Inside Koichi Miyatsu's blue, child-sized backpack are neatly folded cartoon-print sweatshirts and a pair of white sneakers -- all he has from before he was left at Japan's only "baby hatch". . He was only a toddler when he was placed in the hatch at a hospital in southern Japan's Kumamoto, where children can be left anonymously by desperate family.
Japan will hold a state funeral for assassinated former prime minister Shinzo Abe on September 27, the government announced Friday, with foreign leaders expected to attend.. Government spokesman Hirokazu Matsuno said Abe's record as Japan's longest-serving prime minister, his "truly praiseworthy" achievements, and his ties with foreign leaders made a state funeral appropriate.
When the alarm sounds at Jikei hospital in southern Japan, nurses race down a spiral staircase.. Nurses try to arrive at the hatch, with its stork illustrations and meticulously tended baby bed, within a minute of the alarm sounding.
Tunisians will vote Monday on a constitution that would give President Kais Saied almost unchecked powers, a key moment in his plan to overhaul the political system in the birthplace of the Arab Spring.. The text aims to replace the mixed presidential-parliamentary system enshrined in a 2014 constitution, which saw Tunisia praised as the sole democracy to emerge from the 2011 Arab uprisings.
Japan's defence ministry said Friday it was alarmed at fresh threats from Russia and had growing worries about Taiwan, in an annual report that comes as Tokyo weighs significantly increasing military spending. . This year's paper was released amid growing expectations that Japan will significantly boost defence spending.
President Donald Trump "blazed a path of "lawlessness and corruption" as he sought to overturn the results of the 2020 US election, the chairman of the House committee investigating last year's attack on the Capitol said Thursday.. "He tried to destroy our democratic institutions," Thompson said, and "recklessly blazed a path of lawlessness and corruption."
At least 18 people were killed in the latest police raid targeting organized crime groups in Rio de Janeiro's favelas, Brazilian police said Thursday.. In May, 22 people were killed, also including a female bystander, in an early morning raid of the Vila Cruzeiro favela.
Uruguay insisted on Thursday that it would pursue a free trade deal with China with or without its partners in the South American Mercosur trade bloc.. Argentina's President Alberto Fernandez said Thursday that any free trade agreement with China, a potential market of some 1.4 billion people, should be pursued as a bloc.
A Mexican activist and mother of an autistic child has died after being set on fire, authorities said, sparking protests, condemnation and demands for justice on Thursday.. - 'Justice for Luz' - Dozens of women demonstrated in front of the Zapopan police station on Thursday, accusing the authorities of inaction and indifference.
Sri Lankan security forces raided the main anti-government protest camp in the capital Colombo early Friday, dismantling it and evicting activists gathered outside the president's office.. Witnesses saw soldiers surrounding the sea-front presidential office and removing temporary structures set up in the area to provide logistics for thousands of anti-government demonstrators since early April.
