Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga has cancelled plans to visit India and the Philippines in late April amid a sharp rise in COVID-19 cases, a senior government spokesman said on Wednesday.
Japan's government is considering a state of emergency for Tokyo and several other prefectures, while Indian data showed on Wednesday there had been 295,041 new infections nationwide overnight and 2,023 deaths, India's highest in the pandemic.
Asked about media reports that Suga's trip to the two countries has been cancelled, Chief Cabinet Secretary Katsunobu Kato said: "In order to take all possible coronavirus countermeasures, it has been decided Prime Minister Suga won't take any overseas trips during the Golden Week."
Japan and India are members of a group known as the Quad, which also includes the United States and Australia.
Quad leaders last month pledged to work to ensure a free and open Indo-Pacific region and to cooperate on maritime, cyber and economic security, issues vital to the four democracies in the face of challenges from China.
Suga's India trip would have enabled him to hold his first in-person summit meeting with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Suga has already held face-to-face talks with two other leaders from the Quad - US President Joe Biden and Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison.
Russia has opened a criminal case against Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and put him on a wanted list, the state news agency TASS reported on Saturday, citing the Interior Ministry's database.
The death toll from rains in Brazil's southernmost state of Rio Grande do Sul rose to 56, local authorities said on Saturday morning, while dozens still have not been accounted for.
Hamas has said it is sending a delegation to Cairo on Saturday to discuss a deal for a truce and the release of hostages in Gaza, hours after US CIA Director William Burns arrived in the Egyptian capital, according to Egyptian sources.
NATO's four-month long military exercises near Russia's borders, known as Steadfast Defender, are proof the alliance is preparing for a potential conflict with Russia, a spokeswoman for Russia's Foreign Ministry said on Saturday.
Students at Trinity College Dublin protesting Israel's war in Gaza have built an encampment that forced the university to restrict campus access on Saturday and close the Book of Kells exhibition, one of Ireland's top tourist attractions.
The President His Highness Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan has received condolences from regional leaders on the death of his uncle, Sheikh Tahnoun bin Mohammed Al Nahyan.