VOI - Voice of Indonesia | RRI - Radio Republik Indonesia

The Olympic flame arrives in Japan on Friday (Mar 20), with what should have been a joyous celebration dramatically downscaled, as doubts grow over whether the Tokyo Games can go ahead during the coronavirus pandemic. Organisers have already taken the "heartbreaking" decision to pare back events surrounding the torch relay, as the world battles the virus that has killed more than 9,000 people and threatens to spark a global recession. The flame arrives on a special charter flight into Matsushima Air Base in the Japanese province of Miyagi, deliberately chosen as part of the "Recovery Olympics" to showcase the region's revival after the 2011 earthquake, tsunami and nuclear meltdown. The flame will be picked up in a special charter plane. But some 200 local children that were due to welcome the flame will be kept away as part of measures designed to halt the spread of the virus, which has infected 900 people in Japan. The relay begins on Mar 26, starting from the J-Village sports complex in Fukushima that was commandeered as a base by workers scrambling to contain the fall-out from the nuclear meltdown//CNA