US begins 'biggest ever' Philippines war games in thick of Mideast conflict

A 7.5-magnitude earthquake struck northern Japan Monday, shaking large buildings in Tokyo hundreds of kilometres away and prompting a warning for tsunami waves of up to three metres (10 feet).

The quake hit at 4:53 pm (0753 GMT) in Pacific waters off northern Iwate prefecture, Japan's Meteorological Agency (JMA) said.

Around 40 minutes later, an 80-centimetre (31-inch) tsunami wave hit a port in Kuji in Iwate, according to the JMA, which initially estimated the quake's strength at 7.4 but later revised it upwards.

"Evacuate immediately from coastal regions and riverside areas to a safer place such as high ground or an evacuation building," it said, warning that damage due to tsunami waves was expected.

"Tsunami waves are expected to hit repeatedly. Do not leave safe ground until the warning is lifted," it said.

Footage from national broadcaster NHK did not show any immediate visible damage around several ports in Iwate.

A JMA official warned in a televised press briefing that more quakes could strike the area within the next week, particularly within the next two to three days, potentially "causing even stronger shaking".

The prime minister's office said it had set up a crisis management team.

"For those of you who live in areas for which the warnings have been issued, please evacuate to higher, safer places such as higher ground," Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi told reporters, adding that the government was trying to confirm whether there were any casualties or property damage.

Japan is one of the world's most seismically active countries, sitting on top of four major tectonic plates along the western edge of the Pacific "Ring of Fire".

The archipelago, home to around 125 million people, typically experiences around 1,500 jolts every year and accounts for about 18 percent of the world's earthquakes.

The vast majority are mild, although the damage they cause varies according to their location and the depth below the Earth's surface at which they strike.

Japan is haunted by the memory of a massive 9.0-magnitude undersea quake in 2011, which triggered a tsunami that killed or left missing around 18,500 people and caused a devastating meltdown at the Fukushima nuclear plant.

In 2024, the JMA issued its first special advisory of a possible "megaquake" along the Nankai Trough.

This 800-kilometre undersea trench is where the Philippine Sea oceanic tectonic plate is "subducting" -- or slowly slipping -- underneath the continental plate that Japan sits atop.

The government has said a quake in the Nankai Trough and subsequent tsunami could kill as many as 298,000 people and cause up to $2 trillion in damage.

The JMA lifted the 2024 advisory after a week but it led to panic-buying of staples like rice and prompted holidaymakers to cancel hotel reservations.

It issued a week-long second "megaquake" advisory in December 2025 after a magnitude-7.5 tremor struck off the northern coast.

The December 8 quake triggered tsunami waves of up to 70 centimetres (28 inches) and injured more than 40 people, but no major damage was reported.

hih-tmo-aph/mtp

American AI developer Anthropic plans to "lay the risks out on the table" even as it restricts deployment of a new model dubbed Mythos, whose powerful cybersecurity capabilities raise stark questions for companies and governments.

"We have a model that's beginning to outstrip human capabilities in the cyber world," Anthropic's Paris-based chief of relations with startups and tech firms Guillaume Princen told AFP in an interview.

Mythos is "capable of spotting security holes that have existed for decades, in systems tested by both human experts and automated tools, that have never been discovered before," he added.

Anthropic has delayed a general release of Mythos, sharing it first with a few dozen key American tech and financial services players -- such as Nvidia, Amazon, Apple and JP Morgan Chase -- to allow them to test and improve their security infrastructure.

But the company has also been accused of overhyping the powers of a technology which is its stock in trade -- and the subject of fierce competition with rival OpenAI.

The Mythos news broke as rumours grow that Anthropic will list on the stock market this year.

- Safety first? -

"We prefer to be transparent and lay these risks out on the table," Princen said, adding that AI safety concerns are "central to Anthropic's DNA".

"We don't have all the answers, this has to be a conversation between tech actors like us who have the data, the academic world, the political world and the world of economists," he added.

Mythos' reported capabilities have unsettled the American financial sector and the European Union, which requested more information from Anthropic.

In an open letter to businesses, the British government said that Mythos "highlights the speed at which  AI capabilities are increasing and the threats they potentially pose".

