Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida admitted on Thursday that the decision to stop taking reservations for inbound international flights caused public confusion and requested the transport ministry to consider people’s wishes to travel home. The transport ministry had on Wednesday issued a request to international airlines to stop taking new reservations for flights coming into Japan until the end of December as an emergency precaution to defend against the new omicron variant of the coronavirus. The ministry said Thursday it has retracted the request after receiving criticisms that the ban was too strict and tantamount to abandoning its own people. Kishida has been pushing to take precautionary measures quickly, after seeing his predecessor Yoshihide Suga virtually lost leadership after facing public criticisms that his virus measures were too little and slow. “I have instructed the transport ministry to fully pay attention to the needs of Japanese citizens to return home,” …