Category: 2. World

As powerful waves surged across the vast Pacific on Wednesday, people around the world remained glued to their phones, tracking the tsunami’s fast progress.

But in China, more than a million people were searching for an unusual term: “Prophecy.”

That’s because, for some, the natural disaster had seemingly been foretold four years earlier, in a Japanese manga comic book.

Published in 2021 by artist Ryo Tatsuki – whose fans say her earlier works have been similarly prophetic – the manga claimed that the next big earthquake would hit this July, sparking a flurry of viral internet memes and debates across much of Asia in recent months.

In China, a search term related to Tatsuki’s so-called “prophecy” gained more than 1.1 million views on the video app Douyin in the immediate aftermath of Wednesday’s Pacific tsunami.

“Will Ryo Tatsuki’s prediction of a major disaster in July come true?” ran the headline of a Wednesday article in a Hong Kong newspaper.

The manga has had an avid following since its publication in 2021. But it became a cultural phenomenon throughout much of Asia earlier this year as fans anticipated the coming of the author’s apparent prediction, spooking travelers so much that many even canceled summer trips to Japan.

Among tourists, some are relieved and ready to return after Wednesday’s events caused minimal damage. But others remain on edge, resolved to stay away for now.

“I’m getting goosebumps!” wrote one Japanese user on X following the massive 8.8 quake.

Chinese traveler Andrea Wang, 25, had canceled an April trip to Japan, saying the manga made her “concerned about the risk to my life.” Though the tsunami has now passed, she still doesn’t plan to travel to Japan for the rest of 2025, she told CNN on Friday.

It is impossible to accurately project in advance when an earthquake might strike, and seismologists have strongly cautioned against believing the rising number of so-called predictions. Even Tatsuki herself urged people not to be “overly swayed” by her dreams, in an interview with Japanese media in May.

But the prevalence of the debate proves the manga’s tight grip on the popular imagination – amplified by both soothsayers across Asia and social media – especially in seismically active Japan, where the constant threat of an earthquake or tsunami looms large in the popular imagination.

Many still bear the scars of the 2011 Tohoku disaster, when an earthquake triggered devastating tsunami waves that caused the Fukushima nuclear meltdown. The disaster left more than 22,000 dead or missing – and has since become embedded in the national psyche, with Japanese toddlers doing earthquake drills from the time they can walk, and the government regularly warning of an impending, once-in-a-century earthquake.

Tatsuki’s manga depicts a cartoon version of herself gleaning visions from her slumbers, some of which turn out to bear close resemblance to real-life events. Some fans believe she predicted the deaths of Princess Diana and Freddie Mercury, though skeptics say her visions are too vague to be taken seriously.

It was the 2011 quake that boosted belief in Tatsuki’s supposed prescience. Her 1999 manga “The Future I Saw” has the words “massive disaster in March, 2011” on the cover – leading many to believe that she predicted the 9.0 magnitude earthquake more than a decade before it hit Tohoku.

In her 2021 follow-up, Tatsuki warned that an earthquake in the Philippine Sea on July 5 this year would cause tsunami waves three times as tall as those from the Tohoku earthquake – leading many to fear disaster sometime last month.

In the end, Wednesday’s quake struck thousands of kilometers from the predicted epicenter, and the highest waves recorded in Japan measured only 4.3 feet – far below the 30-foot waves seen in 2011.

But many travelers, like Wang, decided not to take the chance and canceled their trips to Japan in the last few months, pointing to similar warnings from psychics in Japan and Hong Kong.

CN Yuen, managing director of Hong Kong-based travel agency WWPKG, said the number of bookings for Japan tours fell about 70% in June and July, compared with the same time last year.

Oscar Chu, a 36-year-old traveler from Hong Kong, also decided not to go earlier this summer, despite usually visiting Japan multiple times a year. “I wouldn’t say I was 100% certain (about the prediction), but I wouldn’t write off the possibility,” he told CNN on Friday.

