News Headlines - 09 August 2019
▽Boris Johnson eyes election in ‘days after’ Brexit | Financial Times
Boris Johnson would hold a general election in the “days after” the UK has left the EU on October 31 if he is forced to go to the polls should a parliamentary no-confidence vote succeed against his government, senior aides to the prime minister have said... “We can’t stop them forcing an election but we control the timetable so we will force the date after October 31,” said a senior Downing Street official. “If there must be a general election, then it will be days after October 31.” Another close aide to Mr Johnson did not deny that any election would be held in the first few days of November.
The Finance Ministry’s Kinki Local Finance Bureau has recognized the 2018 suicide of an official with links to the Moritomo Gakuen scandal as a work-related death, according to government sources.
The bureau, based in the city of Osaka, made the decision during the winter of last year, recognizing the causal relationship between the death and the official’s work, the sources said.
Shinjiro Koizumi, a rising star in the Liberal Democratic Party, is ready to become a Cabinet minister and is qualified to run as a successor to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga has said.
Speaking with Koizumi, 38, in an interview to be published Saturday in the monthly magazine Bungei Shunju, the 70-year-old Suga said there is a possibility that Koizumi could land a ministerial post in a Cabinet shuffle expected in mid-September.
▽Contaminated water tanks in Fukushima will be full in 3 years：The Asahi Shimbun
By the summer of 2022, storage tanks holding processed water on the grounds of the crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant will become completely full, according to Tokyo Electric Power Co.
That marks the first timetable the utility has set on when capacity will be reached in the tanks holding the water processed to remove most radioactive substances.
Analysts said setting a deadline for the tank capacity allows TEPCO to push the central government and other entities to take action on the volume of contaminated water that continues to accumulate at a rate of about 150 tons a day.
▽Cocaine washed up on Bethells Beach likely destined for Australia | RNZ News
The packages of cocaine that washed up on west Auckland's Bethells Beach were likely destined for Australia and could have been at sea for about a year, police say.
Twenty packages containing cocaine were found washed up on the beach on Wednesday evening.
It is believed to have a street value of approximately $3 million.
