East Asia

ZAPORIZHZHIA, Ukraine--United Nations nuclear experts who crossed into Russian-held territory in Ukraine to assess the safety of Europe's biggest atomic energy plant were seeking on Friday to assess physical damage to the facility, where both sides wa...

TAIPEI--Taiwan's military said it shot down a drone hovering over one of its island outposts just off the Chinese coast on Thursday amid a spike in tensions with Beijing....

COLOMBO--The International Monetary Fund announced Thursday it has reached a preliminary agreement to provide Sri Lanka with $2.9 billion over four years to help it recover from its worst economic crisis....

A team of Japanese researchers identified a protein that can foretell severe COVID-19 cases, potentially making it possible to determine the severity of a patient's symptoms....

dog catching its tail never ending cycle of war--Elancharan Gunasekaran (Singapore)...

AKITA--Towering wind turbines the height of 40-story buildings dot the waters off the coast of Akita Prefecture, an indication that construction of Japan's first large-scale offshore wind farms has entered the homestretch....

OSAKA--A murder suspect accused of killing his adopted mother for insurance money was found unconscious with no vital signs after an apparent suicide attempt at a detention facility here, according to the Osaka prefectural police and other sources....

China's...

Pharmaceutical companies will supply a record number of seasonal influenza vaccine doses this winter to inoculate 70.4 million adults, a health ministry estimate showed....

The Defense Ministry's latest budget request includes one item insiders call a potential "game changer," but critics warn it could cross ethical lines if not used properly....

An estimated 4,000 people protested around the Diet building in Tokyo on Aug. 31, demanding the government scrap its plan to hold a state funeral for slain former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe....

OSAKA--The Osaka District Court on Aug. 31 ordered an internet service provider to disclose information on an individual who defamed a virtual YouTuber character....

Following a sexual harassment scandal involving Japanese actor Teruyuki Kagawa, Toyota Motor Corp. said it will not renew his contract after it expires at the end of the year....

An investigation has been launched into a medical equipment employee who is suspected of setting a timer to X-ray equipment at a hospital in Kumamoto Prefecture so that it would stop working and require a repair service....

Households struggling against inflation will likely see the situation worsen in autumn....

Budgetary requests by government ministries for fiscal 2023 reached about 110 trillion yen ($789 billion) on Aug. 31, but the figure will likely expand because of wider use of an "exception to the rule."...

NAGOYA--The family of a Sri Lankan woman who died while in detention demands to know why prosecutors dropped their case against immigration officials when her cause of death was known at the time....

A politician tore down a wall of confrontation that divided the world into two camps....

Mikhail Gorbachev groused in a letter to his girlfriend living far away while he worked as a young intern at a regional procurator's office....

SINGAPORE/TOKYO - The dollar rose broadly on Thursday, particularly against the yen, as investors braced for higher U.S. interest rates while expecting anchored Japanese rates to go nowhere anytime soon....

Russia has approved an application by Japan's Mitsubishi to take a stake in the new operator of Russia's Sakhalin-2 liquefied natural gas (LNG) project, a government order published on Wednesday showed....

JOSO, Ibaraki Prefecture--A local diner came up with an unusual hit when it combined two of Japan's favorite dishes, "yakisoba" pan-fried noodles, normally eaten as a snack, and curry rice....

SENDAI—Even in retirement, Yuzuru Hanyu continues to refer to his "9-year-old self," the boy whose perseverance during boring drills laid the foundation for his now-superstar status in the figure-skating world....

SETO, Aichi Prefecture--Aichi Mizuno started drawing illustrations several years ago about how he suffered from hunger during and after World War II....

Prime Minister Fumio Kishida apologized for the relationships that have been exposed between ruling party lawmakers and the Unification Church, but many politicians continue to deny knowing anything about their ties to the religious group....

CANBERRA--The Solomon Islands on Wednesday asked countries to not send naval vessels to the South Pacific nation until approval processes are overhauled, amid concerns over a new security pact between the Solomons and China....

Japan's National Police Agency is seeking 2.2 billion yen ($16 million) from the central government as part of its budget for next fiscal year so it can beef up security for high-profile politicians and dignitaries....

When Mikhail Gorbachev turned 91 years old on March 2, Russia was in the early stages of its invasion of Ukraine....

Japan will develop and mass produce a cruise missile and a high-velocity ballistic missile, it said on Wednesday, as it seeks the ability to strike more distant targets as part of a military expansion aimed at meeting threats from China and Russia....

Companies are racing to capitalize on a boom in frozen food products as the novel coronavirus pandemic has boosted demand for food with a long shelf life....

Leaders in Japanese business and political circles are grieving the loss of Kazuo Inamori, founder of Kyocera Corp. and KDDI Corp., long revered as a charismatic corporate leader and backer of a two-party system allowing regime change....

Toyota is investing 730 billion yen ($5.6 billion) in Japan and the U.S. to boost production of batteries for electric vehicles, the Japanese automaker said Wednesday....

Prime Minister Fumio Kishida resumed his in-person news conferences on Aug. 31 following a bout with COVID-19 but still had no clear response to criticism over a planned state funeral for slain former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe....

A record low 2,944 children were waiting to be admitted to day care centers or other facilities as of April, according to health ministry statistics released on Aug. 30....

The daily maximum number of people permitted to enter Japan will increase from 20,000 to 50,000 starting Sept. 7, and foreigners can arrive on conductor-less group tours, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said Aug. 31....

NEW YORK--Naomi Osaka walked off the court, headed toward the locker room and laid down, draping a towel over her face. Out-hit in Arthur Ashe Stadium by another big hitter, Danielle Collins, two-time U.S. Open champion Osaka was left to contemplate a sec...

SEOUL--South Korea will from Saturday no longer require travelers to the country to test for COVID-19 before departure, although they will still need to take a PCR test within 24 hours of arrival....

The Russian government has allowed Japan's Mitsui & Co. to hold stakes in the new operator of the Sakhalin-2 gas and oil extraction project....

ANAHEIM, Calif.--Aaron Judge is rolling toward September with Roger Maris firmly in sight....

A serial arson case that occurred last year poses the weighty question of how we can build a genuinely inclusive society by eliminating malicious discrimination based on race or ethnicity....

Author Ryunosuke Akutagawa (1892-1927) observed that, "The Yangtze River is wide, but it is not a sea," in his "Choko Yuuki" (Travels on the Yangtze) when he traveled up this river, which runs east and west across China....

The defense ministers of Japan and Israel shared concerns on Tuesday about growing global tensions from Asia to the Middle East and signed an agreement to step up cooperation in military equipment and technology....

U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivan will meet with his Japanese and South Korean counterparts on Wednesday and Thursday in Hawaii, the White House said, amid heightened tensions in the region between China and Taiwan....

BEIJING--China says a key congress of the ruling Communist Party at which leader Xi Jinping is expected to be granted a third five-year term will open on Oct. 16....

TAIPEI--Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey arrived in Taiwan on Tuesday for a visit focused on semiconductors, the critical chips that are used in everyday electronics and have become a battleground in the technology competition between the U.S. and China....

NEW YORK--U.S. life expectancy dropped for the second consecutive year in 2021, falling by nearly a year from 2020, according to a government report being released Wednesday....