December 16, Friday, 2022 (1:30 p.m.) Newsline read by Mr. Yamaguchi Hiroaki

1.The UN General Assembly has adopted for the 18th straight year a resolution urging North Korea to immediately return all foreign nationals it has abducted. The assembly adopted the resolution without a vote on Thursday. It has been submitted by the European Union every year. More than 60 countries, including Japan and South Korea, co-sponsored the resolution this year. 2. In a major milestone in efforts to revamp Japan’s defense strategy – the Cabinet is set to approve three key documents which reimagine how the nation should be able to defend itself and provide a plan to pay for some big changes. The National Security Strategy and the National Defense Strategy outline a new policy that would give Japan the ability to launch counterstrikes – only under specific circumstances. They would be limited to self-defense and would never be preemptive.
3. Experts tasked with assessing the coronavirus situation in Tokyo are calling on residents to be on the alert for a resurgence of infections. They say the number of new daily cases may double from the current figure to reach nearly 30,000 in mid-January.