told

Takaichi’s suggestion earlier this month that Tokyo could intervene militarily if Taiwan is attacked has enraged Beijing.

Japan has denied a report that said United States President Donald Trump had advised Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi not to provoke China over Taiwan’s sovereignty.

In a news briefing on Thursday, Japan’s top government spokesperson Minoru Kihara said “there is no such fact” about an article published in The Wall Street Journal claiming that Trump had made such a remark to the Japanese leader.

He declined to comment further on the details of the “diplomatic exchange”.

The row between Asia’s two biggest economies began after Takaichi had suggested earlier this month that Tokyo could intervene militarily in any attack on self-ruled Taiwan, which China claims as part of its territory.

Takaichi’s remark ignited anger in Beijing.

After the incident, Beijing’s Foreign Ministry said that Chinese leader Xi Jinping pressed the issue in a phone call with Trump on Monday, saying Taiwan’s return was an “integral part of the post-war international order”.

The WSJ reported on Thursday that, shortly after that phone call between the US and Chinese leaders, “Trump set up a call with Takaichi and advised her not to provoke Beijing on the question of the island’s sovereignty”. The report quoted unidentified Japanese officials and an American briefed on the call.

Takaichi said in her reporting of the call with Trump that they discussed the US president’s conversation with Xi, as well as bilateral relations.

“President Trump said we are very close friends, and he offered that I should feel free to call him anytime,” she said.

Beijing, which has threatened to use force to take control of the self-ruled island, also took other punitive steps to register its anger over Takaichi’s initial remarks in parliament on November 7.

It summoned Tokyo’s ambassador and advised Chinese citizens against travelling to Japan.

As the diplomatic row escalated, the Chinese embassy in Tokyo issued a new warning to its citizens on Wednesday, saying there had been a surge in crime in Japan, and that Chinese citizens had reported “being insulted, beaten and injured for no reason”.

Japan’s Foreign Ministry denied any increase in crime, citing figures from the National Police Agency in response that showed the number of murders from January to October had halved compared with the same period in 2024.

Last week, Japanese media reported that China will again ban all imports of Japanese seafood as the diplomatic dispute between the two countries escalated.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun reiterated on Thursday a call for Japan to officially retract Takaichi’s comments.

“The Japanese side’s attempt to downplay, dodge, and cover up Prime Minister Takaichi’s seriously erroneous remarks by not raising them again is self-deception,” Guo told a regular news briefing.

“China will never accept this.”

Meanwhile, Trump’s public silence on Japan’s escalating dispute with China has further frayed nerves in Tokyo.

Some officials worry that Trump may be prepared to soften support for Taiwan in pursuit of a trade accord with China, a move they fear will embolden Beijing and cause conflict in an increasingly militarised East Asia.

“For Trump, what matters most is US-China relations,” said Kazuhiro Maejima, a professor of US politics at Sophia University.

“Japan has always been treated as a tool or a card to manage that relationship,” Maejima told Reuters news agency.

Washington’s envoy to Tokyo has said the US supports Japan in the face of China’s “coercion”, but two senior ruling party lawmakers said they had hoped for more full-throated support from their top security ally in Washington, DC.

Great documentaries are sometimes lucky accidents, the product of being at the right place at the right time and then having the wherewithal to produce something extraordinary out of those unlikely circumstances. When director Julia Loktev traveled to Russia in October 2021, all she wanted was to chronicle a handful of smart, dogged journalists trying to tell the truth who, for their trouble, had been branded foreign agents by Vladimir Putin’s vindictive government. She didn’t know she would be arriving mere months before Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. But thanks to a quirk of coincidence, she ended up having a front-row seat to history.

She made the most of it: Running five-and-a-half hours without a minute wasted, “My Undesirable Friends: Part I — Last Air in Moscow” takes us inside TV Rain, one of Russia’s last independent television channels. Divided into five chapters, the documentary begins as Loktev, who was born in the former Soviet Union before leaving when she was 9, returns to her homeland armed with an iPhone to shadow veteran TV Rain reporter and host Anna Nemzer. Over the next four months, a period that ended shortly after the invasion began, Loktev embedded herself not just with Nemzer (who is credited as the film’s co-director) but several other journalists as they fear being arrested for their reporting.

Loktev hasn’t completed a film since 2011’s “The Loneliest Planet,” which starred Gael García Bernal and Hani Furstenberg as soon-to-be-wed lovers backpacking through the Georgian countryside, their seemingly close bond shattered after a harrowing encounter. In that movie and her previous feature, 2006’s “Day Night Day Night,” a spare procedural about a nameless suicide bomber in New York, Loktev explored the mysteries of human behavior under pressure. But with “My Undesirable Friends,” she takes that fascination to a new level, introducing viewers to a group of compelling subjects, many of them women in their 20s, who open up in front of her camera while hanging out at TV Rain, their apartments or in cafes, candidly processing their country’s terrifying descent into authoritarianism in real time.