When July 5 passed with no incident, some of his friends booked flights to Japan the very next day, he said.

He’ll head there himself in a few weeks, having coincidentally bought tickets on Wednesday morning – just before receiving news of the tsunami. But he still plans to go; “You can’t avoid going for a lifetime,” he said.

Not everybody is reassured, however. Some of Chu’s friends, who love visiting Japan as much as he does, are taking precautions like avoiding coastal areas or skipping the beach.

They’re not the only ones wary of a “big one” on the horizon. Wednesday’s tsunami highlighted the vulnerability for millions living on coastlines all around the Pacific, where the seismically active “Ring of Fire” has produced many of the world’s strongest earthquake.

Fears in Japan have been mounting since the government’s recent warnings that a massive quake could hit the southern Nankai Trough within the next 30 years – though the science remains disputed.

The Nankai Trough is a 700-kilometer-long (435-mile) subduction zone, where one tectonic plate slips beneath another. Along this fault, severe earthquakes have been recorded every 100 to 200 years, according to the Japanese government’s Earthquake Research Committee.

The last such quakes took place in 1944 and 1946, killing at least 2,500 people and destroying tens of thousands of homes.

The Japanese government has repeatedly warned there is a 70-80% chance that Japan will be rocked by another Nankai Trough earthquake within 30 years – leading many scientists to questioning the accuracy of that probability.

Regardless of the prediction’s reliability, the nation is on high alert and kicks into gear whenever a quake hits. This highly-effective advanced warning system was on full display this week, when local authorities issued evacuations warnings, urging more than two million residents in high risk areas along the coastline to seek higher ground.

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When a magnitude 7.1 quake hit southern Japan last August, authorities were similarly quick to respond, slowing trains and warning of potential tsunamis – though in the end there was no major damage.

Whether or not Wednesday’s quake was the one envisioned in Tatsuki’s manga, public vigilance against potential disaster will likely linger in Japan long after this week’s waves recede.

“It is because of (Tatsuki’s) warning that more people started to pay attention to earthquake risks in advance, improve disaster prevention awareness, and also prompted everyone to learn relevant knowledge and prepare emergency supplies,” a user wrote on the Chinese social media app Xiaohongshu, also known as RedNote.

“People’s alertness has increased, which in itself is of great significance.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has accused Hamas of not wanting a ceasefire deal and requested that the International Red Cross bring food and medical care to hostages held in Gaza, after public fury ignited over propaganda videos showing two emaciated Israeli captives.

Tens of thousands of protestors joined a rally in Tel Aviv on Saturday evening – some holding placards reading “Stop the war” and “Leave no one behind” – as they called for Netanyahu to strike a deal that would free the Israeli hostages still held in Gaza.

Videos released by the militant groups Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad last week showed hostages Evyatar David and Rom Braslavski in a visibly fragile state – images that galvanized a forceful reaction both at home and abroad.

On Sunday, the International Red Cross (ICRC) in Israel and the Occupied Territories said that it was “appalled” by the videos and urged that the “dire situation must come to an end.”

Several world leaders also condemned the videos of the Israel hostages, with French President Emmanuel Macron describing them as “unbearable” and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz saying the images “show that Hamas should have no role in Gaza’s future.”

Netanyahu’s office said on Sunday that the prime minister spoke with Julien Lerisson, the head of the Red Cross delegation in the region, to request “his involvement in the immediate provision of food and medical care for the hostages.”

The office also repeated Netanyahu’s denial that starvation was rife in the enclave, despite a UN-backed food security agency’s warning this week that “the worst-case scenario of famine” is unfolding in Gaza.

On Monday Israeli President Isaac Herzog spoke by phone with ICRC President Mirjana Spoljaric about the hostages’ “dire” health condition, according to the president’s office. Herzog stressed the need for the aid group to intervene and help the hostages, who he said are facing a “real and immediate threat to their lives”.