No European company is part of Anthropic's "Project Glasswing" consortium for shoring up cyber defences using Mythos' findings.

That has raised questions about how prepared the rest of the world will be for the offensive capabilities of US-owned AI.

Mythos is "certainly not a model that will soon be opened to the public at large, for obvious reasons," Princen said.

Anthropic is nevertheless "thinking about the next waves of opening up," he added.

- European growth -

Europe is the region where Anthropic sees the fastest growth.

Its Claude Code software development tool generates around $2.5 billion in annualised revenue -- a figure based on extrapolating from a few recent weeks of sales.

Much of that expansion comes from "European firms riding the wave" of AI, Princen said.

The company has opened offices in Dublin, London, Paris and Munich, and wants to keep investing across the continent.

"We go where the demand is," Princen said, pointing to partnerships with European firms like Swedish coding startup Lovable or Danish pharma company Novo Nordisk.

Relatively unknown to the wider public until recently, Anthropic was founded in 2021 by former OpenAI staff and makes around 80 percent of its revenue from business-to-business sales.

The company and its Claude chatbot surged in prominence in late February, when bosses refused to allow its AI tools to be used by the Pentagon for mass surveillance of American citizens or fully autonomous weapons.

The Trump administration responded by designating Anthropic a so-called "supply chain risk" to national security -- a decision being contested in multiple legal cases.

In legal documents seen by AFP, Anthropic finance chief Krishna Rao warned that Washington's move could cost the firm multiple billions in revenue this year.

On the other hand, "there are a lot of people who started using Claude precisely because of the position we took on that question," Princen said.

Anthropic said in early April that it had tripled its annualised revenues quarter-on-quarter to over $30 billion -- outpacing OpenAI for the first time.

dax/tgb/gv

Iran insisted it has no plan to attend a new round of negotiations with the United States on Monday, as uncertainty grows over a push to stop the Middle East war from resuming. 

US President Donald Trump said he was sending negotiators to Pakistan for talks on ending the war that engulfed the region and rattled global markets, while repeating threats to attack Iran's energy infrastructure if it did not make a deal.

After initial talks ended without a deal in Islamabad earlier this month, both sides have traded accusations of ceasefire violations, including the US seizure of an Iranian cargo ship early Monday that Trump said was trying to evade a US blockade of the country's ports.

"We have no plans for the next round of negotiation, and no decision has been made in this regard," said foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei.

"While claiming diplomacy and readiness for negotiations, the US is carrying out behaviours that do not in any way indicate seriousness in pursuing a diplomatic process," he added, calling the US blockade and cargo ship seizure "clear violations of the ceasefire".

Iran says the US blockade and attack breached the two-week truce set to end overnight Tuesday and threatened to retaliate, while Trump says Tehran has breached the ceasefire in the crucial Strait of Hormuz, which it has all but shut.

The counter-claims have thrown into fresh doubt the bid to end the war that began with US-Israeli strikes on Iran the morning of February 28, killing the country's supreme leader Ali Khamenei.

"We're offering a very fair and reasonable DEAL, and I hope they take it," Trump said in a social media post.

Oil prices jumped sharply on Monday over fears hostilities could resume in the weeks-long war, after Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz again over the weekend following its brief reopening on Friday in recognition of a ceasefire in Lebanon.

- Security tight -

In spite of the uncertainty surrounding the talks in Pakistan, security has been visibly stepped up in the capital, Islamabad.

Authorities announced road closures and traffic restrictions across the city, as well as in neighbouring Rawalpindi.

The US president said his negotiators, whom he did not name, would arrive in Islamabad on Monday evening. 

A White House official said Vice President JD Vance would lead the delegation after Trump said he would not, citing security concerns. He would be joined by Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner, the official said.

Trump has been under pressure to find an off-ramp since Tehran moved to choke off the Strait of Hormuz.

But the cargo ship attack and naval blockade to cut off Iran's oil revenues drew renewed threats from Tehran instead of immediately bringing them back to the negotiating table.

On Sunday, Trump announced that a massive Iranian-flagged cargo ship "tried to get past our Naval Blockade, and it did not go well for them," adding a US destroyer blew "a hole in the engineroom" before US Marines seized the vessel.

