News Headlines - 04 January 2021
▽Japan could declare virus emergency for Tokyo area this week
Japan plans to declare a state of emergency in Tokyo and three neighboring prefectures this week, possibly on Thursday at the earliest, and lasting for about one month to curb its lrime Minister Yoshihide Suga said the government is considering the measure without specifying a start date or duration. It would be the second state of emergency in the country since the global pandemic broke out.
Government sources said the government plans to decide on the declaration possibly on Thursday, and put it into effect on the same day or Friday. The initial start date was being planned for Saturday.
▽Group files for inquest panel review of Abe's case | NHK WORLD
A citizens' group has filed for an inquest panel review of a decision by prosecutors not to charge former Prime Minister Abe Shinzo for alleged violations of the political funds control law.
The group told a news conference on Monday that the prosecutors' decision involved serious factual errors and was unjust.
▽South Korea population falls for first time - CNA
South Korea's population fell for the first time in 2020, with more people dying than were born, the government said on Monday (Jan 4), warning that towns in poor regions faced a "crisis of extinction".
The world's 12th-largest economy has one of its longest life expectancies and one of its lowest birthrates, a combination that presents a looming demographic disaster.
▽Saudi Arabia set to end three-year feud by reopening borders with Qatar | The Guardian
Saudi Arabia will reopen its land and sea borders with Qatar, in the first steps toward ending a diplomatic crisis that has deeply divided regional US allies since 2017.
Kuwait’s foreign ministry announced the move on Monday, as part of a deal towards resolving a political dispute that led Riyadh and its allies to impose a boycott on Qatar.
President Trump urged fellow Republican Brad Raffensperger, the Georgia secretary of state, to “find” enough votes to overturn his defeat in an extraordinary one-hour phone call Saturday that legal scholars described as a flagrant abuse of power and a potential criminal act.
The Washington Post obtained a recording of the conversation in which Trump alternately berated Raffensperger, tried to flatter him, begged him to act and threatened him with vague criminal consequences if the secretary of state refused to pursue his false claims, at one point warning that Raffensperger was taking “a big risk.”