Hamas has said it is prepared to “deal positively” with any Red Cross request to deliver food and medicine to hostages, but only on the condition that humanitarian corridors are opened up in Gaza.

The militant group claims that the hostages’ emaciated state is a reflection of worsening conditions in the strip. However, other hostages who have been freed in the past have similarly appeared gaunt and frail at the time of their release and described malnourishment while in captivity.

Abu Obeida, a spokesman for Hamas’ military wing, al-Qassam Brigades, said this weekend that the group does not intentionally starve the hostages, and that they eat the same food that Hamas fighters and the general Gaza population eat. “They will not receive any special privileges amid the crime of starvation and siege,” he added.

A member of Hamas’ political bureau, Izzat Al-Rashiq, described the images as “the definitive response to all who deny the existence of famine in Gaza.”

Malnutrition-related deaths in Gaza spiked in July, the latest sign of a worsening hunger crisis, the World Health Organization warned last week. The agency said the enclave’s malnutrition rates reached “alarming levels,” with over 5,000 children under five admitted for outpatient treatment of malnutrition in just the first two weeks of July.

Gazans also face lethal danger when attempting to collect aid from distribution sites, where violent clashes can erupt. On Sunday, a shooting incident near an aid site in northern Gaza killed at least 13 people and left dozens wounded, according to the Emergency and Medical Services in Gaza.

Allowing Red Cross access would be a shift for Hamas, which has previously opposed any access to the hostages by the humanitarian group. The ICRC, which has only facilitated previous releases of hostages throughout the war, said in March that it was “hugely disappointing” to have not yet been able to visit any hostages so far, emphasizing that it was not for lack of trying.

Recent ceasefire talks have borne little fruit, with Israeli and US negotiators recalled from negotiations last month. US Special Envoy Steve Witkoff at the time blamed Hamas for poor coordination and “lack of desire to reach a ceasefire,” saying the US would consider “alternative options.”

On Sunday, Netanyahu cited the latest images of Hamas captives as evidence of bad faith. “When I see this, I understand exactly what Hamas wants. They don’t want a deal. They want to break us with these horrifying videos, with the false horror propaganda they’re spreading around the world,” he said.

The Israeli leader is now “pushing for the freeing of the hostages through military defeat (of Hamas),” one Israeli official told CNN on Sunday – a route that the hostages’ families have repeatedly warned against.

“We are in discussions with the Americans. There is a growing understanding that Hamas is not interested in a deal,“ the official said, adding that Netanyahu wants to combine the freeing of the hostages “with the entry of humanitarian aid into areas outside the combat zones and, as much as possible, into areas not under Hamas control.”

As Israel’s war in Gaza grinds on, it has faced increasing resistance from the Israeli public, whose frustration over the fates of the remaining hostages has intensified.

According to polling released by the Israel Democracy Institute during a ceasefire period in March, over 70% of Israelis supported negotiating with Hamas for an end to the fighting and an Israeli withdrawal from Gaza in exchange for the release of the remaining hostages. Fifty hostages remain in Gaza, at least 20 of whom are believed to be alive.

The hostages’ families have repeatedly urged Netanyahu to strike a deal, warning that Red Cross assistance alone will not be enough, and that further expansion of the fighting in Gaza could endanger the remaining hostages’ lives.

“Netanyahu is preparing the greatest deception of all. The repeated claims of freeing hostages through military victory are a lie and a public fraud,” Israel’s Hostages and Missing Families Forum said in a statement on Sunday.

The group also condemned Hamas, saying it “cannot hide the fact that we are dealing with an evil terrorist organization that has been holding innocent people in impossible conditions for over 660 days.”

Hamas publicly insists that it remains committed to hostage release talks – but only if conditions in Gaza improve first. The group recently stopped engaging in any discussions regarding a ceasefire or the release of hostages, two sources familiar with the matter told CNN last week.

“It is essential to improve the catastrophic humanitarian situation significantly and to obtain a written response from the enemy regarding our response,” Basem Naim, a senior Hamas political official, also told CNN.

