coronavirus were “a shame” in response to a reporter’s question about the milestone in the country’s fight against the pandemic.

As Trump was departing for an election campaign event in Pittsburgh he told the media: “I think if we didn’t do it properly and do it right, you’d have 2.5 million deaths.”

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Big in Japan: giant Gundam robot makes its first moves in Yokohama

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Humanoid robot can take a knee, no mean feat when you are 18 metres tall

It stands just over 18 metres tall and weighs 25 tonnes. And, after years of painstaking work, a life-size Japanese Gundam robot has just proved to its legions of fans that it really can move.

Modelled on one of the robots from the hugely popular 1970s anime series Mobile Suit Gundam, the huge machine was put through its paces this week at its new home in the the port city of Yokohama.

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Face shields ineffective at trapping aerosols, says Japanese supercomputer

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Simulation using world’s fastest supercomputer casts doubt on effectiveness in preventing spread of coronavirus

Plastic face shields are almost totally ineffective at trapping respiratory aerosols, according to modelling in Japan, casting doubt on their effectiveness in preventing the spread of coronavirus.

A simulation using Fugaku, the world’s fastest supercomputer, found that almost 100% of airborne droplets of less than 5 micrometres in size escaped through plastic visors of the kind often used by people working in service industries.

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Woman, 117, marks becoming Japan’s oldest ever person with cola and boardgames

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Kane Tanaka, who has not been able to see her family due to the pandemic, celebrated with a bottle of Coke

A 117-year-old woman with a weakness for fizzy drinks and chocolate has become Japan’s oldest person on record, as the country marks a public holiday devoted to its senior citizens.

Kane Tanaka, who had already been recognised by the Guinness Book of Records as the world’s oldest living person in March last year, achieved the all-time Japanese age record on Saturday, when she became 117 years and 261 days old.

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Brexit: consortium of companies led by Fujitsu wins £200m Irish Sea contract

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Deal is the first concrete implementation of the special arrangements for Northern Ireland

A £200m contract to implement Brexit checks on goods in the Irish Sea has been won by a consortium of companies led by Japanese company Fujistu.

HMRC announced on Friday that a two-year contract for the new trader support service (TSS) had been awarded to a consortium led by the tech company and its partners, the Customs Clearance Consortium, an organisation run by customs expert Robert Hardy and the Institute of Export and International Trade.

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Shinzo Abe defends legacy as he stands down as Japanese prime minister

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Outgoing leader holds final cabinet meeting as his successor, Yoshihide Suga, prepares to take over

Japan’s prime minister, Shinzo Abe, has said he is “proud” of his legacy as he and his cabinet resigned, clearing the way for his successor to take the reins pending parliamentary confirmation on Wednesday.

Abe, Japan’s longest-serving prime minister, announced last month that he was stepping down because of health problems.

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World fails to meet a single target to stop destruction of nature – UN report

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‘Humanity at a crossroads’ after a decade in which all of the 2010 Aichi goals to protect wildlife and ecosystems have been missed

The world has failed to meet a single target to stem the destruction of wildlife and life-sustaining ecosystems in the last decade, according to a devastating new report from the UN on the state of nature.

From tackling pollution to protecting coral reefs, the international community did not fully achieve any of the 20 Aichi biodiversity targets agreed in Japan in 2010 to slow the loss of the natural world. It is the second consecutive decade that governments have failed to meet targets.

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Yoshihide Suga: the farmer’s son set to be Japan’s next PM

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The favourite may be the Abe continuity candidate but his background could not be more different

Nothing short of force majeure will prevent Yoshihide Suga from becoming Japan’s prime minister when the ruling Liberal Democratic party (LDP) elects a leader to replace Shinzo Abe this week.

As chief cabinet secretary for almost eight years, Suga has acted as the administration’s de facto second-in-command, batting away tricky questions at twice-daily press briefings, advising Abe on policy and reining in Japan’s recalcitrant bureaucracy.

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UK government hails ‘historic’ trade deal with Japan

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Agreement in principle comes as Britain races to secure deals before Brexit transition ends

Japan and the UK have agreed a “historic” free trade deal, as Britain races to secure easy access to overseas markets as it prepares to leave the European Union.

“This is a historic moment for the UK and Japan as our first major post-Brexit trade deal,” Liz Truss, the international trade secretary, said after a video call on Friday with the Japanese foreign minister, Toshimitsu Motegi.

