It’s always a sign when the Vietnam Communist Party (VCP) calls for an emergency session of its Central Committee. Following a late May report by the Central Inspection Discipline Commission that detailed the wrong doing and bribe taking by the country’s Minister of Health and the Chairman of the Hanoi Party Committee, the Central Committee
Tokyo police have arrested a group of seven, including a 24-year-old official of the Tokyo Regional Taxation Bureau, on fraud charges related to a government COVID-19 relief program, investigative sources said Thursday. The Metropolitan Police Department believes the group swindled the government out of as much as ¥200 million in benefits aimed at helping smaller
Japan on Wednesday doubled the cap on daily arrivals to the country as it continues to ease its COVID-19 border controls amid receding worries about the pandemic. The country also exempted people from isolation and COVID-19 testing upon entry when they come from 98 countries and regions presenting the lowest risk of infection, including the
The percentage of young people who have received a COVID-19 booster is expected to remain low in Japan, with the proportion of people in their 20s who have had it likely to hover at around 40% in August — half the rate for the second shot — according to an estimate recently released by Kyoto
China reported fewer COVID-19 cases in Beijing and Shanghai, with authorities moving to stimulate the faltering economy by easing some of the strictest virus controls since the initial outbreak more than two years ago. In the capital, cases fell to 12 on Sunday, from 21 on Saturday. Curbs on movement in several districts started to
Police officers, neighborhood committee members and community volunteers dressed in head-to-toe white PPE have been a ubiquitous feature of China’s zero-COVID policy, often shown on social media video uploads surrounding people, beating and dragging them away, or knocking on their door to put pressure on them to submit to a PCR test, to leave home
If there is one thing that Japan did well to boost its lackluster economy prior to the pandemic, it would be growing inbound tourism. Up until 2019, the country saw record numbers of foreign tourists annually for seven straight years. Then the pandemic came, with Japan tightly sealing its borders for more than two years.
Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said Thursday that foreign tourists will be allowed to enter Japan on package tours from June 10, paving the way for the full resumption of inbound tourism, which has been suspended for more than two years since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. “We will resume accepting tourists on package tours
The approval rating for Prime Minister Fumio Kishida’s Cabinet rose to 61.5%, the highest since he took office in October last year, as the government starts easing COVID-19 restrictions and guidelines, a Kyodo News survey showed Sunday. In the two-day telephone survey from Saturday, the rating was up from 58.7% about a month ago. It
The weeks-long COVID-19 lockdown in China has taken a huge mental health toll, with more than 40 percent of the city’s 26 million residents reporting symptoms of depression in a recent poll. Shanghai residents have been battling food shortages, barriers to medical treatment, repeated mass, compulsory PCR and antigen testing, as well as the constant
