TOKYO -- Secretary-General of Japan's ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) Toshihiro Nikai said Thursday that cancelling the Tokyo Olympics this summer could be an option if the COVID-19 situation continues to worsen.

Nikai, the No. 2 leader of Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga's ruling party, said in a TV show yet to be aired that cancelling the Games may be an option if the spread of coronavirus infections forces organizers to think it would be difficult to hold the event, according to Kyodo News. (Japan-Olympics-COVID 19)

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WASHINGTON -- The U.S. Senate voted Wednesday with sweeping bipartisan support to open debate on an anti-Asian American hate crimes bill, clearing a key hurdle to its final passage vote in the chamber.

The evenly-split Senate voted 92-6 to move forward debating on the COVID-19 Hate Crimes Act, a bill drafted by Democrats that intended to speed up administrative processing of hate crimes, which the Asian American community has seen a skyrocketing surge during the pandemic. (US Senate-Asian Americans-Hate Crimes)

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WASHINGTON -- International Monetary Fund (IMF) Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva has said that she is "confident" the IMF will distribute a new allocation of Special Drawing Rights (SDR) to member countries by mid-August.

"It is a remarkable demonstration of multilateralism" that the IMF membership has agreed to support a new SDR allocation of 650 billion U.S. dollars, the largest in the history of the IMF, Georgieva said in an exclusive interview with Xinhua on Tuesday. (US-IMF-SDR) Enditem

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