Japan

The outcomes of Sunday's races, the first since Suga was inaugurated in September, bode ill for his ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) as the country prepares for a general election that must be held by this autumn, Yonhap reported.

The state of emergency, a third of its kind so far declared in the country, will come into effect from Sunday to May 11, the Xinhua news agency reported. The emergency is aimed at curbing a surge in Covid-19 cases during the upcoming Golden Week holidays.

In a statement on Wednesday, Chief Cabinet Secretary Katsunobu Kato said that plans had been made for Suga to meet Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi for the first time in person, with the pair slated to discuss a number of issues pertaining to economic and security issues and spanning infrastructure building, cooperation in outer space

Koo Yoon-cheol, chief of the Office for Government Policy Coordination, said during an emergency vice-ministerial meeting that the South Korean government "expresses strong regret and will take all necessary measures for the safety of our people", Xinhua reported.

Suga made the announcement after convening a meeting to formalise plans to release the radioactive water accumulated at the nuclear plant, reports Xinhua news agency.

Teikoku Databank, a credit research firm, said in its survey report issued on Sunday that 183 failures were reported for the bar and beer hall sector, the largest number since fiscal 2000 when comparative data became available, reports Xinhua news agency.

Tokyo, which will host the Olympic Games in less than four months, confirmed more than 500 new infections on Thursday for the second straight day, reports dpa news agency.Japan adopted the measure in Osaka, Miyagi and Hyogo prefectures earlier this week.

Osaka reported 878 new infections on Wednesday, the largest daily spike since the outset of the outbreak, reports dpa news agency.The surge is attributed to more contagious variants of the coronavirus, Osaka Governor Hirofumi Yoshimura told a news conference.

The quake which struck late Saturday night was preliminarily measured with a magnitude of 7.1 and was later revised up to 7.3, the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) said. The quake was also felt in the capital Tokyo where an intensity scale of 4 was logged.

In the incident on Monday, the 84-metre-long Soryu scraped the hull of the vessel when it was surfacing, Xinhua news agency quoted the Ministry as saying. Government spokesman Katsunobu Kato told reporters here that the accident occurred off Cape Ashizuri in Shikoku's Kochi prefecture.