“This is a condition to go back to negotiations.”

Plastics are a “grave, growing and under-recognised danger” to human and planetary health, a new expert review has warned. The world is in a “plastics crisis”, it concluded, which is causing disease and death from infancy to old age and is responsible for at least $1.5tn (£1.1tn) a year in health-related damages.

The driver of the crisis is a huge acceleration of plastic production, which has increased by more than 200 times since 1950 and is set to almost triple again to more than a billion tonnes a year by 2060. While plastic has many important uses, the most rapid increase has been in the production of single-use plastics, such as drinks bottles and fast-food containers.

As a result, plastic pollution has also soared, with 8bn tonnes now polluting the entire planet, the review said, from the top of Mount Everest to the deepest ocean trench. Less than 10% of plastic is recycled.

Plastics endangered people and the planet at every stage, the review said, from the extraction of the fossil fuels they were made from, to production, use and disposal. This results in air pollution, exposure to toxic chemicals and infiltration of the body with microplastics. Plastic pollution can even boost disease-carrying mosquitoes, as water captured in littered plastic provides good breeding sites.

The review, published in the leading medical journal the Lancet, was released before the sixth and probably final round of negotiations between countries to agree a legally binding global plastics treaty to tackle the crisis. The talks have been dogged by a deep disagreement between more than 100 countries that back a cap on plastic production and petrostates such as Saudi Arabia that oppose the proposal. The Guardian recently revealed how petrostates and plastic industry lobbyists are derailing the negotiations.

“We know a great deal about the range and severity of the health and environmental impacts of plastic pollution,” said Prof Philip Landrigan, a paediatrician and epidemiologist at Boston College in the US, and lead author of the new report. He said it was imperative the plastics treaty included measures to protect human and planetary health.

“The impacts fall most heavily on vulnerable populations, especially infants and children,” he said. “They result in huge economic costs to society. It is incumbent on us to act in response.”

Petrostates and the plastics industry have argued the focus should be on recycling plastic, not cutting production. But, unlike paper, glass, steel and aluminium, chemically complex plastics cannot be readily recycled. The report said: “It is now clear that the world cannot recycle its way out of the plastic pollution crisis.”

More than 98% of plastics are made from fossil oil, gas and coal. The energy-intensive production process drives the climate crisis by releasing the equivalent of 2bn tonnes of CO₂ a year – more than the emissions of Russia, the world’s fourth biggest polluter. Plastic production also produces air pollution, while more than half of unmanaged plastic waste was burned in the open air, further increasing dirty air, the report noted.

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More than 16,000 chemicals are used in plastics, including fillers, dyes, flame retardants and stabilisers. Many plastic chemicals were linked to health effects at all stages of human life, the report said, but there was a lack of transparency about which chemicals were present in plastics.

The analysis found that foetuses, infants and young children were highly susceptible to the harms associated with plastics, with exposure associated with increased risks of miscarriage, premature and stillbirth, birth defects, impaired lung growth, childhood cancer and fertility problems later in life.

Plastic waste often breaks down into micro- and nano-plastics which enter the human body via water, food and breathing. The particles have been found in blood, brains, breast milk, placentas, semen and bone marrow. Their impact on human health is largely unknown as yet, but they have been linked to strokes and heart attacks and the researchers said a precautionary approach was needed.

Plastic is often seen as a cheap material but the scientists argue it is expensive when the cost of health damages are included. One estimate of the health damage from just three plastic chemicals – PBDE, BPA and DEHP – in 38 countries was $1.5tn a year.

The new analysis is the start of a series of reports that will regularly track the impact of plastics. Margaret Spring, a senior lawyer and one of the report’s co-authors, said: “The reports will offer decision-makers around the world a robust and independent data source to inform the development of effective policies addressing plastic pollution at all levels.”

Good morning and welcome back, it’s Ainsley here with all the news you need to kick off your working week.

