Japan

Having withdrawn from this season’s Australia-based competition due to concerns surrounding the Covid-19 pandemic, fears rose that that could spell an end to the four-team competition, with the Springboks favouring a potentially seismic move to the northern hemisphere and the Six Nations.

Those fears have obviously been allayed and after the news was announced by SANZAAR, there have now called for the Rugby Championship tournament to welcome new additions – with Japan and Fiji being the most discussed.

The Lions will host the Brave Blossoms in Edinburgh next June ahead of their tour of South Africa.

It will mark just the third time the Lions have played on home soil following games in Cardiff against Argentina in 2005 and a Rest of the World XV in 1986.

"We saw Japan play some excellent rugby during the World Cup and they will come to Edinburgh fully-motivated to win," Lions head coach Warren Gatland said.

Japan head coach Jamie Joseph said it was a "once-in-a-lifetime opportunity" for the players.

The Lions play South Africa in three tests in July-August.

The Hurricanes No 9 confirmed on Monday he had signed with the NTT Docomo Red Hurricanes club for the 2021 season.

Perenara would reportedly travel with the All Blacks to Australia on Sunday and then depart for Japan at the completion of the abbreviated Rugby Championship.

The 28-year-old, who had recently welcomed his first child alongside wife Greer, said the contract didn't necessarily mean the end of his playing days in New Zealand.

Typhoon Haishen is expected to intensify on Sunday, bringing heavy rain, storm surges and winds of more than 160kmh.

It will move past Kyushu on Sunday, and is expected make landfall in South Korea on Monday.

It comes days after Typhoon Maysak, one of the strongest storms to hit the region in years.

The latest typhoon has led to the closure of factories, schools and businesses across western Japan. Hundreds of flights and train services have also been cancelled.

Japan's government will be holding an emergency cabinet meeting on Sunday to address the storm.

It means the firm no longer has a connection with making PCs or laptops.

Sharp bought 80 percent of Toshiba's personal computing arm in 2018 for $US36m ($NZ54m), and has now bought the remaining shares, Toshiba said in a statement.

Toshiba's first laptop, the T1100, launched in 1985. It weighed 4kg and worked with 3.5 inch floppy disks.

It was launched at first only in Europe with an annual sales target of 10,000 units, according to the Toshiba Science Museum website.

The assistance aims to strengthen both Tonga’s countermeasures against COVID-19, and basic medical system in order to tackle various diseases, including non-communicable diseases (NCD), through the provision of high quality medical equipment made in Japan.

Medical equipment such as Thermography will be provided by this assistance which will be deployed to the Vaiola Hospital and community health centres in the outer islands.

Fourteen victims were found in the same flooded nursing home while the other was pulled from a landslide. The deaths have yet to be formally certified.

The authorities have ordered more than 200,000 to evacuate and 10,000 soldiers are being sent to help rescuers.

Heavy rain is predicted to continue overnight into Sunday.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe urged people to be on "maximum alert".

The prefectures of Kumamoto and Kagoshima have been worst hit.

Japan's Shinsei Bank is to buy UDC for $762 million, after an original deal to sell it to China's HNA Group for $660m was knocked back by the Overseas Investment Office in 2018.

ANZ had also toyed with floating UDC in a local share sale but reconsidered and last year decided to hold on to it.

"With a strong outlook for infrastructure and agriculture projects as the New Zealand economy rebuilds post-Covid-19, there is a significant role for UDC to play. As such, it needs an owner that can invest in and grow the business," chief executive Antonia Watson said.

The shows were held at secret locations, each lasting five minutes from 20:00 local time (12:00 BST).

Organisers set a time limit for the displays to avoid crowds gathering.

Initially, they said the time and date of the event would not be revealed but later reversed course, deciding a sudden pyrotechnics show could cause distress to some.

Filling the skies with a burst of light, the fireworks lasted long enough for people who did not know about it in advance to view them from the street or their homes.

Social distancing curbs were loosened for most of the country on 14 May as new infections fell, but the government had kept Tokyo and four other prefectures under watch.

Japan's economy minister told reporters on Monday local time the government had received approval from key advisers to remove the state of emergency for all remaining regions.

It would be the first time the country has been completely free from the state of emergency since it was first declared a month and a half ago.