Tokyo 2020: First wave of Olympic tickets up for grabs

Olympics bell starts ringing in tokyo today. The first tickets for the Tokyo 2020 Olympics went on sale on Thursday (May 9), with Japanese residents able to enter a lottery to watch the sport of their choice.Tickets for the 33 sports range from the cheapest general tickets at ¥2,500 (US$23) to an eye-watering ¥300,000 (US$2,730) for the best seats at the opening ceremony. Those lucky enough to score the best seats for the showcase men's 100m final will pay ¥130,000 (US$1,200). But half of all tickets will be priced at ¥8,000 (US$73) or less and special tickets priced at ¥2,020 (US$18) are available for families resident in Japan with children, senior citizens, and people with impairments.Prices for domestic residents are "about the same as London 2012 but a little higher than the 2016 Rio Games," Yuko Hayakawa, senior 2020 marketing official, told AFP. The lottery - only for residents of Japan during an initial period - runs until May 28, with successful applicants notified on Jun 20 and payment due a fortnight later.The website saw high demand upon opening with a queue system in place even though tickets are not sold on a first-come first-served basis and everyone entering the lottery by May 28 having an equal chance of scooping tickets.Overseas applicants will be able to snap up tickets from Jun 15 via special "Authorised Ticket Resellers" in each country. Organisers have not offered a precise number of tickets available as various stadium configurations are still being finalised with just less than 450 days to go until the opening ceremony. But they said it would be roughly the same as the 7.8 million tickets they estimated when bidding for the right to host the Games.Of these tickets, an estimated 70 per cent to 80 per cent would be allotted to Japanese residents with the rest going to overseas fans. The Tokyo 2020 Olympics will run from Jul 24 to Aug 9.

kabul attack on aid group ends; four killed, dozens wounded

Taliban fighters attacked the offices of a U.S based aid organization in the Afghan capital on Wednesday. Setting off a huge explosion and battling security forces in an assault that lasted more than six hours and killed at least five people, the Interior Ministry told the press.Dozens of civilian vehicles and shops were either destroyed or damaged, and several buildings were also damaged. A large plume of smoke rose from the area and the sound of sporadic gunfire could be heard.The ministry’s statement said four civilians and a police officer were killed and 24 others were wounded in the assault. It was not immediately clear if any foreigners were killed or wounded.The ministry’s statement said the attack ended after all five insurgents were killed by Afghan forces. “Around 200 people were rescued from both buildings within the compound,” it said.Johan Bass, U.S. ambassador in Afghanistan, strongly condemned the attack on the NGO. He said the targeted organization helps local communities, trains journalists and supports the Afghan people. The United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan in a statement also condemned the insurgents for deliberately targeting a civilian aid organization. `Today’s attack was particularly deplorable, hitting civilians helping Afghans,` the statement said.

two reuters journalists freed in myanmar both are pulitzer award winners

Two Reuters journalists held in Myanmar for more than 500 days for their coverage of the crackdown on Rohingya Muslims were freed from jail Tuesday, ending a prolonged detention that has tainted Myanmar and its Nobel laureate civilian leader, Aung San Suu Kyi. Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo both were Pulitzer award winners released as part of an annual amnesty has freed thousands of prisoners since last month. An additional 6,000 people were released Tuesday.Their release was immediately and widely celebrated across the world. Reuters editor in chief Stephen J. Adler said in a statement that the news agency is `enormously pleased` that the two have been freed.`Since their arrests 511 days ago, they have become symbols of the importance of press freedom around the world. We welcome their return,`Myanmar officials have no immediate reason for the release of the two journalists, who had exhausted all their legal options after Myanmar’s highest court rejected their appeal late last month.Suu Kyi — winner of the Nobel Peace Prize — has also been under significant pressure from Vice President Pence and others to intervene in the case and free the journalists. But she had defended their detention and said they were not jailed for their reporting but because they were convicted of breaking colonial-era state secrecy laws.

The two journalists were accused of possessing secret documents but were widely believed to have been set up in December 2017. In September they were convicted and sentenced to seven years in prison. The two journalists were lured into a meeting with police officers who handed over rolled-up documents. The pair were arrested shortly afterward by other officers.

The journalists and their lawyers have insisted that they were merely doing their job as reporters, never had the chance to read the documents before they were detained and had not been planning to share state secrets. The pair have received multiple honors and awards for their investigation into a massacre of 10 Rohingya Muslims, the story they were working on at the time of their arrest. These include the Pulitzer Prize for international reporting, which they won in April.Tuesday walking out of the gates of Yangon’s Insein prison, smiling and carrying a single bag each with their few possessions. They were mobbed by photographers and onlookers upon their exit.`I’m really happy and excited to see my family and my colleagues,` Wa Lone said in brief comments upon his release, thanking everyone around the world who helped secure his freedom. `I can’t wait to go to my newsroom.`The 33-year-old is a father of a baby girl who was born while he was jailed. Kyaw Soe Oo, 29, also has a young daughter. Their wives had repeatedly appealed to the Myanmar government to pardon their husbands.

dhoni casts his vote in ranchi along with her wife and daughter

The election fever is on as the country votes in the ongoing fifth phase of Lok Sabha elections 2019. On Monday, former Indian captain and Chennai Super Kings (CSK) skipper MS Dhoni cast his vote in his hometown Ranchi, Jharkhand. Dhoni and Sakshi were pictured at a polling booth in Jawahar Vidya Mandir in the state capital, along with their four year old daughter Ziva. Dhoni is currently busy with the Indian Premier League (IPL) tournament in which he heads team Chennai. Polling is being held in four Lok Sabha constituencies in Jharkhand Hazaribagh, Koderma, Ranchi and Khunti (ST). Sixty one candidates, including Union Minister Jayant Sinha, former chief ministers Arjun Munda and Babulal Marandi, former union minister Subodh Kant Sahay and ex-MLA Kalicharan Munda, are in the fray in this phase. Apart from Jharkhand, polling is also beig held in other six states  Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, West Bengal, Madhya Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir and Rajasthan.