These intrepid journalists couldn’t foresee the invasion that was coming, nor the brutal local crackdown on free speech in its wake, but Loktev makes those dire certainties clear from the start, solemnly intoning in voice-over, “The world you’re about to see no longer exists.” Since its premiere at last year’s New York Film Festival, “My Undesirable Friends” has been compared to a horror movie and a political thriller but perhaps more accurately, it’s a disaster film — one in which you know the characters so intimately that, when the awful event finally occurs, you care deeply about the outcome. (“My Undesirable Friends” bears the subtitle “Part I” because Loktev has nearly finished a second installment, which catches up with the women after they fled Russia.)

In its avoidance of interviews with experts or historians, the documentary offers a kind of personal scrapbook of Loktev’s subjects, showing what everyday life is like in an oppressive society: strikingly banal with a constant background hum of paranoia. Each woman comes into empathetic focus. Nemzer, who is a little older than her colleagues, balances her demanding job with marriage and motherhood. Meanwhile, her younger co-worker Ksenia Mironova keeps diligently filing stories despite her fiancé, journalist Ivan Safronov, being imprisoned for more than a year. (He would subsequently be sentenced to 22 years.) Investigative reporter Alesya Marokhovskaya has a girlfriend, whose face we never see, and eventually details grim memories of a violent childhood. And then there’s Marokhovskaya’s best friend and partner Irina Dolinina, who combats anxiety while her politically unconscious mother harangues her about not being able to find a man now that she’s been labeled a foreign agent.

The stress and uncertainty of these conversations is palpable but, remarkably, so is a spiky sense of humor. When a co-worker is temporarily locked up, Mironova cracks jokes outside his prison while awaiting his release. The journalists wear their foreign-agent designation as a badge of honor, mocking the comically lengthy disclaimer text they’re forced to run with their broadcasts, a pitch-black coping mechanism to make sense of their tense, surreal moment.

“My Undesirable Friends” captures dark times with some of the funniest people you’d ever hope to have as sisters-in-arms. Defiant, emotional and life-affirming, the film presents us with endearing patriots who love their country but hate its leaders, sucking us into a riveting tale with a powerful undertow.

The audience anticipates the frightening future that awaits these journalists, which makes their relentless advocacy all the more moving. If our 20s are a period of unbridled optimism — a hopefulness that slowly gets beaten out of us as we grow older — “My Undesirable Friends” stands as a touching display of the resilience of youth. There is nothing naive about these women who came of age during Putin’s cruel regime, but they nonetheless believe they can change things. While Loktev rarely inserts herself into this epic, we feel her admiration from behind the camera. The film inspires while it challenges: What were any of us doing at that age that was comparably heroic or meaningful? What are we doing now?

Those questions should stick in the craw of Americans who watch this masterwork. Loktev has made a movie about Russia but its themes spread far beyond that country’s borders. During a year in which the worst-case scenarios of a second Trump presidency have come to fruition, “My Undesirable Friends” contains plenty of echoes with our national news. The canceling of comedy shows, the baseless imprisonment of innocent people, the rampant transphobia: The Putin playbook is now this country’s day-to-day. Some may wish to avoid Loktev’s film because of those despairing parallels. But that’s only more reason to embrace “My Undesirable Friends.” Loktev didn’t set out to be a witness to history, but what she’s emerged with is an indispensable record and a rallying cry.

ZOOTROPOLIS 2 star Ginnifer Goodwin says her kids would mock her for saying she voiced the main character, rabbit Judy Hopps, and refused to believe it was really her.

The actress, who attended the London premiere of the Disney animated adventure yesterday, previously spoke to Bizarre’s Jack at Walt Disney World in Florida, while she was at the launch of the park’s new Zootopia attraction – the film’s name in the US.

Ginnifer, who is married to Josh Dallas, her co- star in TV fantasy series Once Upon A Time, said: “My kids still don’t feel comfortable with watching me on screen.

“Even though they are obsessed with Disney, they have never seen more than the pilot of Once Upon A Time, which they did love but they said it was weird for them – even though Mummy and Daddy are together in the show.

“A few years after, I showed them Zootropolis.

“Someone said to them, ‘That’s your mum’, and they were like, ‘That is a rabbit and it’s not our mum’.

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“My eldest replied, ‘I know Mum thinks she sounds like that rabbit but she doesn’t’.”

And Ginnifer said of the sequel to the 2016 original, which opens in cinemas on Friday: “I was ecstatic to grow with the character and it may be a bit weird to say about your own product, but I do think it’s outrage-ously good.”

HOLLY Hagan has revealed she is expecting her second baby just weeks after announcing her sister Darci Rose’s heartbreaking death.

Geordie Shore star Holly announced the teenager’s tragic passing last month.

