Image copyright AFP
Image caption The visit to the shrine is controversial
Japanese PM Shinzo Abe has taken world leaders to the Shinto religion's holiest site, as the Group of Seven (G7) summit begins in the country.
Mr Abe said the visit was so that they could "understand the spirituality of Japanese people".
The two-day G7 meeting in Ise-Shima brings together industrialised nations.
On Friday, US President Barack Obama will visit Hiroshima - the site of the first atomic bomb - the first sitting US president to do so.
The visit to the shrine is controversial because critics say Mr Abe is catering to his conservative supporters who want to revive traditional values.
Ise shrine
Image copyright AFP
The shrine is 2,000 years old but in line with Shinto practice the buildings are taken down and reconstructed regularly.
Followers of Shintoism believe that everything - rocks, fire, trees, the sky - has its own spirit or god.
The sanctuary is dedicated to the sun goddess Amaterasu Omikami who is prominent in Japanese creation myths.
Top of the agenda for the G7 nations - the US, Canada, Britain, Italy, Germany, France and Japan - will be concerns over the health of the global economy.
Europe's refugee crisis will also feature prominently at the meeting. European Council President Donald Tusk said on Thursday he would ask the G7's support for more global aid for refugees.
"If we (G7) do not take the lead in managing this crisis, nobody would," Mr Tusk said to reporters.
Terrorism, cyber security and maritime security are also on the agenda.
Image copyright AFP
Image caption Mr Obama has previously said there would be no apology for the dropping of the world's first atomic bomb in Hiroshima
On Wednesday, Mr Obama and Mr Abe met for talks where the US president expressed regret over the arrest of a US military base worker in Okinawa in connection with the death of a local woman.
Mr Obama also mentioned his upcoming visit to Hiroshima, saying it would "honour all those who were lost in World War Two and reaffirm our shared vision of a world without nuclear weapons, as well as highlight the extraordinary alliance that we have been able to forge over these many decades".
He has previously said he would not be apologising for the dropping of the bomb by the US.
Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-36385890#sa-ns_mchannel=rss&ns_source=PublicRSS20-sa
26.05.2016 (52 minutes ago) | Main → BBC | 26 Views | 0 Subscribers
Tags: BBC World News
Officials in Rio will be distributing 450,000 condoms to the 10,500 athletes expected in Brazil starting on July 24, the day the Olympic Village opens, a spokesman for the Rio 2016 Committee said on May 19, 2016
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The Rio Olympics have not yet begun, but the Games have already set a record -- in the number of free condoms for athletes.
Officials will be distributing 450,000 condoms to the 10,500 athletes expected in Brazil starting on July 24, the day the Olympic Village opens, said Lucas Dantas, a spokesman for the Rio 2016 Committee who spoke with AFP on Thursday.
That's an average of 42 condoms per athlete and a three-fold increase over the number of condoms distributed at the London Olympics, the Folha de Sao Paulo daily reported.
One third -- or 150,000 -- of the condoms to be given out by Brazil's Ministry of Health will be female condoms, Dantas added.
Why so many condoms? "There are never enough!" Dantas joked.
On a more serious note, he said Brazil is a leader in the world when it comes to AIDS prevention.
"Brazil really encourages safe sex and athletes set an example to the general population. They can play an important role in the fight against AIDS," he said.
Dantas also noted that many Olympic athletes do not have access to condoms in their native countries and take the freebies home after the Games.
Athletes can obtain the "little shirts of Venus," as condoms are called in Brazil, at the Olympic Village health clinic or from one of 41 dispensers.
Brazil, a country of 204 million people with the largest Catholic population in the world, is a pioneer in the fight against AIDS and offers free treatment to 730,000 HIV-positive people in the country.
Every year, Brazil's Ministry of Health distributes more than 600 million condoms, stepping up its efforts during the hedonistic Carnival festival.
The Rio Olympic Games kick off on August 5.
Chinese jets intercept U.S. military plane over South China Sea -Pentagon
By Idrees Ali
May 19, 2016
Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative image of the center portion of the Subi Reef runwayView photos
FILE PHOTO - The center portion of the Subi Reef runway is shown in this Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative January 8, 2016 satellite image released to Reuters on January 15, 2016. REUTERS/CSIS Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative/Digital Globe/Handout via Reuters/File Photo
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By Idrees Ali
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Two Chinese fighter jets carried out an "unsafe" intercept of a U.S. military reconnaissance aircraft over the South China Sea, the Pentagon said on Wednesday, a further escalation of tensions in and around the contested waterway.
The incident took place in international airspace on Tuesday as the U.S. maritime patrol aircraft carried out "a routine U.S. patrol," a Pentagon statement said.
The incident comes a week after China scrambled fighter jets as a U.S. Navy ship sailed close to a disputed reef in the South China Sea.
Another Chinese intercept took place in 2014 when a Chinese fighter pilot few acrobatic maneuvers around a U.S. spy plane.
The intercept is also days before President Barack Obama travels to parts of Asia from May 21-28, which will include a Group of Seven summit in Japan and his first trip to Vietnam.
China claims most of the South China Sea, through which $5 trillion in ship-borne trade passes every year. The Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Taiwan and Brunei have overlapping claims.
Washington has accused Beijing of militarizing the South China Sea after creating artificial islands while Beijing, in turn, has criticized increased U.S. naval patrols and exercises in Asia.
The Pentagon statement said the Department of Defense was addressing the issue through military and diplomatic channels.
"Over the past year, DoD has seen improvements in PRC actions, flying in a safe and professional manner," the Pentagon statement said, using an acronym for the People's Republic of China.
The Chinese embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
SIGNAL OF DISPLEASURE?
In 2015, the United States and China announced agreements on a military hotline and rules of behavior to govern air-to-air encounters called the Code for Unplanned Encounters at Sea (CUES).
"This is exactly the type of irresponsible and dangerous intercepts that the air-to-air annex to CUES is supposed to prevent," said Greg Poling, director of the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative at Washington's Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank.
Poling said either some part of China's airforce "hadn't gotten the message", or it was meant as a signal of displeasure with recent U.S. freedom of navigation actions in the South China Sea.
"If the latter, it would be very disappointing to find China sacrificing the CUES annex for political gamesmanship."
The Pentagon last month called on China to reaffirm it has no plans to deploy military aircraft in the Spratly Islands after China used a military plane to evacuate sick workers from Fiery Cross Reef, where it has built a 3,000 metre (9,800 ft) runway.
In April 2001, an intercept of a U.S. spy plane by a Chinese fighter jet resulted in a collision that killed the Chinese pilot and forced the American plane to make an emergency landing at a base on China's Hainan island.
The 24 U.S. air crew members were held for 11 days until Washington apologized for the incident. That encounter soured U.S.-Chinese relations in the early days of President George W. Bush's first administration.
Last month, the Pentagon said that Russia had intercepted a U.S. Air Force aircraft over the Baltic Sea in an "unsafe and unprofessional" way.
(Additional reporting by David Brunnstrom; Editing by Sandra Maler and Lincoln Feast)
