News Headlines - 09 April 2021

Myanmar’s envoy to UK ‘locked out of London embassy’ | Al Jazeera

Myanmar’s ambassador to United Kingdom has accused a military-linked figure of occupying the embassy and barring him from entering the building, in an extraordinary diplomatic standoff a month after the envoy called on the country’s generals to release deposed civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi.
The development on Wednesday evening came as the violence in Myanmar continued, with at least 20 more people killed in the Sagaing and Bago regions, bringing to more than 600 the death toll from the military crackdown on protesters, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP).

Princess Mako's boyfriend expresses resolve to get married

The boyfriend of Princess Mako, niece of Japanese Emperor Naruhito, expressed his resolve to tie the knot with her in a statement released Thursday, vowing to "correct erroneous information" regarding a monetary dispute involving his mother.
The planned marriage between the princess and Kei Komuro, both 29, has been postponed for over two years following reports of trouble between his mother and her former fiance over money, including Komuro's educational expenses, which the man shouldered.
The princess' boyfriend from university days, who has been studying at Fordham University's law school in New York since August 2018, said the 24-page document released via his lawyer is aimed at "making corrections as much as possible" with regard to the reports on the dispute.

Fuji Media admits exceeding foreign investor limit | NHK WORLD

Fuji Media Holdings, one of Japan's major media firms, has acknowledged that the ratio of its foreign investors with voting rights exceeded a legal limit from 2012 to 2014.
Fuji Media is the parent company of broadcaster Fuji Television Network. As a licensed broadcaster, the company is required to keep its foreign voting rights below 20 percent under Japan's broadcasting law.
Fuji Media said on Thursday that due to a mistake made in calculations, its foreign voting rights stood slightly above 20 percent during the 18-month period from September 2012 through March 2014. The ratio exceeded the legal limit by less than 0.001 percentage points.
The company said that since September 2014, the ratio has been steadily kept below 20 percent.

COVID patient given living lung transplant | NHK WORLD

Kyoto University Hospital says it has carried out the world's first lung transplant from living donors to treat severe lung damage caused by the coronavirus.
Professor Date Hiroshi, the director of the thoracic surgery department, held a news conference on Thursday with other staff members.
The hospital says a woman who lives in the Kansai region underwent the nearly 11-hour surgery on Wednesday.
It says the patient had developed severe pneumonia after she was infected with the coronavirus late last year.
She was treated using ECMO machines that replace the functions of the heart and lungs, and eventually tested negative for the virus.

Hashida, writer of acclaimed Japanese TV drama 'Oshin,' dies at 95

Sugako Hashida, a scriptwriter known for the internationally acclaimed television drama series "Oshin" in the 1980s, died Sunday of lymphoma at her home in Atami, Shizuoka Prefecture, her foundation said Monday. She was 95.
The series, which originally aired from 1983, depicted the life of a woman who was born in a poor farming village and became the successful founder of a supermarket chain. It was broadcast in dozens of countries and regions including China, Iran, Thailand and the United States.