Tokyo, 8 July, /AJMEDIA/
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson resigns over scandals
LONDON – British Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced his resignation Thursday following a series of scandals which questioned his integrity to lead the country.
Johnson, who led Britain out of the European Union in 2020, said he will formally step down as prime minister and Conservative party leader once a successor has been elected by members.
———-
G-20 faces tough task to overcome divide amid Ukraine crisis
NUSA DUA, Indonesia – Foreign ministers from the Group of 20 major developed and fast-growing economies faced a tough task of overcoming a divide among member states to address global challenges including food shortages posed by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as they started a two-day meeting on the Indonesian island of Bali on Thursday.
With the members adopting different stances on Moscow’s war, there were already signs of rifts widening between Western countries and other participants such as China, India and the meeting’s host Indonesia as ministers of Group of Seven nations skipped a gala dinner attended by Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in protest against the Russian aggression.
———-
Japan’s current account surplus down to 128.4 billion yen in May
TOKYO – Japan’s current account surplus shrank to 128.4 billion yen ($944.5 million) in May, the Finance Ministry said Friday.
Among key components, the country had a goods trade deficit of 1.95 trillion yen and a services trade deficit of 158.5 billion yen, according to preliminary data released by the ministry.
———-
Japan’s new COVID cases top 40,000 for 2nd day, braces for 7th wave
TOKYO – Japan confirmed 47,977 new COVID-19 cases on Thursday, twice the number a week earlier and exceeding the 40,000 mark for the second day, as the country braces for a seventh wave of coronavirus infections amid a rebound.
Tokyo Gov. Yuriko Koike said at a metropolitan government meeting that the capital “can be considered to have entered the seventh wave” as it confirmed 8,529 new cases on Thursday.
———-
2 girls attacked with knife on way to school in northeast Japan
SENDAI – A man attacked two junior high school girls with a knife in the northeastern Japan city of Sendai while they were walking to school on Thursday morning, wounding one of them seriously, the Miyagi prefectural police said.
The police arrested Hiroyuki Owari, 43, who lives in the neighborhood, on suspicion of attempting to murder one of the girls. “I did it to commit a murder and go to jail,” the suspect was quoted as telling investigators.
———-
Tokyo court rules in favor of French man’s wife over child custody rights
TOKYO – The Tokyo Family Court ruled Thursday that a Japanese woman who ran off with her children and refused to let her French husband see them has the rights to their custody, in a dispute which led French authorities to issue an international arrest warrant for the woman last year.
Though similar disputes involving Japanese married to foreign nationals are not rare, the issue drew public attention after the French man Vincent Fichot staged a hunger strike near the National Stadium ahead of the Tokyo Olympics in 2021 to raise awareness of his situation.
———-
NASA spacecraft collected 250-gram sample from asteroid Bennu
WASHINGTON – A NASA spacecraft that has traveled to asteroid Bennu collected a sample of around 250 grams for delivery to Earth next year, well over its minimum goal of 60 grams, according to a study published Thursday by the U.S. magazine Science.
NASA plans to hand over a portion of the sample collected by its OSIRIS-REx spacecraft to Japan’s space agency, which previously shared with the U.S. agency some of the material retrieved from asteroid Ryugu by its Hayabusa2 explorer that returned to Earth in December 2020.
———-
Japan, Argentina condemn Russia for invading Ukraine
NUSA DUA, Indonesia – Japan and Argentina on Thursday condemned Russia for its ongoing invasion of Ukraine, while pledging to work together in responding to global food and energy price surges.
During their meeting on Indonesia’s Bali island on the fringes of the Group of 20 gathering, Japanese Foreign Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi and his Argentine counterpart Santiago Andres Cafiero shared the view that Russia’s aggression is a unilateral change of the status quo by force and a clear violation of international law, according to the Japanese Foreign Ministry.
