A TYPHOON blew across the Tokyo metropolitan area yesterday morning, killing one person and causing dozens of injuries while disrupting rush-hour travel and knocking out power.
Several railway and subway operators suspended services and flights were cancelled at Tokyo airports as Typhoon Faxai passed over Chiba, a northern suburb of the Japanese capital, before daybreak, shaking homes with strong winds and battering the area with torrents of rain.
Government spokesman Yoshihide Suga told reporters that he had received a report of one death and damage caused by toppling trees and objects getting hurled through the air by the wind.
Kyodo News Agency cited local authorities as saying at least 30 people had been hurt in Chiba, Kanagawa and Shizuoka prefectures.
MEANWHILE, a parliamentary committee has questioned Albania’s president as part of impeachment proceedings stemming from his attempt to cancel June municipal elections.
Albania’s governing Socialist Party initiated the proceedings to impeach the country's President, Ilir Meta.
Politicians on a nine-member committee are investigating Meta for allegedly violating the constitution.
During questioning, the president said he cancelled the June 30 elections because he thought they would be “undemocratic” without participation of centre-right opposition parties that planned to boycott the vote.
ELSEWHERE, Pope Francis has arrived in the Indian Ocean nation of Mauritius to celebrate its diversity and honour a 19th century French missionary who ministered to freed slaves.
Thousands of Mauritians waved palm branches as Francis arrived yesterday to celebrate a mass honouring the Reverend Jacques-Desire Laval.
While Catholics represent less than a third of Mauritius’ 1.3 million people, Father Laval is seen as a unifying figure for all Mauritians, most of whom are Hindu.
Attending the mass was a 50-member delegation from the Chagos Islands, an Indian Ocean archipelago that includes the US airbase on Diego Garcia.
FINALLY, Saudi Arabia’s new energy minister says producers “have to share responsibility” to balance the market.
Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman spoke in Abu Dhabi at an energy conference about the role Opec member-states and other major oil producers like Russia have ahead of a meeting this week to discuss global production cuts of 1.2 million barrels per day.
Saudi Arabia has led cuts in production as the kingpin of Opec to keep oil prices from sliding further.
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