The ISNA news agency later cited a spokesperson for Iran's central command centre as warning that the military "will soon respond and retaliate against this armed piracy and the US military".

Tasnim news agency reported Tehran had sent drones in the direction of US military ships after Touska was seized and "attacked".

Iran's Revolutionary Guards for their part warned that any attempt to pass through the strait without permission "will be considered cooperation with the enemy, and the offending vessel will be targeted".

- Sticking points -

Iran's foreign ministry said delays in implementing a ceasefire in Lebanon, where Israel has been fighting militant group Hezbollah, was also a violation of the ceasefire.

A separate truce agreed between Israel and Lebanon took effect on Friday, which included Hezbollah, whose rocket fire in support of Iran drew Lebanon into the war.

Israel's military on Monday warned Lebanese civilians against returning to dozens of villages in southern Lebanon, claiming Hezbollah's activities in the area were violating that agreement.

Thousands of displaced residents have begun making their way back to southern Lebanon since the truce began.

Israel's Defence Minister Israel Katz said Sunday that the military would use "full force" against any threats in Lebanon, even during the ceasefire.

He also vowed to level homes allegedly used by Hezbollah, with Lebanese state media reporting that demolitions were underway.

Another major issue in the US-Iran negotiations has been Tehran's stockpile of enriched uranium.

Trump said on Friday that Iran had agreed to hand over its roughly 440 kilograms (970 pounds) of enriched uranium. 

"We're going to get it by going in with Iran, with lots of excavators," he said.

But Iran's foreign ministry has said the stockpile, thought to be buried from US bombing in last June's 12-day war, was "not going to be transferred anywhere".

Baqaei said on Monday that the issue of moving the country's enriched uranium was not discussed with US negotiators.

"It was never raised as an option for us," he said.

burs-jfx/ser

Iran on Monday executed two more members of opposition group the People's Mujahedin (MEK), the organisation said, with Iranian authorities saying they had been hanged on charges of spying for Israel.

Mohammad (also known as Nima) Masoom Shahi, 38, and Hamed Validi, 45, were put to death at dawn in the central prison of Karaj outside Tehran, the MEK's political wing the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) said in a statement.

They were both members of the MEK, which is banned in Iran, it added.

The hangings were the latest of detainees regarded as political prisoners by rights groups during the war between the Islamic republic and the United States and Israel.

Since executions resumed in March during the war that erupted on February 28, Iran has executed eight members of the MEK and seven men convicted over protests in January.

"With today's executions, at least 15 political prisoners have been executed since 19 March," said Mahmood Amiry Moghaddam, director of Norway-based rights group Iran Human Rights.

He warned of "further executions of political prisoners and protesters in the coming days and weeks." 

"The two members of the MEK join a growing number of heroic members executed this month under the rule of religious dictatorship," the group's leader Maryam Rajavi wrote on X.

"Their only 'crime' was their commitment to freedom and the liberation of their people," she added.

The judiciary's Mizan Online website said the two men were "members of a spy network linked to Mossad", Israel's intelligence agency.

They were convicted of the capital offence of "moharebeh", meaning waging war against God, as well as "collaboration with hostile groups and the Zionist regime", Mizan said.

The NCRI described the accusations against the men as "absurd".

Iran is the world's second most prolific executioner after China, according to rights groups based outside the country, which accuse the Islamic republic of using capital punishment as a tool to instill fear throughout society.

Iranian authorities executed at least 1,639 people in 2025, the highest number since 1989, IHR and Paris-based Together Against the Death Penalty (ECPM) said in a joint report last week.

With a new round looming in Islamabad of possible talks between the US and Iran, Amiry Moghaddam added: "A complete halt to all executions and the release of political prisoners must be a central demand in any agreement with the Islamic republic."

sjw/ser

Pope Leo XIV heads to Angola's remote and diamond-rich northeast on Monday in the latest stop on an Africa tour during which he has spoken out against the country's glaring poverty. 

On the eighth day of a trip to four African nations, Leo will fly to the town of Saurimo, 800 kilometres (500 miles) east of the capital Luanda.

