A seaside town in Japan has raised eyebrows after it used funding from an emergency Covid-19 relief grant to build a giant statue of a squid. The 13m-long (43ft) sea creature lies in the port of Noto, where flying squid is the town’s delicacy. It reportedly used 25m yen ($228,500; £164,700) of the emergency funding to build the statue. Noto officials have told local media it is part of a long term plan to lure tourists back after the pandemic. Japan is battling another surge in coronavirus cases, and Tokyo is currently under a state of emergency – the third for the country since the pandemic began. The fishing town of Noto – which is located in Ishikawa prefecture on Japan’s central-west coast – has had a very low number of cases, but it has been impacted by the significant drop in tourists.(BBC)…[+]