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Australia has never been good at acknowledging its troops have been guilty of acts of inhumanity | Paul Daley

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Australia’s telling of the Pacific war story is correctly replete with Japanese atrocities. But crimes against Japanese prisoners do not feature prominently

Seventy-five years after the end of the second world war in the Pacific, the human suffering of millions of combatants and civilians is easily overlooked in a binary focus on allied victory and Japanese surrender.

Three-quarters of a century later, Japanese humiliation still simmers in politics and among families of the surrendered or dead. On the other side, meanwhile, countless were the returned soldiers and their families who have long harboured seething hatred for the Japanese.

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Revealed: the final call home made by captain of cattle ship that sank off Japan

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Dante Addug called his partner as water entered the Gulf Livestock 1 cargo ship but family has not heard from him since

The last time the captain of the Gulf Livestock 1 spoke to his partner, Typhoon Maysak was battering the ship and water was already flowing in. It was 8.30pm on Tuesday.

“He informed her that water had entered the ship. The last thing he said was he will go to the bridge to check the situation,” Maya Addug-Sanchez, the captain’s sister, told the Guardian. Addug’s family hasn’t heard from him since.

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Japan coastguard says second person found from capsized cattle ship has died

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Rescuers search for more than 40 crew from ship carrying 6,000 cattle that went down en route from New Zealand to China

A second survivor from a cargo ship carrying 6,000 cattle that capsized off southwest Japan has died after being pulled from the water unconscious on Friday.

The Japanese coast guard said the man had been unresponsive when he was found about 120 km (75 miles) north-northwest of Amami Oshima island and transferred to a hospital.

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Typhoon Maysak: ship with 43 crew and nearly 6,000 cattle missing off Japan

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Lifeboat spotted but strong winds and rain hamper rescue of crew from Philippines, New Zealand and Australia

The Japanese coastguard is looking for a cargo ship carrying livestock and dozens of crew members that went missing after issuing a distress signal during typhoon Maysak.

The Panamanian-registered vessel, called Gulf Livestock 1, sent the distress call from the East China Sea, to the west of Amami Oshima Island in south-western Japan, Japanese public broadcaster NHK reported.

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Coronavirus live news: Hungary shuts borders with second wave ‘knocking on door’; Greece delays school reopening

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Hungary introduces measures stricter than at height of pandemic; Greek pupils’ return delayed for a week; Spain saw 75% drop in tourists

Spain recorded 8,115 new cases of Covid-19 on Tuesday evening, 2,731 of them diagnosed in the previous 24 hours, according to the latest figures from the national health ministry.

The latest statistics bring the country’s total to 470,973 cases, of which 99,889 have been logged over the past fortnight. Over the past seven days, 159 people have died from the virus, bringing the death toll to 29,152.

Cuban authorities launched a strict 15-day lockdown of Havana on Tuesday in order to stamp out the low level but persistent spread of coronavirus in the capital.

Aggressive anti-virus measures, including closing down air travel, have virtually eliminated Covid-19 in Cuba with the exception of the capital, where cases have increased from a handful a day to dozens daily over the last month.

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Shinzo Abe resigns as Japanese prime minister due to ill-health – video

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Japan's longest-serving prime minister, Shinzo Abe, has announced his resignation, citing ill-health. His departure marks the end of an unusual era of stability in which the Japanese leader struck up strong ties with the US president, Donald Trump, even as Abe's ultra-nationalism riled the Koreas and China. Although he pulled Japan out of recession, the economy has been battered anew by the coronavirus pandemic

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Japan PM Shinzo Abe set to announce resignation amid health concerns – report

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Surprise development comes after Japanese officials were unable to quash speculation following two recent hospital visits by the prime minister

Japan’s prime minister, Shinzo Abe, is set to announce his resignation later on Friday, according to public broadcaster NHK, amid growing concerns about his health after he made two hospital visits in the space of a week.

Officials from the governing Liberal Democratic party (LDP) had earlier attempted to quash speculation that Abe may be unable to serve out his term, which was due to end in September 2021, as rumours swirled around the state of his health.

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France records post-lockdown record of 6,111 daily cases – as it happened

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France records highest level of daily cases since lockdown ended and the second-highest ever; Italy records most daily cases since 6 May. This blog is now closed. Follow our new blog below.

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Related: Coronavirus live news: Tour de France in doubt, WHO to review emergency alert rules

Here’s a quick recap of the latest coronavirus developments across the world over the last few hours:

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