Angola is one of Africa's top producers of crude oil and diamonds, but around a third of its population live below the World Bank poverty line.

Saurimo is the capital of the historically marginalised Lunda Sul province and close to Angola's largest diamond mine, Catoca, which extracts around 75 percent of the country's diamonds.

Leo will hold an open-air mid-morning mass expected to draw around 30,000 people.

Afterwards he is due to visit a home for the elderly, underscoring the Catholic Church's support for the province's poor infrastructure and services. 

Despite its mineral wealth, Lunda Sul suffers from poverty, with mining also blamed for environmental damage.

In his first event after arriving in oil-rich Angola on Saturday, the pope spoke out against the harm caused by rampant exploitation of natural resources, which has been a theme of his tour of the continent.

"How much suffering, how many deaths, how many social and environmental disasters are caused by this logic of exploitation," he said in an address to government officials including President Joao Lourenco.

The pope is due later Monday to meet clergy to discuss challenges facing the church in Angola, including a lack of resources and the growing influence of evangelicism.

After John Paul II in 1992 and Benedict XVI in 2009, Leo XIV is the third pope to visit this country, which was badly battered in a 27-year civil war that erupted after independence from Portugal in 1975. 

At a mass Sunday attended by 100,000 people, the 70-year-old pontiff called for Angola to overcome divisions of the past and create a future where "the scourge of corruption will be healed by a new culture of justice and sharing."

Leo's tour of Africa -- an 18,000-kilometre journey over 11 days -- began in Algeria a week ago and continued to Cameroon. It winds up in Equatorial Guinea over April 21-23.

cmk-fal-br/gv

Thousands of American and Philippine troops, joined for the first time by a significant contingent of Japanese forces, began annual military exercises Monday set against the backdrop of the Middle East war. 

The war games will feature live-fire exercises in the north of the Philippines facing the Taiwan Strait, as well as a province off the disputed South China Sea, where Philippine and Chinese forces have engaged in repeated confrontations.

In one drill, the Japanese military, which is contributing about 1,400 personnel, will use a Type 88 cruise missile to sink a World War II-era minesweeper off the coast of northern Luzon island.

More than 17,000 soldiers, airmen and sailors are taking part in the 19-day Balikatan, or "Shoulder to Shoulder," exercises -- about the same number as last year's edition, including contingents from Australia, New Zealand, France and Canada.

Balikatan comes as Iran and the United States, along with Israel, edge towards the end of the two-week ceasefire that halted the Middle East war, ignited by surprise US-Israeli strikes on the Islamic republic.

"Regardless of the challenges elsewhere in the world, the United States' focus on the Indo-Pacific and our ironclad commitment to the Philippines remains unwavering," US Lieutenant General Christian Wortman said at Monday's opening ceremony.

Without providing precise numbers, Wortman, commander of the Marine Expeditionary Force, later told reporters that approximately 10,000 US personnel would take part in the exercises.

Philippine military chief General Romeo Brawner added that US Indo-Pacific Command chief Admiral Samuel Paparo had assured him at the war's outbreak that this year's Balikatan would be "the biggest ever".

Among the high-end weapons expected to be used is a US Typhon missile system that has been in the archipelago since visiting US forces left it there in 2024, provoking outrage from Beijing.

"We anticipate that it will be incorporated at some level during the course of the exercise," Wortman said.

- 'Playing with fire' -

While both militaries insisted that no exercises would take place "near Taiwan", coastal defence drills are set fewer than 200 kilometres (120 miles) from the island's southern coast.

Beijing has ramped up military pressure around self-ruled Taiwan, which it considers part of its territory and has threatened to use force to seize.

China slammed the joint exercises on Monday, saying the United States, Japan and the Philippines were "playing with fire".

"What the Asia-Pacific region needs most is peace and tranquility, and what it needs least is the introduction of external forces to sow division and confrontation," Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun told a news briefing.

"We wish to remind the countries concerned that blindly binding themselves together in the name of security will only be akin to playing with fire -- ultimately backfiring upon themselves," he added.

Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos warned in November that given his country's proximity to the island democracy, "a war over Taiwan will drag the Philippines, kicking and screaming, into the conflict."

