Japan

TOKYO, July 20 (Xinhua) -- The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has approved adding "together" into the Olympic motto.

The move of adding "together" into the Olympic motto of "faster, higher, stronger" was unanimously approved at the 138th IOC session here on Tuesday.

It was proposed by Thomas Bach after his re-election as the IOC president during the virtual 137th IOC Session in March.

FUKUSHIMA, Japan (AP) — Skippy the yellow kangaroo with green paws was affixed to the first base dugout railing, watching the Australia Spirit become the first team to work out at Fukushima Azuma Baseball Stadium, seven weeks after they became first foreign athletes to arrive at the Olympics.

Coach Laing Harrow hit grounders and flies to his women starting at 9 a.m. Tuesday, exactly 24 hours before the eighth-ranked Aussies step to the plate when host Japan, the No. 2-ranked softball team, throws the very first pitch of the very first event of the pandemic-delayed Olympics.

TOKYO (AP) — Global shares fell Monday amid deepening pessimism over rising COVID-19 infections in much of Asia.

Oil prices dropped further after oil producing nations agreed to raise production limits.

France’s CAC 40 shed 1.1% in early trading to 6,388.62, while Germany’s DAX was down 1.1% at 15,370.28. Britain’s FTSE 100 dipped 1.5% to 6,906.69. The future for the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 0.8% to 34,283.5. The future for the S&P 500 lost 0.6% to 4,294.38.

TOKYO (AP) — A Tokyo court handed down prison terms for the American father and son accused of helping Nissan’s former chairman, Carlos Ghosn, escape to Lebanon while awaiting trial in Japan.

Michael Taylor was sentenced Monday to two years in prison, while his son Peter was sentenced to one year and eight months.

They were charged with helping a criminal in the December 2019 escape of Ghosn, who hid in a big box that was flown on a private jet via Turkey to Lebanon. Lebanon has no extradition treaty with Japan.

TOKYO (AP) — After a yearlong delay and months of hand-wringing that rippled across a pandemic-inflected world, a Summer Games unlike any other is at hand. It’s an Olympics, sure, but also, in a very real way, something quite different.

TOKYO, July 18 (Xinhua) -- Tokyo Olympic organizers confirmed on Sunday that two athletes have tested positive for COVID-19 in the Olympic village and are now isolated in their rooms.

This came after a non-athlete in the village tested positive for coronavirus earlier on Saturday, and these two confirmed cases are the first among competitors.

At a press conference, Tokyo 2020 spokesperson Masa Takaya said the two athletes are from same country and same sport, and they were isolated as soon as they returned positive tests. No names or other information were provided.

TOKYO, July 17 (Xinhua) -- The first positive COVID-19 case has been identified in the athletes' village of Tokyo 2020, organizers confirmed here on Saturday.

The infected person, who received a negative result at the airport but tested positive during the screening test in the village on Friday, is now isolated in a hotel, Tokyo 2020 CEO Toshiro Muto told a press conference.

The organizers refused to disclose the nationality of the person, citing privacy concerns, adding that they did not know if the person had been vaccinated or not.

HIROSHIMA, Japan (AP) — IOC President Thomas Bach got a mixed reception in his visit on Friday to Hiroshima to mark the first day of the so-called Olympic Truce.

Such a one-day visit by a dignitary would ordinarily be routine, but the Olympics are set to open next week with Tokyo under a state of emergency and with a substantial part of the population opposed to the Games being held during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Bach’s vice president John Coates also appeared Friday in Nagasaki, the second city that was hit by an American atomic bomb in 1945.

TOKYO, July 14 (Xinhua) -- A panel of the Japanese government on Wednesday proposed a plan to raise the average minimum hourly wage by a record of 28 yen (0.25 U.S. dollars) to 930 yen (8.4 dollars) in fiscal 2021, local media reported.

The labor ministry's advisory panel proposed the 3.1-percent increase of the minimum wage in its guidelines.

If the proposal is realized, it will log the biggest increase since fiscal 2002, and will likely strike a further blow to businesses that are already struggling amid the COVID-19 pandemic, according to local media reports.

TOKYO (AP) — Asian shares were mixed Thursday, taking their cue from a wobbly day of trading on Wall Street.

China reported its economy expanded at a 7.9% annual rate in the last quarter, down from 18.3% in January-March. But that reflected a leveling off of its relatively early recovery from the pandemic.

Japan’s benchmark Nikkei 225 slipped 0.9% to 28,343.83. Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 slipped less than 0.1% to 7,352.60. South Korea’s Kospi added 0.3% to 3,274.39. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng added 1.2% to 28,115.98, while the Shanghai Composite inched up 0.2% to 3,534.17.