Today’s must-reads:
• Thousands march to support Gaza
• Victoria’s hybrid working rights
• New Zealand’s new tourist charge

Tens of thousands of people marched across Sydney’s Harbour Bridge on Sunday in support of Gaza, calling on the Australian government to increase pressure on Israel to alleviate the humanitarian crisis. While the police estimated a crowd of 90,000, organizers said the number may have been more than three times higher. It’s a rarity that the bridge is closed, and traffic diverted, for a rally.

A massive volcano has erupted in Russia’s far eastern Kamchatka Peninsula region for the first time in centuries, just days after a powerful magnitude 8.8 earthquake rocked the area.

The Krasheninnikov Volcano began erupting early Sunday morning local time, according to a post from the Kronotsky Nature Reserve, where it’s located.

A cloud of ash and gas from the volcano sparked an aviation red alert for planes travelling through the area, after it reached an altitude of roughly 27,000 feet. That alert was later downgraded to orange, indicating that aircraft should continue to travel through the area with caution. “Ash explosions up to 10 km (32,800 ft) a.s.l. could occur at any time,” read a statement from Russia’s Kamchatka Volcanic Eruption Response Team.

According to the Kronotsky Nature Reserve, the eruption of the volcano is the first in at least 400 years. Nevertheless, it “is not something out of the ordinary for a region with high volcanic activity,” Vsevolod Yakovlev , the acting director of the reserve said in a statement on Sunday. He added the reserve employees have evacuated the area around the volcano. The region is sparsely populated and there is currently no threat to people in the area, the statement also said.

Quakes can cause eruptions

The volcano is located just 143 miles (230 km) north of the epicenter of a massive earthquake that took place off the coast of Russia’s Kamchatka Peninsula on July 30. The magnitude 8.8 quake was among the top ten of the largest earthquakes ever recorded, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

The quake triggered tsunami warnings across much of the Pacific, including Japan, Hawaii and the coast of California. But despite its power, it did relatively little damage. Researchers are studying why it triggered only a modest tsunami compared to other large quakes in the region, like the magnitude 9.1 Tohoku earthquake off the coast of Japan that triggered a large Tsunami in 2011, killing thousands.

The latest volcanic activity on Kamchatka could be related to the quake, according to Harold Tobin, a professor of seismology and geohazards at the University of Washington and director of the Pacific Northwest Seismic Network.

“It is definitely an interesting coincidence… Or not coincidence,” Tobin told NPR.

Tobin doubts the quake alone would have triggered the eruption. But he said if the Krasheninnikov Volcano was near erupting on its own, the quake’s seismic waves could “shake loose the system that then allows it to actually erupt.”

“It wouldn’t have experienced really extreme shaking,” Tobin said. “Nonetheless, seismic waves that are passing through the earth are certainly affecting underground systems like potentially magma that’s in cracks in the rock inside a volcano.”

Reuters

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At least 27 people were killed by Israeli forces while trying to get food and six others died from starvation or malnutrition in Gaza on Sunday, Palestinian officials said, amid a regional outcry over an Israeli minister’s visit to Jerusalem’s most sensitive holy site.

Witnesses said Israeli forces fired on hungry crowds who were attempting to get food aid from a distribution site run by the US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) in the south of the territory, with some describing the fire as indiscriminate.

“I couldn’t stop and help because of the bullets,” Yousef Abed told the Associated Press after seeing at least three people bleeding on the ground as Israeli forces opened fire.

Sunday’s killings were the latest in a string of deadly shootings targeting hungry people. At least 1,400 people have been killed while seeking aid since 27 May, most of whom were killed near GHF sites, while others were killed along the routes of aid convoys, the UN said on Friday. The GHF says it only uses pepper spray or fires warning shots to control crowds.

In total, 119 people were killed in Gaza by Israeli shootings and strikes over the last 24 hours, including those seeking aid, the Gaza health ministry said.