In February, US, Japanese and Philippine aircraft patrolled over the Bashi Channel that separates the Philippines from Taiwan to test what Manila called their "ability to operate seamlessly together in complex maritime environments".

Japan's first Balikatan as a full participant follows the signing of a reciprocal access agreement approved by the Japanese Diet last June.

Colonel Takeshi Higuchi of Tokyo's joint staff told Japanese media the drills would "contribute to creating a security environment that tolerates no attempt to unilaterally change the status quo by force".

Marcos has been building up security ties with Western nations to deter China. Over the past two years, Manila has also signed visiting forces or equivalent agreements with New Zealand, Canada and France to facilitate joint military exercises.

Outside the Manila base where Monday's opening ceremony was held, a group of about 50 people protested against the exercises, holding aloft signs branding US President Donald Trump an "imperialist terrorist" and demanding US forces leave the country.

cwl-cgm-isk/dhw/ami

The latest developments in the Middle East war:

- Israel Lebanon warning -

Israel's military warned Lebanese civilians against returning to dozens of villages in southern Lebanon, claiming Hezbollah's activities in the area were violating a ceasefire agreement struck last week.

Thousands of displaced residents have begun making their way back to parts of southern Lebanon since the truce between Israel and Lebanon took effect on Friday.

- Iran executions -

Iran executed two men convicted of having links to Israel's spy agency, the latest in a string of executions since the outbreak of war with Israel and the United States.

"The death sentences of Mohammad Masoom-shahi and Hamed Validi were carried out at dawn today," the judiciary's Mizan Online website reported.

- Israel soldier hits Jesus statue -

The Israeli army said that it had determined an image circulating on social media that shows a soldier in south Lebanon hitting a statue of Jesus Christ is authentic and depicts one of its troops.

The image appears to show an Israeli soldier using a sledgehammer to strike the head of a statue of a crucified Jesus that had fallen off of a cross. 

The Israel army said it viewed the incident with "great severity", adding that the "soldier's conduct is wholly inconsistent with the values expected of its troops", in a post to its official X account.

- Oil price bounce -

Oil prices surged on a re-escalation of hostilities in the Middle East war after Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz at the weekend, just a day after reopening it, citing the United States' blockade of its ports.

European stock markets opened lower, also pressured by Tehran's announcement that it was not currently planning to attend peace talks.   

- US seizes Iranian ship -

President Donald Trump said Sunday that the USS Spruance, a guided missile destroyer, fired on and seized the Touska, an Iranian-flagged cargo ship, in the Gulf of Oman and US Marines were "seeing what's on board!"

Iran says it retaliated with drones in the direction of US military ships after one of its vessels was seized, Tasnim news agency reported.

- Peace talks in limbo -

Iranian state media reported Sunday that Tehran was not planning to take part in talks with the United States, hours after Trump said he was dispatching negotiators to Islamabad. 

"There are currently no plans to participate in the next round of Iran-US talks," state broadcaster IRIB said, citing Iranian sources. 

Pakistan's Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said Sunday he had spoken by phone with Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian -- which he described as "a warm and constructive conversation" -- and reaffirmed his government's readiness to mediate the conflict.

- Syria foiled Hezbollah -

Syria's interior ministry said Sunday that security forces had thwarted a cross-border attack in the southern Quneitra province by a cell linked to Lebanon's Iran-backed Hezbollah group, which denied the accusation.

In a statement, Syrian officials said they foiled a "sabotage plot" with hidden rocket launching equipment in a civilian vehicle, which was linked to Hezbollah and "aimed to destabilise the region".

The area borders the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.

- Lebanon PM to Paris -

French President Emmanuel Macron will on Tuesday meet Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam in Paris, his office announced, a day after a French peacekeeper was killed in Lebanon and amid a fragile 10-day truce between Israel and Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah.

- Israel's 'full force' -

Israel's Defence Minister Israel Katz said his military will use "full force" in Lebanon -- even during the ongoing ceasefire -- should Israeli troops face any threat from Hezbollah.

Lebanon's military said meanwhile it has reopened a road and bridge between the city of Nabatieh and Khardali that was damaged by Israeli strikes in the south.

