Category Archives: Japan

Coronavirus live news: Europe sees increase in infections among younger people, says WHO chief

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Regional director warns of increase in hospitalisations and deaths as winter comes; India records daily rise in cases of 75,000

Germany plans to keep fans out of stadiums until at least the end of the year and get tougher on mask-wearing to combat a worrying rise in coronavirus infections, under a draft seen by AFP.

The chancellor Angela Merkel is holding talks with the leaders of Germany’s 16 federal states to officially agree a package of new measures, which will apply nationwide.

The goal of the federal government and the states is to work together to reduce the infection numbers as much as possible.

EU chief Ursula von der Leyen warned top officials to take special care to comply with coronavirus rules after the shock resignation of EU trade boss Phil Hogan.

Her words of caution came just hours after Hogan stepped down after a week of pressure over a breach of coronavirus guidelines in his home country of Ireland.

Related: EU trade commissioner Phil Hogan resigns after flouting Covid rules

[As] Europeans make sacrifices and accept painful restrictions, I expect the members of the college to be particularly vigilant about compliance with applicable national or regional rules or recommendations.

Tonight Commissioner @PhilHoganEU submitted his resignation. I respect his decision. I am grateful for his work as a Trade Commissioner and a member of my team. https://t.co/xPcdLX3kmy

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Non-woven masks better to stop Covid-19, says Japanese supercomputer

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Disposable medical face masks beat those made of cotton or polyester in simulation

Face masks made from non-woven fabric are more effective at blocking the spread of Covid-19 via airborne respiratory droplets than other types that are commonly available, according to modelling in Japan by the world’s fastest supercomputer.

Fugaku, which can perform more than 415 quadrillion computations a second, conducted simulations involving three types of mask, and found that non-woven masks were better than those made of cotton and polyester at blocking spray emitted when the wearer coughs, the Nikkei Asian Review said.

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Crews prepare to sink Mauritius spill ship despite opposition

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MV Wakashio has split in two and leaked 1,000 tonnes of oil into the water since it ran aground

Salvage crews were preparing to sink a Japanese-owned ship that ran aground off Mauritius, despite opposition from environmental campaigners.

The MV Wakashio broke into two on Saturday, almost three weeks after hitting a reef and spilling 1,000 tonnes of oil into idyllic waters full of marine life.

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Coronavirus live news: Europe reporting 26,000 new cases a day; South Korea warns of ‘nationwide pandemic’

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WHO says European countries registering an average of 26,000 new cases a day; Germany records 1,707 new infections; South Korea has week of triple figure daily cases; India records highest daily infections yet

The coronavirus pandemic has reignited debate in Germany about cutting the working week to four days to help preserve jobs during and after the economic shock.

But the idea remains highly controversial.

Hi everyone, this is Jessica Murray, I’ll be running the global coronavirus blog for the next few hours.

Please do get in touch with any story suggestions or personal experiences you’d like to share.

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‘Road sleeping’ epidemic hits Okinawa as warm weather meets heavy drinking

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Police in southern Japan reported more than 7,000 cases of ‘rojo-ne’ last year

Japan is largely tolerant of salarymen snoozing on trains after an evening out, but authorities on the southern island of Okinawa are taking a dim view of a worrying new trend in alcohol-fuelled somnolence.

Local police reported more than 7,000 cases of rojo-ne – literally sleeping on the road – last year, a phenomenon some attribute to Okinawa’s balmy weather and enthusiastic consumption of a fiery spirit that has been made on the island for hundreds of years.

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Tokyo Bay’s seaweed forests – and prized abalone that live in them – disappear

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Rise in sea temperatures caused by climate emergency is transforming marine environment and affecting local species

The waters off Kyonan were once home to dense forests of seaweed – the ideal habitat for the prized abalone and sardines that support the town’s economy.

Today, the seaweed beds are threadbare; in some places they have vanished altogether, to be replaced by coral that belongs in the tropics, not in this corner of Tokyo Bay. Marine life that depended on macro algae for survival is making way for fish usually found in waters much further south.

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Loo with a view: transparent public toilets installed in Tokyo parks

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Amenities designed so prospective users can inspect their cleanliness from the outside

It sounds like the worst kind of anxiety dream – a public toilet cubicle that appears to offer the promise of blessed relief, but which on closer inspection turns out to be entirely see-through.

That, though, is the design feature behind several toilets that recently opened in public parks in Tokyo.

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Experts and volunteers scramble to save Mauritius’s wildlife after oil spill

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Grounded carrier has split in half and poor conditions make removal of ship’s remaining oil risky

International experts and thousands of local volunteers were making frantic efforts on Sunday to protect Mauritius’s pristine beaches and rich marine wildlife after hundreds of tonnes of oil was dumped into the sea by a Japanese tanker in what some scientists called the country’s worst ecological disaster.

Related: Grounded carrier off Mauritius breaks apart risking ecological disaster

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Grounded carrier off Mauritius breaks apart risking ecological disaster

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Battle is on to remove fuel oil from Japanese vessel the MV Wakashio as weather worsens

A Japanese bulk carrier that ran aground on a reef in Mauritius last month threatening a marine ecological disaster around the Indian Ocean island has broken apart, authorities said on Saturday.

The condition of the MV Wakashio was worsening early on Saturday and by early afternoon, it had it split, the Mauritius National Crisis Committee said.

