Sonny Chiba: Japan’s martial arts star and Kill Bill actor dies of Covid at 82

Japanese actor and martial arts great Sonny Chiba has died at the age of 82 from complications related to Covid.

Chiba was a star in Japan and was best known to Western audiences for his memorable role as the swordsmith in Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill.

He enjoyed an on-screen career spanning five decades, which also included the 1970s Street Fighter trilogy and 2006’s The Fast and The Furious: Tokyo Drift.

His agent Timothy Beal said he was “a humble, caring and friendly man”.

Beal told the AFP news agency it was “such tragic news”, adding: “He was a great friend and an awesome client.”

Paying tribute online, Mortal Kombat actor Lewis Tan wrote: “A true action legend. Your films are eternal and your energy an inspiration.”

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, which is responsible for the Oscars, also said he was a “legend” who “blended toughness with depth”.

Chiba studied martial arts throughout the 1960s, excelling in karate. Following in the footsteps of Bruce Lee, he then landed roles in Japanese films and TV series, including with the influential Toei studio.

He made a name for himself outside his own country in Street Fighter as the ruthless martial arts mercenary and anti-hero Takuma Tsurugi.

“For me, the most enjoyable role to play is the bad guy,” he told Jonathan Ross in a TV interview in 2007.

image caption Chiba (far left) with Tarantino and other cast members at the premiere of Kill Bill – Volume One in Tokyo in 2003

The crossover-hit film series caught the eye of a young Tarantino, and almost 30 years later the director would cast him to play Hattori Hanzo in 2003’s Kill Bill – Volume 1.

The popular character was a samurai-turned-sushi chef who came out of retirement to forge a sword for the Bride, played by Uma Thurman.

He reprised the role in Kill Bill: Vol 2. Chiba also appeared in Kinji Fukasaku’s 2003 film Battle Royale II: Requiem, as well as Justin Lin’s instalment of the Fast and Furious franchise.

The former gymnast had been set due to work on Outbreak Z, an upcoming zombie movie starring Wesley Snipes.

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Tensions rise in struggle to get aid to victims

Five days after a powerful earthquake killed at least 2,189 people in Haiti help is trickling in, but struggling people say they need it more quickly.

The poorest country in the Americas is in urgent need of medical, food and sanitation assistance, experts say.

Rescue crews are still digging through rubble in a search for survivors, as the stench of death fills the air.

“We are preparing for a public health disaster,” says Nadesha Mijoba of the Haitian Health Foundation.

“The sanitation situation is quite critical… it is our hope that we don’t have an outbreak of cholera,” Ms Mijoba also warned BBC News.

Since the 7.2 magnitude earthquake hit the island on Saturday, the US military has transported at least 200 severely injured people to hospital.

Despite rainy conditions, many people have been sleeping outside due to fears that aftershocks could cause more buildings to collapse.

“We are afraid to go inside, so we sleep on the ground in the street,” one person in the hard-hit region of Les Cayes told BBC News.

“I don’t have a job, I don’t have water, I don’t have food. My house was destroyed, there is nothing,” said another woman.

Around 53,000 homes were completely destroyed in the quake, with about 77,000 more damaged.

The US Army is preparing to set up a field hospital in Les Cayes. The US and British Navy are also each sending ships to help with rescue and recovery efforts.

Doctors are struggling to treat the more than 12,200 people who have been injured. Hundreds are still missing, and presumed trapped under the rubble.

Rescue workers had had to contend with armed gangs who attacked aid convoys.

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said on Tuesday that following negotiations, the gangs had agreed to let aid through.

But a major Port-au-Prince hospital closed for two days after two doctors were kidnapped by criminals. A pregnant mother and her baby died while waiting for one of the captured doctors, who was meant to be on his way to perform an emergency Caesarean delivery.

The earthquake compounds problems facing the impoverished nation, which is already reeling from a political crisis following the assassination of its president last month.

Haiti has been hit by a series of natural disasters in the past, including Hurricane Matthew in 2016.

The deadliest was the 2010 earthquake which killed more than 200,000 people and caused extensive damage to the country’s infrastructure and economy.

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US accuses Abiy’s government of blocking aid

The US international development agency has blamed the Ethiopian government for a shortage of humanitarian aid in the country’s conflict-torn Tigray region.

USAID accused the government of “obstructing” access to Tigray, as it warned that food aid was set to run out this week for the first time.

Hundreds of thousands of people are at risk of famine amid the conflict between government and rebel forces.

Ethiopia has denied “purposely” blocking aid.

Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s spokeswoman told reporters that the government was allowing aid convoys to enter Tigray, but that security was a “priority that cannot be compromised”.

“It is a volatile area so… there [are] going to be continuous checks and processes,” she said.

In her statement, USAID chief Samantha Powers described the flow of humanitarian assistance into the northern region as “woefully insufficient”.

She said food warehouses were “virtually empty” and that aid workers would soon have nothing to distribute.

“This shortage is not because food is unavailable, but because the Ethiopian government is obstructing humanitarian aid and personnel, including land convoys and air access,” she said.

USAID called on the Ethiopian government to “immediately allow humanitarian assistance”.

It noted that aid trucks have been unable to leave the town of Semera in the neighbouring Afar region – currently the only accessible land route into Tigray.

The United Nations has separately told the BBC more than 100 aid trucks are stuck on this route.

Its World Food Programme has warned that it is running out of stocks of food.

The conflict in Tigray began in November, when Mr Ahmed ordered a military offensive against regional forces. He said he did so in response to an attack on a military base housing government troops.

The escalation came after months of feuding between Mr Abiy’s government and leaders of Tigray’s dominant political party, the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF).

For almost three decades, the party was at the centre of national power, before it was sidelined by Mr Abiy, who took office in 2018 after anti-government protests.

Mr Abiy – a Nobel Peace Prize winner – pursued reforms, but when Tigray resisted, the political crisis erupted into war.

The Ethiopian government has designated the TPLF as a terrorist group, while it says it remains the legitimate government in Tigray.

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China allows couples third child amid demographic crisis

BEIJING (AP) — China will now allow couples to legally have a third child as it seeks to hold off a demographic crisis that could threaten its hopes of increased prosperity and global influence.

 

The ceremonial legislature on Friday amended the Population and Family Planning Law as part of a decades-long effort by the ruling Communist Party to dictate the size of families in keeping with political directives. It comes just six years after the last change.

 

From the 1980s, China strictly limited most couples to one child, a policy enforced with threats of fines or loss of jobs, leading to abuses including forced abortions. A preference for sons led parents to kill baby girls, leading to a massive imbalance in the sex ratio.

 

The rules were eased for the first time in 2015 to allow two children as officials acknowledged the looming consequences of the plummeting birthrate. The overwhelming fear is that China will grow old before it becomes wealthy.

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Biden pledges to Americans in Kabul: ‘We will get you home’

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden is pledging to Americans still trapped in Afghanistan: “We will get you home.”

Biden also said Friday the United States is committed to evacuating all Afghans who assisted the war effort — a potentially vast expansion of the administration’s commitments on the airlift so far, given the tens of thousands of Afghan translators and others, and their close family members, seeking evacuation.

 

Biden’s comments at a White House news conference Friday come as the U.S. government struggles to ramp up a massive airlift clearing Americans and other foreigners and vulnerable Afghans through the Kabul airport, rescuing them from a Taliban takeover of the country.

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