By , , FUKUSHIMA/TOKYO, Japan (Reuters) -With waves, smiles and streamers, but no cheers, the Olympic torch relay kicked off on Thursday, beginning a four-month countdown to the postponed 2020 summer Games in Tokyo, the first ever organised during a deadly pandemic.Casting a pall over celebrations already scaled back because of coronavirus measures, North Korea launched two short-range ballistic missiles before the relay began in Fukushima, an area hit hard by the 2011 earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disaster.“For the past year, as the entire world underwent a difficult period, the Olympic...…By , , FUKUSHIMA/TOKYO, Japan (Reuters) -With waves, smiles and streamers, but no cheers, the Olympic torch relay kicked off on Thursday, beginning a four-month countdown to the postponed 2020 summer Games in Tokyo, the first ever organised during a deadly pandemic.Casting a pall over celebrations already scaled back because of coronavirus measures, North Korea launched two short-range ballistic missiles before the relay began in Fukushima, an area hit hard by the 2011 earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disaster.“For the past year, as the entire world underwent a difficult period, the Olympic...WW…

By , TOKYO (Reuters) - Myanmar police detained a Japanese freelance journalist at a protest in the commercial capital of Yangon on Friday, one of his colleagues said, the first detention of a foreign reporter since a military coup on Feb. 1.Yuki Kitazumi runs a media production company, Yangon Media Professionals, and used to be a journalist with the Nikkei business daily, according to his Facebook page and interviews with online media.“I didn’t witness it, but I received a message from him via Messenger app around 11:30 that he got arrested,” Kitazumi’s Myanmar colleague, Linn Nyan Htun,...…By , TOKYO (Reuters) - Myanmar police detained a Japanese freelance journalist at a protest in the commercial capital of Yangon on Friday, one of his colleagues said, the first detention of a foreign reporter since a military coup on Feb. 1.Yuki Kitazumi runs a media production company, Yangon Media Professionals, and used to be a journalist with the Nikkei business daily, according to his Facebook page and interviews with online media.“I didn’t witness it, but I received a message from him via Messenger app around 11:30 that he got arrested,” Kitazumi’s Myanmar colleague, Linn Nyan Htun,...WW…

By TOKYO (Reuters) - The Japanese city of Osaka has issued an urgent plea for citizens to donate plastic raincoats to hospitals running short of protective gear for staff treating coronavirus patients, with some doctors resorting to wearing garbage bags.Slideshow Japan last week imposed a state of emergency in Tokyo and six other areas, including Osaka, but the number of cases has continued rising to total around 8,200, with 166 deaths.By Wednesday afternoon there were nearly 900 cases in Osaka city and the prefecture that surrounds it, making it the second hardest-hit after Tokyo, media...…By TOKYO (Reuters) - The Japanese city of Osaka has issued an urgent plea for citizens to donate plastic raincoats to hospitals running short of protective gear for staff treating coronavirus patients, with some doctors resorting to wearing garbage bags.Slideshow Japan last week imposed a state of emergency in Tokyo and six other areas, including Osaka, but the number of cases has continued rising to total around 8,200, with 166 deaths.By Wednesday afternoon there were nearly 900 cases in Osaka city and the prefecture that surrounds it, making it the second hardest-hit after Tokyo, media...WW…