- Iranian airport reopens -

Iran will resume international flights on Monday from Mashhad airport in the country's northeast, its civil aviation authority said.

burs-sbk/gv

When falling bombs shattered the usual calm of his Kashmir village, Mohammad Rashid set his mind to building a shelter for his family, ready in case fighting erupts again in the divided Himalayan region.

The conflict last year between nuclear-armed rivals India and Pakistan -- which both claim the whole of Kashmir -- was their worst in decades, following an April 22 attack that killed mostly Hindu civilians at a mountain resort.

The ensuing four-day military escalation saw both sides deploying drones, missiles and fighter jets, killing more than 70 people and leaving many residents reeling, in fear of getting caught up again in war.

"We fear another round like people living near the sea fear a tsunami," said shopkeeper Mohammad Majid from Rashid's farming village of Kasaliyan, nestled in the forested hills of Poonch district in Indian-administered Kashmir.

Before the fighting, Rashid had initially been working on a new kitchen with steel-framed windows and a properly sealed door meant to stop snakes from slithering in.

But a far more pressing threat arose as mortar shells rained on Kasaliyan, forcing the family to flee for safety.

"I realised that more than the snakes, my children needed protection from shells that can drop from across the border without warning," 40-year-old Rashid told AFP near the militarised frontier separating the Indian- and Pakistani-controlled parts of disputed Kashmir.

He put aside the kitchen project, pouring his life savings into converting the structure into a makeshift bunker with reinforced walls and a concrete roof.

"I thought having a safe place is most important because shelling can start anytime again," Rashid said.

- Killed seeking shelter -

Leading up to last year's fighting, gunmen attacked a site near the resort town of Pahalgam in Indian-administered Kashmir, killing 26 people.

According to witnesses, the attackers separated women and children from men, who were then shot dead on an alpine meadow.

The site has since been closed to tourists.

India blamed Pakistan for backing the attack -- a charge Islamabad denied -- triggering tit-for-tat diplomatic measures and a sharp military escalation.

New Delhi launched airstrikes on what it called "terrorist infrastructure" deep inside Pakistan, which responded with drones, mortar fire and aircraft deployment along the Kashmir frontier, known as the Line of Control.

In the morning after the first night of bombing, Rameez Khan and his wife Urusa left their Poonch home with their 12-year-old twins, hoping to reach safety.

But just after they stepped out, a shell hit the narrow street they were on, killing the children on the spot.

"I can't forget that street and that moment," said Urusa, her eyes brimming with tears.

A ceasefire was eventually agreed, but it was too late for her children.

"They told us about the ceasefire, but they didn't tell us how to stay safe before the bombardment started," said the mother.

The children were among at least 14 civilians killed in Poonch -- the worst-hit district on the Indian side where the violence reached areas once considered safe.

- 'In case it all starts again' -

Kasaliyan, home to around 2,000 people, has a single government-built community shelter which can hold only about 40 people crammed tightly.

Authorities have not constructed new civilian bunkers, except for two large shelters for officials.

Other than Rashid, at least three more families in the village have built their own bunkers since the May ceasefire.

Many villages remain without shelters, despite decades of hostilities and two wars since Muslim-majority Kashmir was divided between India and Pakistan when they won independence from Britain in 1947.

Jagdish Kaur, 73, lost her son as well as much of her hearing when a shell struck her home during the latest fighting.

"Now any sharp sound makes me collapse," she said.

Retired police officer Mohammad Aslam, 67, fled his home at the first sign of escalation, a decision he believes saved his life.

When he returned after the ceasefire, his house had been badly hit.

The government paid him 100,000 rupees ($1,065) in compensation, but he has not touched the money.

"It's not enough to repair this kind of damage," Aslam said, pointing at cracked walls and the tin roof pierced by shrapnel.

"I've kept the money handy instead, in case it all starts again."

pzb/abh/ami/ane

Sporting towering Elvis-style hair and a school uniform modified into a rebellious silhouette, 15-year-old Reona worships Japan's classic bad-boy subculture recently taken global by a hit Netflix dating show.

Japan in the heady 1980s teemed with hot-blooded teens who rebelled against society through dangerous motorcycle rides, school "wars" and full-on street brawls.

