Japan mulls declaring another state of emergency in Tokyo: PM

Agencies

January 4, 2021

Tokyo, Jan 4: Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga said on Monday that his government was mulling the declaration of another state of emergency in Tokyo and three surrounding prefectures due to an unabated Covid-19 resurgence in those areas.

Speaking at the first press conference of 2021, Suga said that the government could make the decision as early as this week, Xinhua news agency reported.

"Even during the three days of the New Year's holiday, cases didn't go down in the greater Tokyo area," he said.

Japan reported a record high of 4,519 single-day confirmed coronavirus cases on December 31, 2020, marking the first time that the nationwide daily tally has topped the 4,000-mark since the onset of the pandemic earlier last year.

The Japanese government had previously declared a state of emergency last April.

As infections have continued to increase, Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike and her counterparts in the neighbouring Chiba, Kanagawa and Saitama prefectures on January 1 urged the central government to issue a new declaration.

Suga had been reluctant to declare another state of emergency as the economy would face a severe blow.

Meanwhile during Monday's press briefing, Suga confirmed that the country aims to start Covid-19 vaccination program by late February, which is earlier than the previous schedule for frontline healthcare workers to begin receiving the jabs in mid-March.

As of Monday, Japan's overall Covid-19 caseload and death toll stood at 240,954 and 3,548, respectively.

Tokyo has reported a total of 62,658 infections and 587 fatalities.

Comments

Add new comment

Coastaldigest.com reserves the right to delete or block any comments.
Coastaldigset.com is not responsible for its readers’ comments.
Comments that are abusive, incendiary or irrelevant are strictly prohibited.
Please use a genuine email ID and provide your name to avoid reject.

In meeting with Zohran Mamdani, Trump repeats claim he stopped India-Pak war

Agencies

November 22,2025

New York/Washington: US President Donald Trump has again claimed to have solved the conflict between India and Pakistan, repeating his assertion during a meeting with New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani in the Oval Office.

Mamdani flew to Washington DC for his first meeting with Trump in the White House on Friday. Trump said he “enjoyed” the meeting, which he described as “great.”

During remarks in the Oval Office, with Mamdani standing next to him, Trump repeated his claim that he solved the May conflict between India and Pakistan.

"I did eight peace deals of countries, including India and Pakistan,” he said.

On Wednesday, Trump had said he threatened to put 350 per cent tariffs on India and Pakistan if they did not end their conflict, repeating his claim that he solved the fighting between the nuclear-armed neighbours and that Prime Minister Narendra Modi had called him to say “we're not going to go to war.”

Since May 10, when Trump announced on social media that India and Pakistan had agreed to a “full and immediate” ceasefire after a “long night” of talks mediated by Washington, he has repeated his claim over 60 times that he “helped settle” the tensions between India and Pakistan.

India has consistently denied any third-party intervention. India launched Operation Sindoor on May 7, targeting terror infrastructure in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir in retaliation for the April 22 Pahalgam attack that killed 26 civilians. India and Pakistan reached an understanding on May 10 to end the conflict after four days of intense cross-border drone and missile strikes.

Mamdani emerged victorious in the closely-watched battle for New York City Mayor, becoming the first South Asian and Muslim to be elected to sit at the helm of the largest city in the US.

He had been the front-runner in the NYC Mayoral election for months and defeated Republican nominee Curtis Sliwa and political heavyweight former New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo, who ran as an independent candidate and was officially endorsed by Trump just hours before the elections.

Indian-descent Mamdani is the son of renowned filmmaker Mira Nair and Columbia University professor Mahmood Mamdani. He was born and raised in Kampala, Uganda and moved to New York City with his family when he was 7. Mamdani became a naturalised US citizen only recently, in 2018.

Comments