Japan

TOKYO (AP) — Asian shares were mixed Monday, echoing Wall Street’s uneven close last week.

Japan’s benchmark Nikkei added 0.2% to 28,379.48. South Korea’s Kospi slipped 0.4% to 3,142.46, while Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 rose nearly 0.2% to 7,041.40. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng slipped 0.4% to 28,339.46, while the Shanghai Composite edged up 0.1% to 3,491.58.

Several central bank rate decisions are expected in the region this week, in New Zealand, South Korea and Indonesia.

TOKYO (AP) — Japan mobilized military doctors and nurses to give shots to elderly people in Tokyo and Osaka on Monday as the government desperately tries to accelerate its vaccination rollout and curb coronavirus infections just two months before hosting the Olympics.

Tokyo, May 23 (AP) If John Coates was trying to stir controversy, he succeeded.

An International Olympic Committee vice president, Coates was asked a few days ago by a Japanese reporter at an online news conference if the Tokyo Olympics would go ahead, even if a state of emergency were in force in Japan.

Coates replied: Absolutely, yes.

TOKYO (AP) — Japan on Friday approved the use of two new vaccines — Moderna and AstraZeneca — hours ahead of an expansion of a state of coronavirus emergency that will cover roughly 40% of the population. It’s the latest effort to contain a worrying surge in infections nine weeks ahead of the opening of the Tokyo Olympics.

Health Minister Norihisa Tamura said the two new vaccines will help speed up inoculations. Japan has administered one or more vaccine doses to roughly 5 million people, or just 4% of the population, using the Pfizer shots that were approved in February.

TOKYO (AP) — As she struggled to breathe, Shizue Akita had to wait more than six hours while paramedics searched for a hospital in Osaka that would treat her worsening COVID-19.

When she finally got to one that wasn’t overwhelmed with other patients, doctors diagnosed severe pneumonia and organ failure and sedated her. Akita, 87, was dead two weeks later.

TOKYO, May 20 (Xinhua) -- International Olympic Committee (IOC) president Thomas Bach will arrive in Japan on July 12, 11 days before the start of the Tokyo Olympic Games.

TOKYO (AP) — The IOC and Tokyo Olympic organizers start three days of virtual meetings Wednesday and will run into some of the strongest medical-community opposition so far with the games set to open in just over nine weeks.

The meetings are headed by IOC Vice President John Coates, who will attempt to again assure the Japanese population that the games will be “safe and secure.”

(Reuters) --- A top medical organisation has thrown its weight behind calls to cancel the Tokyo Olympics saying hospitals are already overwhelmed as the country battles a spike in coronavirus infections less than three months from the start of the Games.

The Tokyo Medical Practitioners Association representing about 6,000 primary care doctors said hospitals in the Games host city "have their hands full and have almost no spare capacity" amid a surge in infections.

TOKYO (AP) — Japan on Friday further expanded a coronavirus state of emergency, currently in Tokyo and five other prefectures, to nine areas, as Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga’s government is determined to hold the Olympics in just over two months.

Japan has been struggling to slow the infections ahead of the Games. The three additions include Japan’s northern island state of Hokkaido, where the Olympic marathon will be held, as well as Hiroshima and Okayama in western Japan.

TOKYO (AP) — An American lawyer on trial in Japan on charges related to reporting of former Nissan Chairman Carlos Ghosn’s compensation asserted his innocence Wednesday, testifying he acted legally and in Nissan’s best interests.

Greg Kelly, a former executive vice president at Nissan Motor Co., told the Tokyo District Court he was worried Ghosn might job-hop after taking a big pay cut in 2010, when Japan began requiring disclosures of high executive pay.

“He became a retention risk,” Kelly said in response to questioning by his chief defense lawyer, Yoichi Kitamura.