Their outlandish fashion and supposed traits such as chivalry have since made them Japan's pop-culture darlings, from anime to film, despite its conformist population's disdain for rule-breakers. 

The latest to capitalise on the genre is Netflix, whose recent reality show "Badly in Love" spotlighted Japan's "yankii" (delinquent) culture by starring 11 young men and women, including former "bosozoku" (motorcycle gang) members. 

And a yankii-themed exhibition is now underway in Tokyo, re-enacting the 80s chaos with flamboyantly modified motorcycles and heavily embroidered "tokkofuku", military-style jackets worn by the bikers. 

High-schooler Reona, who AFP has chosen not to name in full because he's a minor, mimics the 80s rebels by donning baggy school trousers designed to create an imposing impression.

"I think their hardcore manliness on full display is so cool," he told AFP. 

A fighting spirit, loyalty to friends and straightforwardness are redeeming qualities often associated with the subculture. 

Modern delinquents, meanwhile, are sometimes derided for their childish TikTok clout-chasing, online bullying and the underhanded way they scam elderly people as part of so-called "black-market part-time gigs".

Prank videos have gone viral in recent years showing teenage customers committing unhygienic antics at Japan's famed sushi conveyor-belt restaurants -- so-called "sushi terrorism".   

"Getting arrested for riding around your motorcycle may have some honour, but getting arrested for those sushi pranks is plain lame," Reona said.

Hirotaka Sotooka, 43, laughs off his eight-year-old son's precocious penchant for gangster-like attire, but draws a clear line.

The parent is willing to tolerate motorcycles, fistfights and fashion statements, but "I don't want him to bully the weak, be violent toward women or do anything purely evil", he told AFP. 

"Otherwise it's his life to enjoy," he said, proudly watching as his son strikes a perfect tough-guy pose before a bosozoku-style bike showcased at the yankii exhibition during its February iteration.

- 'Embarrassing' -

Japanese teens still do make headlines vrooming recklessly, skirmishing or even duelling, but they are now commonly seen as less belligerent after many moved online to vent.

The number of bosozoku members, too, plummeted nearly 90 percent to 5,880 in 2024 from their peak in 1982, police data shows.

That is partly because "surveillance cameras are now everywhere" and "everyone films you on an iPhone and leaves proof of your act", Kenichiro Iwahashi, a former outlaw biker turned delinquency expert, told AFP.

With the risk of arrest much higher, bosozoku gangs as hardcore as those in the 80s known for their unlicensed, unhelmeted and tokkofuku-flaunting style are "almost non-existent today", he said.

While long popular in fiction, yankii youths remain deeply frowned upon in real life for their transgressive behaviours and occasional transitions to full-fledged career criminals.

Satoru Saito, who performs as a "yankii comedian" complete with towering quiff, shaved eyebrows and tokkofuku, sometimes finds himself vilified online by those almost allergic to his "anti-social" appearance.

"For some people, this is a hard no," the 33-year-old told AFP.

"Most of these yankii folks are doing things like fighting or committing crimes, and the act of riding motorcycles at midnight can be extremely noisy, so I get why they are hated."

This makes "Badly in Love" an audacious project that few conventional TV broadcasters would have dared to green light.

From "Tokyo Revengers" to "Crows", manga and movies themed on school gangs have always made popular content as escapist fantasy.

But featuring these troublemakers beyond fiction would have "risked exposing TV stations to criticism from the public that they are endorsing the yankii culture", influential entertainment writer Motohiko Tokuriki told AFP.

Mindful of the risk, Netflix says it went beyond strict legal compliance to "avoid sensationalism" and contextualise cast members' past slips into delinquency. 

"We had extensive internal discussions... to ensure the production would not be perceived as glorifying or condoning the violence," "Badly in Love" executive producer Dai Ota told AFP.

Overall, his gamble paid off: the show, with Season 2 already set for release later this year, has maintained a weeks-long top 10 presence, including in South Korea, Taiwan and Hong Kong.

"Our hope was to show that these young people -- who have often been marginalised or labelled as 'social outcasts' -- are simply youths who worry, struggle and genuinely grow."

