Magaphone

Covid-19 is not the only one emergency in Japan: the land of the Rising Sun is now plagued by a mental health crisis. The National Police Agency said suicides surged to 2,153 in October alone, with more than 17,000 people taking their own lives  this year to date. Experts have warned that the pandemic could lead to a mental health crisis. Mass unemployment, social isolation, and anxiety are taking their toll on people globally.In Japan,  government statistics  show suicide claimed more lives in October than Covid-19 has over the entire year to date.The monthly number of Japanese suicides rose to 2,153 in October, according to Japan's National Police Agency.As of Friday, Japan's total Covid-19 toll was 2,087, the health ministry said. Experts say the pandemic has exacerbated mental health issues due to prolonged lockdowns, isolation from family members, unemployment and other financial concerns, and a lack of school structure.  Japanese authorities increased s...

  Duke William with Prince George, Princess Charlotte and Prince Louis. The picture was taken earlier this month by The Duchess. This year is going to look different due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. Not only for common people, but also for the royals. According to a source who spoke to People magazine, the Queen and Prince Philip are currently in isolation at Windsor Castle and to be determined on whether they’ll even head to the Sandringham Estate at all. William and Kate for their part are “are waiting to hear about government guidelines just like everyone else” and while “The children miss their great-granny” it’s “the  same rules  for them as everyone.” Meghan Markle and Prince Harry, on the other hand, will be spending Christmas in Los Angeles where they’re currently living with their young son Archie. The entire royal family potentially being apart for the holidays is a break from the norm—but apparently the  Queen  might be relieved due to how in...

As trade war goes on, a sport war has just begun. Chinese state broadcaster CCTV announced Tuesday it will no longer air two NBA preseason games set to be played in the country. The decision was prompted by NBA Commissioner Adam Silver’s remarks in Japan following a tweet by Houston Rockets general manager Daryl Morey last week that supported anti-government demonstrations in Hong Kong. “We’re strongly dissatisfied and oppose Adam Silver’s claim to support Morey’s right to freedom of expression,” CCTV said. “We believe that any remarks that challenge national sovereignty and social stability are not within the scope of freedom of speech.” Silver said in an interview with Kyodo News on Monday that the NBA supports Morey. The league released a statement on the controversy accepting that Morey's remark might have "deeply offended" some fans in China, and stressing that the Rockets GM "does not represent the Rockets or the NBA." As t...

India's prime minister Narendra Modi said Wednesday the country's villages now all have access to toilets. At the same time the government announced another ambitious campaign aimed at eliminating single-use plastics within three years. Nearly 600 million people have been given access to toilets with more than 110 million toilets built since his government came to power in 2014, Narendra Modi said in a speech to thousands of villagers in his western home state of Gujarat, commemorating the 150th anniversary of independence leader Mohandas Gandhi's birth. He said that “today the world is amazed by this success of ours and they are rewarding us.” More than 60% of India's 1.3 billion people live in more than 600,000 villages. Poor villagers who can't afford to build toilets in their homes chose open fields, forests, ditches and other open spaces for defecation. After becoming India's prime minister in 2014, Modi promised to make India a...

Bolivia is burning and volunteer firefighters, exhausted from battling blazes sweeping rapidly across the country’s lowlands, are starting to lose hope and retreat from the front lines of some infernos in the drought-stricken region. The fires this year are Bolivia’s worst in at least two decades, with the size of burned land across the country nearly doubling in under three weeks, destroying swaths of biodiverse forest and ranches and farms that sustain thousands of people. In the dusty cattle ranching town of Concepcion, despite nearly two months of non-stop firefighting, blazes that had been put out in surrounding dry forests have reignited while others continue to spread toward the toward the Noel Kempff Mercado National Park, a gateway to pristine Amazonian rainforest. While helicopters have doused flames around Concepcion, the Boeing supertanker 747 that Bolivian President Evo Morales ordered to battle blazes across the country has not yet made it here. Th...

She spent a decade on death row in Pakistan for a blasphemy charge. Now Asia Bibi has released her first video from exile, in which she urged Christians worldwide to remain faithful to their beliefs no matter the cost. Asia Bibi, 54, whose 10-year imprisonment drew condemnation from government leaders worldwide, filmed a video that emerged Saturday on social media. With the camera pointed toward the ground to hide her face, Bibi thanked Jesus for her freedom, in the first-ever recording of her voice, and maintained her innocence of the crime for which she was punished. “I, Asia Bibi, daughter of Salamat Masih, believe in Jesus,” Bibi said. “And today, I want to declare one thing to the world: that I had not done anything wrongd o to deserve what I suffered for 10 years. I was a prisoner on death row, I was accusef blasphemy, so I was granted my freedom through Jesus and I never let my belief weaken.” An illiterate field hand, Bibi and her family were the only Christians in...