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Royal family marks VJ Day anniversary in the UK – video

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The royal family leads the UK’s commemorations on the 75th anniversary of VJ Day – the day the second world war ended with Japan’s surrender.

Prince Charles led a two-minute silence at the National Memorial Arboretum in Staffordshire, as part of a service of remembrance. The prime minister also spoke at the event.

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‘Deep remorse’: Japanese emperor marks 75th anniversary of surrender

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Naruhito reflects on war actions at Covid-curtailed ceremony, marked elsewhere by former foes as Victory in the Pacific or VJ Day

Japan has marked the 75th anniversary of its surrender in the second world war with Emperor Naruhito expressing “deep remorse” over his country’s wartime actions at a sombre annual ceremony curtailed by the coronavirus pandemic.

Naruhito pledged to reflect on the war’s events and expressed hope that the tragedy would never be repeated. There was no word of apology from the prime minister, Shinzo Abe, who gave thanks for the sacrifices of the Japanese war dead.

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Second time unlucky: Covid restrictions derail Japan PM’s holiday – again

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Shinzo Abe had planned to visit family during O-bon holiday but political rival Tokyo mayor calls on capital’s residents to stay home

Millions of people who have been forced to cancel holidays due to the coronavirus outbreak might struggle to sympathise, but Japan’s prime minister, Shinzo Abe, is among those who have had to forego their summer break – and he has a political rival to blame.

Abe, who has been criticised for his handling of a recent rise in Covid-19 infections, was reportedly due to return to his constituency in Yamaguchi prefecture this week as Japan began several days of public holidays.

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‘Bombs can’t kill viruses’: Hawaii faces backlash as international war games approach

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As coronavirus case numbers soar, the state prepares to host Rimpac, the world’s largest international maritime military exercise

In a year when the coronavirus has caused multinational war games to be conducted virtually or canceled, the world’s largest international maritime military exercise begins in Hawaii next week.

The Rim of the Pacific (Rimpac) war games, which run through the end of August, come as Hawaii struggles to contain community spread of the coronavirus amid what has become the highest reproduction rate in the country.

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Japan PM sparks anger with near-identical speeches in Hiroshima and Nagasaki

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‘It’s the same every year. He talks gibberish and leaves,’ says one survivor after plagiarism app detects 93% match in speeches given days apart

Survivors of the atomic bombings of 75 years ago have accused Japan’s prime minister, Shinzo Abe, of making light of their concerns after he delivered two near-identical speeches to mark the anniversaries of the attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

A plagiarism detection app found that Abe’s speech in Nagasaki on Sunday duplicated 93% of a speech he had given in Hiroshima three days earlier, the Mainichi Shimbun reported.

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Love of Stilton drives wedge between UK and Japan in post-Brexit trade talks

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Consensus crumbles after Liz Truss reportedly sought to make the cheese a part of negotiations

Having promised to rush through a post-Brexit trade deal, Japan and Britain made significant progress only to discover that the fate of Stilton has driven a wedge between them.

During recent talks in London, international trade secretary Liz Truss and the Japanese foreign minister, Toshimitsu Motegi, reached a “substantial” preliminary agreement on trade, promising to conclude a preliminary deal by the end of this month.

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Imperial War Museum unveils film marking 75 years since Hiroshima bomb

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Video by Es Devlin and Machiko Weston tells story of nuclear bombing in Hiroshima and Nagasaki

A powerful 10-minute video artwork marking the 75th anniversary of the dropping of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki has been released by the Imperial War Museum in London.

The museum commissioned stage designers Es Devlin, who is British, and Machiko Weston, who is Japanese, to make the piece, which tells the stories and explores the impact of the bombings from different perspectives.

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Coronavirus live news: WHO reports record daily rise in global cases

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New cases jump to 292,500, Irish Cup final played in front of fans; global death toll passes 674,000; France confirms ‘marked increase’ in cases

Sanofi SA and GlaxoSmithKline Plc said they are in advanced discussions with the European Commission to supply up to 300 million doses of the drugmakers’s experimental Covid-19 vaccine.

The doses would be manufactured in European countries including France, Belgium, Germany and Italy.

Florida reported another record increase in Covid-19 deaths on Friday.

The state health department said Florida registered 257 fatalities, a record for the fourth straight day despite predictions that the U.S. coronavirus epicenter could be shifting to the Midwest.

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Japan recognises dozens more survivors of Hiroshima in landmark ruling

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More than a dozen ‘black rain’ plaintiffs died during legal battle to prove people living further away also suffered radiation exposure in 1945

A court in Japan has for the first time recognised dozens of people who were exposed to radioactive “black rain” as survivors of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, even though they lived outside the area hit hardest by the attack in August 1945.

The Hiroshima district court said the 84 plaintiffs, who are suffering from illnesses linked to radiation exposure, were entitled to the same medical benefits as survivors who lived closer to where the bomb struck.

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UK close to securing post-Brexit ‘continuity’ trade deal with Japan

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Both sides seeking deal to secure continuous trade once Brexit implemented on 1 January

The UK is close to sealing a “continuity” trade deal with Japan that will mirror that of the EU pact that Britain will no longer be part of next January.

But in order to strike an agreement in time for it to be ratified by the Japanese parliament, the international trade secretary, Liz Truss, has had to drop her ambitions for preferential treatment for British food exports.

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