Category Archives: Japan

Coronavirus: Cruise ship turned away from five countries allowed to dock in Cambodia – latest news

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MS Westerdam, which has 1,455 passengers and 802 crew, will dock on Thursday as WHO chief warns coronavirus threat is greater than terrorism

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.

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Briton tells of life on cruise ship as fellow passenger tests positive for coronavirus – video

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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

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Coronavirus: Briton tells of life on quarantined cruise ship – video

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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

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Coronavirus live updates: China deaths pass 560 as 10 more cruise passengers test positive – latest news

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Wuhan authorities warn of lack of ‘equipment and materials’ and consider converting hotels and schools into treatment centres. Follow live news and updates

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.

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Cruise ships quarantined over coronavirus – in pictures

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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

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Fukushima radioactive water should be released into ocean, say Japan experts

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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

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Japan in raptures as outsider wins sumo contest – and bursts into tears

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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.

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Weathering With You review – thrillingly beautiful anime romance

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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.)

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Koizumi is first of Japan’s top ministers to take paternity leave

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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.

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Carlos Ghosn issued travel ban in Lebanon after Interpol warrant

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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.

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Man accused of killing 19 in Japanese care home pleads not guilty

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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.

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Japan issues arrest warrant for Carlos Ghosn’s wife

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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.

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Carlos Ghosn ‘caught bullet train’ during escape from Japan

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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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Fukushima unveils plans to become renewable energy hub

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Japan aims to power region, scene of 2011 meltdown, with 100% renewable energy by 2040

Fukushima is planning to transform itself into a renewable energy hub, almost nine years after it became the scene of the world’s worst nuclear accident for a quarter of a century.

The prefecture in north-east Japan will forever be associated with the triple meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant on 11 March 2011, but in an ambitious project the local government has vowed to power the region with 100% renewable energy by 2040, compared with 40% today.

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My father, the quiet hero: how Japan’s Schindler saved 6,000 Jews

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Chiune Sugihara’s son tells how he learned of his father’s rescue mission in Lithuania, which commemorates his achievements this year

As a child in Japan in the 1950s and 60s, Nobuki Sugihara never knew his father had saved thousands of lives. Few did. His father, Chiune Sugihara, was a trader who lived in a small coastal town about 34 miles south of Tokyo. When not on business trips to Moscow, he coached his young son in mathematics and English. He made breakfast, spreading butter on the toast so thinly “nobody could compete”.

His son had no idea his father saved 6,000 Jews during the second world war. Over six weeks in the summer of 1940, while serving as a diplomat in Lithuania, Chiune Sugihara defied orders from his bosses in Tokyo, and issued several thousand visas for Jewish refugees to travel to Japan.

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Carlos Ghosn: an arrest, an escape, and questions about justice in Japan

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The feted car executive had railed against the motives behind his detention since the day he was arrested

Carlos Ghosn’s dramatic escape from Japan to Lebanon last week has raised many questions over how he pulled off such an audacious act, but his motives are not in doubt. With four months to go before his financial misconduct trial was due to begin, the net was closing in on the former auto executive, and he knew it.

Nissan’s one-time saviour had not been permitted to speak to his wife over Christmas, and was disturbed by news that Japanese prosecutors had questioned his son and daughter in the US in early December. For Ghosn, according to sources close to him, it amounted to an attempt to force him to confess.

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Japan’s warship deployment could push a pacifist country into conflict | Jeff Kingston

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Prime minister Shinzo Abe is trying to keep Donald Trump on side, but the Japanese people are watching with worry

Since the end of the second world war and the enactment of its pacifist constitution, Japan has deployed its forces overseas mostly on peacekeeping operations under UN auspices – and almost never to places where its troops are in harm’s way. But next month, the country will send a naval destroyer to the Middle East. On what is being described as an intelligence-gathering mission, the warship will patrol the Gulf of Oman, the northern part of the Arabian sea and a portion of the Bab el-Mandeb strait, following a series of attacks on oil tankers in the region – including one that was Japanese-operated.

In 2015, Abe passed unpopular legislation allowing Japan to exercise the right of collective self-defence

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Japan issues Interpol wanted notice for Carlos Ghosn

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Move follows tycoon’s dramatic flight to Beirut to escape corruption charges

Japanese authorities have issued an Interpol wanted notice for Carlos Ghosn, as the former Nissan and Renault chairman released a statement denying his wife or family were involved in his dramatic flight from corruption charges in Japan.

The international policing organisation’s “red notice” alerts forces around the world that a person is wanted, in this case by Japanese police.

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Carlos Ghosn prepares to speak as Japan comes to terms with saviour who fled

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Wife dismisses reports husband escaped inside an instrument case as world awaits full explanation from fugitive

The world will have to wait until next week for what could be the only definitive account of how Carlos Ghosn managed to leave Japan months before he was due to stand trial for alleged financial misconduct.

The former Nissan chairman who fled the country to Lebanon while out on bail, will speak to the media in Beirut next Wednesday, media reports said, in a public appearance that could provide answers to myriad questions swirling around his daring escape.

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