Tokyo, 8 January, /AJMEDIA/
Japan eyes COVID boosters for Olympic athletes ahead of Beijing Games
TOKYO – The Japanese government is considering giving COVID-19 booster shots to the country’s athletes and officials ahead of the Beijing Olympics and Paralympics amid a global surge in novel coronavirus infections as the Omicron variant becomes rampant, sources familiar with the plan said Friday.
As the number of infection cases with Omicron has risen rapidly in Japan, a growing chorus within the government is calling for booster shots for Japanese athletes and others who will travel to participate in the global sporting event, the sources said.
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Biden to deliver State of the Union address on March 1
WASHINGTON – U.S. President Joe Biden will deliver his first State of the Union address to Congress on March 1, the White House said Friday.
It will mark the latest date any president has delivered the key annual address, which typically takes place in January or February, according to U.S. media.
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Japan overturns decision to cancel U.S. drone acquisition
TOKYO – Japan overturned in 2020 its decision to cancel acquisition of U.S.-made reconnaissance drones due to their massive costs out of consideration to then U.S. President Donald Trump, who was promoting U.S. weapons exports, according to sources close to the matter.
The government of then Prime Minister Shinzo Abe had told Washington in the spring of 2020 that it would not purchase the Global Hawk drones, but revoked the decision in the summer after Tokyo scrapped in June that year its planned deployment of U.S.-developed land-based Aegis Ashore ballistic missile defense systems, they said.
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Myanmar military chief to assure ASEAN envoy he can meet all parties
PHNOM PENH/YANGON – Myanmar’s junta chief Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing said he will assure an ASEAN special envoy to Myanmar that he can meet with all parties involved in the country’s political turmoil, including armed ethnic minority groups, according to a joint statement issued after a meeting between the chief and Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen in the capital Naypyitaw on Friday.
Min Aung Hlaing also pledged support to the envoy of the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations in fulfilling his mandate to implement a so-called five-point consensus made at a special summit in April, which mentioned a call for an immediate end to violence in Myanmar, according to the statement.
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Malaysia’s ex-PM Mahathir hospitalized again
KUALA LUMPUR – Former Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, 96, was re-admitted to a hospital in Kuala Lumpur on Friday for a medical procedure, the hospital said, just two weeks after being discharged.
The National Heart Institute did not elaborate his condition and the procedure. Mahathir spent a week at the hospital last month for a series of medical checks and was discharged on Dec. 23.
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Over 500 in Tokyo treated at hospitals after falling due to snow, ice
TOKYO – More than 500 people in Tokyo were treated at hospitals on Thursday and Friday after slipping and falling due to ice and snow on the streets, as the capital saw its first heavy snowfall in four years, authorities said.
Central Tokyo had 10 centimeters of snow by Thursday evening, with disrupted traffic restored to normal on Friday. Temperatures dropped to minus 3.5 C in central areas of the capital on Friday morning, although they rose by the afternoon due to sunny weather.
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China’s health official apologies for failure to save unborn baby
BEIJING – A health official of China’s Xi’an, which has been locked down since late December amid the COVID-19 outbreak, apologized Friday for its failure to provide medical treatment to a pregnant woman who lost her unborn baby.
In early January, the pregnant woman having contractions was denied entry at a hospital in Xi’an because her negative PCR test result had expired four hours earlier, the official China Central Television reported.
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Japan to place 3 prefs. under COVID quasi-emergency, tally climbs
TOKYO – Japan decided Friday to place three prefectures with surging COVID-19 cases under a quasi-state of emergency as their governors suspect the viral resurgences have started from U.S. military bases there, while the nationwide tally of infections for the day hit a four-month high of more than 6,000.
The declarations in Okinawa, Yamaguchi and Hiroshima will be effective from Sunday to Jan. 31, allowing the prefectures to bolster anti-coronavirus measures and request that dining establishments shorten their business hours and stop serving alcohol.