japan knew the international olympic committee was prepared to countenance it now prime minister shinzo abhi has tabled the possibility of postponement. if the circumstances make it impossible to hold the games as planned then we have no choice but to consider postponing the. i.o.c. president thomas back had been playing for time saying on sunday that a decision would be made within the next 4 weeks but pressure from athletes and associations has grown massively canada became the 1st country to announce that they would not send any athletes to the games shortly followed by australia where the local m.p. committee is demanding a delay it gives certainty to the athletes a good segue into sports and that's the most important thing over the weekend in japan where public life is yet to be restricted as another country's 50000 people gathered to catch a glimpse of the olympic flame the country is experiencing a growth in coronavirus case numbers and experts have been warning of the danger of a wave of infections similar to those seen in europe plans are now being made to scale back the olympic tor

says calling it off altogether that is out of the question but japan's prime minister shinzo abhi now concedes it will spoil meant must be considered. while the international community is being severely affected in a negative way we hope to hold the games to market the world has defeated the coronavirus i thought that cancelling them is not an option atoll and the decision that will be made by the committee is in line with what i just said but if that becomes difficult we will think of the athletes 1st and foremost and we may have no option but to consider postponing any corona virus outbreak is taking a big toll on the global aviation industry singapore airlines cathay pacific and carriers in the united arab emirates are all grounding significant parts of their fleets that speak to the pollen in hong kong bring us up to date with the latest travel restrictions for us in asia to. as you mentioned there is fully singapore will be cutting 96 percent of its capacity bringing down flights to the barebones only necessary flights mainly to help government agencies and to bring back people i

shinzo r.b.s. now acknowledge the possibility of pushing the event back abhi had previously insisted the games would go ahead as scheduled at the international olympic committee open the door to a postponement on sunday when it said a final decision would be made within the next 4 weeks but it added that a cancellation was not on the agenda now canada and australia say they will not send teams to the games if they go ahead as planned in july. and we have mark meadows from sports with us to tell us more hey mark it does look like a postponement is increasingly likely i think it's almost certain though that the games will be postponed probably until 2021 possibly july or august 2021 and you know there are over options consolation but it's clear that the japanese do not want to do that they invested so much money in these games at the last count was about $12600000000.00 and it's only going to rise so this cancellation just isn't possible basically a scaled down olympics this year with no spectators and maybe less sports it's possible but i don't think anyone really wants that that's not what the olymp