Despite her tough, heavily tattooed exterior, Season 1 participant Otoha told AFP she is "not at all what people think of me".

The 23-year-old "introvert" now calls her past delinquency "embarrassing".  

"I'd like people not to admire us, but take us as their anti-role model."

tmo/aph/sjc/fox/abs

Oil prices surged Monday on a re-escalation of hostilities in the Middle East war after Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz at the weekend, just a day after reopening it, citing the United States' blockade of its ports.

However, lingering hopes that a deal to end the seven-week crisis continued to support equities, even as Tehran said it was not currently planning to attend peace talks.

Crude plunged while US and European stocks rallied Friday after the Islamic republic said it would again allow ships to pass through the waterway -- through which a fifth of global oil and LNG gas usually passes -- citing the ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon.

President Donald Trump told AFP that "we're very close to having a deal", adding that there were "no sticking points at all" left with Tehran, though Iran quickly pushed back, saying its stockpile of enriched uranium would not be transferred "anywhere".

US benchmark West Texas Intermediate dived more than 11 percent and Brent shed nine percent.

But both contracts jumped sharply Monday, days before the end of a two-week ceasefire, owing to the ongoing US blockade and after an American destroyer fired on and seized an Iranian ship that tried to evade it. Tehran warned it would retaliate.

The blockade of Iranian ports has been a significant sticking point in negotiations between the two countries, and state broadcaster IRIB cited Iranian sources as saying "there are currently no plans to participate in the next round of Iran-US talks" in Pakistan.

The Fars and Tasnim news agencies had earlier cited anonymous sources as saying "the overall atmosphere cannot be assessed as very positive", adding that lifting the US blockade was a precondition for negotiations.

WTI jumped more than seven percent at one point, while Brent piled on more than six percent.

There has so far been only a single, 21-hour negotiating session held in Islamabad on April 11 that ended inconclusively, though groundwork for fresh talks continued afterwards.

"We're offering a very fair and reasonable DEAL, and I hope they take it," Trump said in a social media post Sunday, while also renewing his threats against Iran's infrastructure if a deal is not made.

But Iran's Revolutionary Guards warned that any attempt to pass through the strait without permission "will be considered cooperation with the enemy, and the offending vessel will be targeted".

Foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei said the blockade was "a violation" of the ceasefire.

Still, equities rose, tracking another record close for the S&P 500 and Nasdaq in New York.

Tokyo, Seoul and Taipei led the gains thanks to a resumption of the tech rally that characterised markets before the war began on February 28.

Hong Kong, Shanghai, Wellington and Manila were also well up.

The dollar, which has been a key safe haven during the crisis and fell sharply Friday, advanced against its main peers.

Chris Weston at Pepperstone said traders were assessing "whether the ceasefire can be salvaged through this week’s diplomatic talks, with recalibration on the probability of military escalation".

"Trump's weekend social media posts raised the prospect of military re-escalation, though given the bar for this response is now set higher, some viewed this as a pure hawkish negotiating tactic ahead of this week’s diplomatic talks," he added. 

"Market participants understand that the path to a formal agreement (is) unlikely to be linear and remains vulnerable to sudden changes, so market players won't be wholly surprised by a sentiment shift. 

"However, without a comprehensive agreement on Iran’s nuclear programme, the ceasefire remained fragile."

- Key figures around 0230 GMT -

West Texas Intermediate: UP 5.3 percent at $88.31 a barrel

Brent North Sea Crude: UP 4.8 percent at $94.67 a barrel

Tokyo - Nikkei 225: UP 1.0 percent at 59,045.45 (break)

Hong Kong - Hang Seng Index: UP 0.5 percent at 26,281.92

Shanghai - Composite: UP 0.6 percent at 4,073.76

Euro/dollar: DOWN at $1.1757 from $1.1776 on Friday

Pound/dollar: DOWN at $1.3500 from $1.3530

Dollar/yen: UP at 158.89 yen from 158.49 yen

Euro/pound: UP at 87.09 pence from 87.02 pence

New York - Dow Jones: UP 1.8 percent at 49,447.43 (close)

London - FTSE 100: UP 0.7 percent at 10,667.63 (close)

dan/fox