月: 2021年9月

1.Kishida Fumio has been elected leader of Japan’s main ruling Liberal Democratic Party. The career politician is now virtually assured to become prime minister, following Suga Yoshihide. Kishida called on the party to unify so that it can achieve its goals and meet the needs of the people it represents.
2.Cases of so-called breakthrough infections, in which fully vaccinated people test positive for the coronavirus, are being reported across Japan.
3.South Korea’s military says the hypersonic missile North Korea said it launched on Tuesday appears to be at an early stage of development and will take a long time for the country to deploy for warfare.

1.The Japanese government says North Korea appears to have fired one ballistic missile into the Sea of Japan early on Tuesday. Shortly after the launch, a North Korean diplomat rose to speak at the United Nations and called on the U.S. to scrap its hostile policy against the country.
2.Japan’s coronavirus advisory panel has approved a government plan to end the state of emergency and quasi-measures when the terms expire on Thursday. Economic Revitalization Minister Nishimura Yasutoshi said new case counts have considerably declined across the country and the number of seriously ill people has fallen to less than half the peak levels.
3. Britain’s defense ministry has revealed that one of its frigates sailed through the Taiwan Strait. HMS Richmond is part of the U.K.’s carrier strike group headed by aircraft carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth.

1.Chines President Xi Jinping has sent a congratulatory message to the newly elected leader of Taiwan’s main opposition party, the Kuomintang. The party says Xi sent a letter to Eric Chu on Sunday using his title of general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party. Chu was chosen in a vote on Saturday.
2.Germany’s Social Democratic Party has secured the largest share of the vote in the country’s tight parliamentary election. But the new leader to succeed Angela Merkel will be decided by a coalition of parties, which is likely to prove complicated.
3.The boyfriend of Japan’s Princess Mako is back in Japan for the first time in three years. The pair is expected to get married as early as next month. Komuro Kei didn’t speak to reporters at the airport near Tokyo. He will spend 14 days in coronavirus quarantine before his reunion with Princess Mako.

1.Leaders of Japan, the United States, Australia and India are set to meet at the White House on Friday for the first in-person summit of the Quad framework.
2. Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party’s presidential election appears to be turning into a closely contested race. Four candidates are campaigning hard to win supporters. They participated in an online policy debate.
3.As the daily tally of new coronavirus infections continues to fall, the Japanese government appears ready to lift its state of emergency for at least some prefectures at the end of this month.

1.French President Emmanuel Macron will send his ambassador back to the United States next week after U.S. President Joe Biden agreed his country should have consulted France before announcing a security pact with Australia. Last week, France recalled its ambassadors to the U.S. and Australia in protest over the new security framework that resulted in Australia canceling a major submarine deal with France.
2.British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has told the United Nations General Assembly that humanity is approaching a “critical turning point” in the fight against global warming. He called for responsible action.
3.Japanese Prime Minister Suga Yoshihide has left Tokyo for Washington to attend a four-way summit with the leaders of the United States, Australia and India. This will be the first in-person summit of the Quad alliance.

1.U.S. President Joe Biden has met separately with the leaders of Britain and Australia, pledging to boost cooperation in the Indo-Pacific region. The meetings on Tuesday with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison followed an announcement last week by the three countries of AUKUS, their new partnership.
2.The Taliban, which recently took power in Afghanistan, have reportedly asked the United Nations to allow their foreign minister to represent the country and deliver a speech at the U.N. General Assembly that is currently being held in New York.
3.The head of the United Nations has used the world’s largest diplomatic gathering to sound an alarm. U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres lectured leaders at the U.N. General Assembly about their responses to the pandemic and climate change. He said the world is on the edge of an abyss and people need to wake up.

1.Japan’s Emperor Naruhito has harvested rice at the Imperial Palace in Tokyo, as part of an annual event. The Emperor reaped 20 plants with a sickle on Tuesday. He had planted two varieties of rice in the roughly 240-square-meter paddy in May.
2.Twin giant panda cubs born at Tokyo’s Ueno Zoo are almost three months old and thriving. The twins, a male and a female, were born on June 23.
3. An NHK survey has found that there have been more than 40 cases of soil mound collapses across Japan in the past 24 years. NHK conducted the survey with municipalities across the nation this month, following a deadly mudslide in Shizuoka Prefecture, central Japan, that killed 26 people in July.

1.The presidents of the United States and France will speak over the phone in the coming days. It will be the first talk since a diplomatic row erupted over Australia’s decision to cancel its submarine deal with France. Australia decided to scrap its plan to develop submarines with France and instead opted for U.S. and U.K. technological support to acquire its first nuclear-powered submarines.
2.An exhibition of more than 600,000 white flags honoring Americans who have died of COVID-19 opened Friday at Washington’s National Mall in the United States. Artist Suzanne Brennan Firstenberg created the installation. One flag represents one person in the U.S. who had died from the disease. The flags cover 80,000 square meters of green fields.
3. A SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule carrying the first all-civilian crew launched into orbit has safely returned to Earth. The capsule carrying Isaacman and three others blasted off atop a Falcon 9 rocket from Florida on Wednesday and orbited the Earth for about three days. While in space, the crew gazed at the Earth through the capsule’s observation window and chatted with patients of the children’s hospital.

1.The race to lead Japan’s main governing Liberal Democratic Party has officially begun. The winner is virtually assured to be prime minister—and lead the party into this fall’s Lower House election. Four candidates have officially thrown their hats into the ring.
2.Japanese weather officials say severe tropical storm Chanthu is poised to make landfall in northern Kyushu on Friday evening or later. The storm is then likely to barrel east over the Shikoku and Kinki regions.
3.The European Union has released its first-ever strategy for the Indo-Pacific region, declaring that it will seek to deepen economic ties with Taiwan and enhance its naval presence in the region.

1.A North Korean newspaper says the country’s military test-fired a missile from a train early Wednesday. The newspaper says the missile accurately hit a target in the Sea of Japan 800 kilometers away.
2.Weather officials say severe tropical storm Chanthu may make landfall in western Japan on Friday. They are advising people in the storm’s path to be on alert and secure their safety during the day on Thursday. The officials say rain and wind may intensify after dark.
3.The number of new coronavirus cases in Japan continued to decline on Wednesday as the vaccine rollout makes steady progress. The government is considering whether to offer their third shots to enhance the effect of vaccines.