SPOTLIGHT ON... JAPAN
The Olympic torch set off on 25th March from Fukushima for its 121-day journey through Japan’s 47 prefectures, and will be carried by 10,000 runners before it reaches its Tokyo destination. But there’s so much disaffection around these games that when it passed through one neighbourhood in Nara, a resident reported, nobody watched. Indeed, as the weeks tick down to the intended opening on 23rd July, no one is sure whether they will proceed.
Almost every day brings new pressure on the government and the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to call the games off. On 26th May, the left-leaning Asahi Shimbun became the first major Japanese newspaper to call on prime minister Yoshihide Suga to cancel. IOC vicepresident Richard Pound dismissed this as “political posturing.” He has said that the deadline for a final decision is not until “the end of June,” but that is barely three weeks before an event that has been a decade in the making, and whose cost is estimated as between $15bn and $26bn.