Holly said Darci Rose passed away peacefully holding her hand surrounded by family.

She also revealed Darci was a beloved aunt to her young son Alpha-Jax, writing as she announced the news at the time: “She was the best aunty, Alpha-Jax adored her.

“She spent his whole birthday on the bouncy castle with AJ and Alba, and that’s a memory I’ll cherish forever.”

Holly, 33, has now told fans she will welcome another baby into the world next year.

The star also revealed in an emotional post on Instagram that she got to share her news with Darci before the 19-year-old’s sudden death.

Holly posted a video that included screenshots of a conversation they had over WhatsApp.

They were the siblings “last messages to each other” and Holly said: “I will cherish these forever.”

After learning she was to become an aunt again, Darci wrote to Holly: “I’m so happy for you, that made me want to cry.

“I did not expect that at all … you’re the best mummy to (AJ) already.

“They are both going to be so lucky. Love you.”

Holly also captured on camera the moment she saw her ‘positive’ pregnancy test for the first time.

And the prescious moments she told her husband, professional footballer Jacob Blyth, and her parents that she was expecting.

Holly wrote alongside the sweet video: “Our little rainbow amongst the storm. Baby Blyth no2 coming May 2026.”

Her Geordie Shore co-stars rushed to congratulate her as Sophie Kasaei said: “My darling girl ….

“Amongst the heartbreak you’ve been through this is your angel and the best gift you could have ever been given. Adore you and your family so much forever.”

And Nathan Henry penned: “This is just the most precious news.

“I’m so happy for both. And I’m so happy for you that Darci got to be apart of your new journey. Love you and congratulations.”

HALIFAX, Canada — Several U.S. senators said Saturday that Secretary of State Marco Rubio told them that the Trump administration’s plan for ending the Russia-Ukraine war that it is pressing Kyiv to accept is a Russian “wish list” and not the actual plan.

A State Department spokesperson denied their account, calling it “blatantly false.”

The 28-point peace plan was crafted by the Trump administration and the Kremlin without Ukraine’s involvement. It acquiesces to many Russian demands that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has rejected on dozens of occasions, including giving up large pieces of territory. Trump says he wants Ukraine to accept the plan by late next week.

At a security conference in Canada, independent Sen. Angus King of Maine, Democratic Sen. Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire and Republican Sen. Mike Rounds of South Dakota said they spoke to Rubio after he reached out to some of them while on his way to Geneva for talks on the plan.

King said Rubio told them the plan “was not the administration’s plan” but a “wish list of the Russians.”

“This administration was not responsible for this release in its current form,” Rounds said. “They want to utilize it as a starting point.”

Rounds said that “it looked more like it was written in Russian to begin with.”

Rubio, who serves as both national security advisor and secretary of State, was expected to attend a meeting in Geneva on Sunday to discuss Washington’s proposal as part of a U.S. delegation, according to an American official who was not authorized to publicly discuss the U.S. participants before the meeting and spoke on condition of anonymity.

Tommy Pigott, a State Department spokesperson, denied the senators’ claim.

“As Secretary Rubio and the entire Administration has consistently maintained, this plan was authored by the United States, with input from both the Russians and Ukrainians,” Pigott wrote on X.

The senators earlier Saturday said the plan would only reward Moscow for its aggression and send a message to other leaders who have threatened their neighbors.

The senators’ opposition to the plan follows criticism from other U.S. lawmakers, including some Republicans, none of whom have the power to block it.

“It rewards aggression. This is pure and simple. There’s no ethical, legal, moral, political justification for Russia claiming eastern Ukraine,” King said during a panel discussion at the Halifax International Security Forum in Canada.

Russian President Vladimir Putin welcomed the proposal late Friday, saying that it “could form the basis of a final peace settlement” if the U.S. can get Ukraine and its European allies to agree.

Zelensky, in an address, did not reject the plan outright, but insisted on fair treatment while pledging to “work calmly” with Washington and other partners in what he called “truly one of the most difficult moments in our history.”

In its 17th year, about 300 people gather annually at the Halifax International Security Forum held at Halifax’s Westin hotel. The forum attracts military officials, U.S. senators, diplomats and scholars, but this year the Trump administration suspended participation of U.S. defense officials in events by think tanks, including the Halifax event.

A large number of U.S. senators made the trip this year in part because of strained relations between Canada and the United States. Trump has alienated America’s neighbor with his trade war and claims that Canada should become the 51st U.S. state. Many Canadians now refuse to travel to the U.S., and border states like Shaheen’s are seeing a dramatic drop in tourism.

“There’s real concern about that strain. That’s one reason why there’s such a big delegation is here,” the New Hampshire Democrat said. “I will continue to object to what the president is doing in terms about tariffs and his comments because they are not only detrimental to Canada and our relationship, but I think they are detrimental globally. They show a lack of respect of sovereign nations.”

Gillies writes for the Associated Press.