The Palestinian Red Crescent said the Israeli military targeted its headquarters in Khan Younis, southern Gaza, on Sunday, killing one staffer and wounding three more. Video taken by an employee showed the headquarters in flames after the strike, which had destroyed much of the building.

A separate Israeli strike hit a school in Khan Younis that displaced people had been using as shelter, killing at least two people.

Gaza’s population is growing increasingly desperate as the territory sinks further into famine, which experts say is a product of Israel’s continued blockade of aid. Israel has vehemently denied there is a starvation crisis in Gaza and announced expanded aid measures last week, but humanitarians say Israel is still severely restricting the entry of aid.

Chart of deaths while seeking aid

Six people have died of starvation or malnutrition in the past 24 hours, health officials said, bringing the total number who have died from hunger to 175, 93 of whom were children. The pace of starvation deaths surged in July with more people dying from hunger than in the previous 20 months combined.

Humanitarians say a far greater amount of aid needs to enter Gaza to help stabilise the starvation emergency.

“We need the sustainable entry of humanitarian aid to flood Gaza with aid for a relatively long period of time. Patients and hospitals need more food than usual to contribute to their recovery,” said Hisham Mhanna, a spokesperson for the ICRC in Gaza.

He said the emergency compounded Gaza’s existing crises, which include a devastated healthcare system and the spread of disease. Faced with starvation and lack of humanitarian supplies, aid groups are struggling to help the population of Gaza.

In total, at least 60,839 people have been killed in Gaza during Israel’s current military operations, launched after the Hamas-led attack in Israel on 7 October 2023 which killed about 1,200 people.

While Israeli strikes continued in Gaza, Israel’s far-right national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, led prayers at al-Aqsa mosque in occupied East Jerusalem, provoking outrage among regional powers. Ben-Gvir was among a group of about 1,250 people who prayed at the compound on Sunday under the protection of the Israeli military.

The compound, which Jews call the Temple Mount, is a highly revered site – the holiest in Judaism and the third holiest in Islam. The site is under Jordanian custodianship; under a decades-old agreement, Jews are allowed to visit but not pray there.

Al-Aqsa compound map

Jordan condemned the visit, which it described as “an unacceptable provocation”. Its foreign ministry said it “affirmed the kingdom’s absolute rejection and strong condemnation of the continued unacceptable incursions by the extremist minister Ben-Gvir”.

Ben-Gvir’s visit was in honour of Tisha B’Av, when Jews mourn the destruction of two Jewish temples, and was the first time that an Israeli minister had publicly prayed at the site.

The compound has been the scene of clashes in the past, with Israeli police raiding the mosque in 2023 after Palestinians occupied it in response to reports that Jews were planning a religious ceremony there.

Ben-Gvir called for the annexation of Gaza and for Palestinians to leave the territory while at al-Aqsa on Sunday. He said in a post on X: “A message must be sent: to ensure that we conquer all of the Gaza Strip, declare sovereignty …. This is the only way that we will return the hostages and win the war.”

Benjamin Netanyahu put out a statement after the visit saying the policy governing the compound “has not changed and will not change”.

The controversy came as the Israeli public was reeling from the release of two videos over the weekend showing emaciated hostages being held by Hamas in Gaza, which triggered protests on Saturday.

Netanyahu on Sunday requested the help of the International Committee of the Red Cross to provide food and medical aid to the hostages in Gaza.

Hamas responded that it was ready to provide Red Cross aid to the hostages if Israel halted “all forms of air traffic” during the delivery of packages.

The occupied West Bank was also gripped by demonstrations on Sunday, with thousands protesting against the war in Gaza and the detention of Palestinians in Israeli prisons. Protesters carried photos of Palestinians killed or detained by Israel, as well as photos of starving children in Gaza.

More than 10,800 Palestinians are held in Israeli prisoners. Rights groups have documented widespread torture of Palestinians by Israeli prison guards and soldiers, including sexual abuse, food deprivation and physical abuse.