East Asia

Japan will cover the costs of getting vaccinated against the human papillomavirus (HPV) for women born between fiscal 1997 and fiscal 2005 who were not encouraged to receive the shots....

Japan will not send Cabinet members or high-level officials to the Beijing Winter Olympics, joining a diplomatic boycott that will likely strain ties between the two Asian neighbors....

The K-pop group BTS conquered the Japanese music world in 2021, topping Japan's annual music sales rankings to become the first artist from overseas to do so since the chart started in 1968....

BEIJING--Asian stock markets rose Friday after Wall Street hit a new high as fears of the coronavirus's Omicron variant eased....

BANGKOK--Myanmar';s military unleashed airstrikes and heavy artillery on a small town controlled by ethnic guerrillas, sending hundreds of people fleeing across a river into Thailand, local officials and residents said Friday....

The Tokyo 2020 organizing committee's report on the Olympics and Paralympic Games held this summer fails to offer a truly rigorous and instructive review of the events, which were plagued by a raft of problems and scandals....

As former Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone headed on a high-profile mission to Iraq in early November 1990 seeking the release of Japanese hostages, a secret diplomatic mission was also starting....

My memories of Christmas as a university student are that it always made me miserable....

TAIPEI--Taiwan and Japan's ruling parties agreed on Friday to have "all round cooperation" on semiconductors and to hold regular talks between each other, Taiwanese lawmakers said, after what are de facto discussions between the two government...

SYDNEY--China will send police officers to the Solomon Islands to help train its police force, the Pacific island nation said on Thursday, after rioting last month sparked by the country's 2019 switch of diplomatic relations to Beijing from Taiwan....

HONG KONG--Two more Hong Kong universities on Friday removed public monuments to the 1989 Tiananmen protests in Beijing, following on the heels of the dismantling of a sculpture marking victims of the crackdown at another university earlier this week....

Following similar recommendations and successful campaigns overseas, children between the ages of 5 and 11 in Japan can begin receiving COVID-19 vaccinations from next March....

The government has promised to provide free COVID-19 tests in Osaka, Kyoto and Okinawa, the three prefectures in Japan where infections of the Omicron variant have raised alarm....

WASHINGTON--U.S. President Joe Biden's steps to backstop hospitals and distribute coronavirus test kits, however welcome, are too little too late to stem a surge of Omicron-related coronavirus cases over Christmas and New Year, health experts said....

SEOUL--South Korea said Friday it will grant a special pardon to former President Park Geun-hye, who is serving a lengthy prison term for bribery and other crimes....