British Olympic Association chiefs are increasingly resigned to defeat next week in their court battle to keep their lifetime ban for drugs cheats.

Chikage Awashima was a consummate performer of screen and stage in the post-war era, continuing up to the present. She had a strong, affectionate relationship with her public in Japan, particularly with regard her comedy performances, but she was remembered in the West for a few serious roles. The writer Donald Richie found "all of her characterisations, even the most superficially written, both believable and moving."

Olympic Diary

An earthquake with preliminary magnitude 5.4 jolted Wakayama prefecture in western Japan today, the Meteorological Agency said, but there were no immediate reports of casualties or damages and no tsunami warning was issued.

A man has admitted raping and strangling British teacher Lindsay Ann Hawker - but said he did not intend to kill her.

Japanese club Gamba Osaka says it has loaned young striker Takashi Usami to German giants Bayern Munich.

On a weekday afternoon the bullet train from Tokyo to Osaka is normally full of dark-suited businessmen, the in-carriage sound a mix of tapping laptop keys and the outside air rushing by at 300km per hour. But last Friday, the men appeared to have been elbowed aside by a small army of harried housewives ferrying infants and children, their cries and horse-play turning the train into a speeding kindergarten.

Savills; TT Electronics

A 70-year-old woman has been found alive four days after the devastating earthquake and tsunami in north-eastern Japan.

As the Japanese struggle to cope with the tsunami's immediate impact, they are also living in dread of the nightmares that lie ahead. David McNeill reports

The crisis in Japan's national sport deepened this weekend when sumo wrestling's governing body scrapped a major spring tournament as it struggles to deal with match-rigging claims.

The Japanese man accused of murdering British teacher Lindsay Hawker has written a book confessing to the killing - and has promised to donate the proceeds to her family.

Nick Duerden asks whether the world is ready for a ham with (micro) chips

Sweden's prancing queen reigned supreme before a sudden abdication. Now she's an athletics also-ran but claims she can win a medal in London in 2012 and says it will be perfect if Jessica Ennis breaks her record. Simon Turnbull speaks to Carolina Kluft