East Asia

Japan's prime minister says coronavirus conditions in six prefectures have improved enough to lift a state of emergency at the end of the month. But the declaration will remain in place for Tokyo and three neighboring prefectures....

Japan's government says it will lift a state of emergency for six prefectures on Sunday....

The state of emergency for Osaka, Hyogo, Kyoto, Aichi, Gifu and Fukuoka will be lifted at the end of this month, Japan has announced. The declaration will be maintained for the Greater Tokyo Area....

Pop superstar Lady Gaga is offering half a million dollars for the return of her French bulldogs. The pets were stolen in an armed robbery....

A group of Russian diplomats and family members have left North Korea for Russia on a hand-pushed rail trolley due to Pyongyang's strict anti-coronavirus measures....

Tokyo's benchmark stock index lost more than 1,200 points on Friday, the biggest daily drop in more than 4 and half years. The slump followed a plunge on Wall Street overnight....

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is stepping up monitoring as new variants of the coronavirus have been reported in New York City and the state of California....

Firefighters struggling to contain a forest fire in Ashikaga City, north of Tokyo, say there's no prospect of bringing the blaze under control soon, as dry conditions are expected to continue for days....

Japan's minister in charge of coronavirus vaccination says vaccines for the elderly will likely be delivered to all municipalities in the country by the end of June....

The Tokyo Metropolitan Government has confirmed 270 new coronavirus cases in the capital on Friday....

Japan's industrial production rose in January for the first time in three months. The index is up 4.2 percent from December....

US President Joe Biden says that 50 million COVID-19 vaccine shots have been administered in the country since he became president....

South Korea has started its vaccination program against the coronavirus, initially targeting healthcare workers and inpatients at hospitals and care facilities....

On the Tokyo Stock Exchange, the benchmark Nikkei Average briefly dropped by more than 1,000 points at one time on Friday from the previous day's close....

Tokyo stocks are down sharply on Friday, with the benchmark index tumbling more than 1,000 points from Thursday's close at one stage....

The US Food and Drug Administration is authorizing the Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccine to be stored at temperatures commonly found in pharmaceutical freezers....

The United States says it has carried out airstrikes against Iranian-backed militia in Syria. The Department of Defense says the strikes were in response to attacks on US and coalition personnel in Iraq....

NHK has learned that it will cost more than 400 billion yen, or about 3.7 billion dollars, to dispose of waste produced by the decontamination work for the 2011 nuclear accident at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant....

The leaders of the EU member countries have agreed to continue travel restrictions and other anti-coronavirus measures across the bloc for the time being....

The military coup in Myanmar has prompted Toyota Motor to delay the launch of its new plant in the country....

The Japanese government plans to lift a state of emergency for six prefectures on Sunday as the number of coronavirus cases decline. But the declaration will remain in place for Tokyo and three neighboring prefectures....

Professional wrestler Tiger Jeet Singh has been honored for his work in supporting Japanese children in areas devastated by the 2011 earthquake and tsunami....

Japan's benchmark long-term interest rate has risen to its highest in over 5 years....

Brazil's most populated state, Sao Paulo, is to impose a nighttime curfew due to a resurgence of coronavirus infections....

Japan's Regulatory Reform Minister Kono Taro says coronavirus vaccines for the elderly will likely be delivered to all municipalities across the country by the end of June....

Participants at an international fisheries conference have agreed to reduce their total allowable catch of Pacific saury in the North Pacific by 40 percent....

The United States has carried out airstrikes in Syria against Iran-backed militia. The strikes were a response to attacks on US personnel in Iraq....

The Japanese government plans to lift a state of emergency for six prefectures on Sunday as the number of coronavirus cases continues to decline. But the declaration will remain in place for Tokyo and three neighboring prefectures....

Tokyo stocks opened sharply lower on Friday. The benchmark Nikkei Average was down by more than 900 points, falling below the 30,000 mark....

Japan's government plans to lift a state of emergency for six prefectures at the end of February, while maintaining the measures for the Greater Tokyo Area....

Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny has been moved to prison, according to state-run media....

US President Joe Biden has signed an executive order to review the country's supply chains for semiconductors and other key items such as rare earths. He said the US shouldn't have to rely on a foreign country that doesn't share its values -- ...

People believed to be supporters of Myanmar's military held their first major rally on Thursday, with attacks reported on anti-coup protesters....

The operator of the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant says it has found that 53 tanks storing radioactive wastewater were shifted from their original locations by a powerful earthquake earlier this month. But it says there have been no leaks ...

A marked decline in the number of coronavirus cases in Japan has officials considering lifting a state of emergency earlier than planned --- except for the Greater Tokyo Area. But there are concerns lifting the decree too early may trigger a rebound in ca...

Firefighters have been struggling to contain a forest fire in Ashikaga City, north of Tokyo, as the air continues to be extremely dry for four days after the fire broke out....

The American Chamber of Commerce in Japan has urged the country to more than triple its digital talent by 2030 to promote digital transformation....

Some cabinet ministers in Thailand have lost their posts after being sentenced to jail for leading the anti-government protests that resulted in the military coup in 2014....

South Korea's officials say the country will continue to bid to jointly host the 2032 Olympics with North Korea despite the International Olympic Committee's choice of Brisbane, Australia, as the preferred candidate....

Some Southeast Asian countries have received their first batches of COVID-19 vaccines. Malaysia is among them and has started its immunization program....

The prime ministers of Japan and Australia have shared grave concern about China's unilateral attempts to change the status quo in the East and South China seas....

The head of the Japan Medical Association has urged the government to take a cautious approach to a proposal to lift the state of emergency for some prefectures earlier than scheduled....

Two teenagers have been accused of pushing shopping carts down escalators at a shopping center in Tokyo, with one of them posting the video of his act on social media....

Japan's government is considering lifting its coronavirus state of emergency for Osaka, Kyoto and 3 other prefectures at the end of this month....

US pharmaceutical giant Pfizer says it is boosting production capacity of its coronavirus vaccine developed with German partner BioNTech to meet strong demand....

Chinese President Xi Jinping has declared that China has achieved the goal of eradicating extreme poverty in rural areas....

Japan's agriculture ministry has disciplined six senior bureaucrats who were wined and dined by a major egg producer involved in a bribery scandal....

Japan Airlines says it will drastically reduce the number of new graduates it takes on for a second straight year....

A new Australian law will force tech giants such as Facebook and Google to pay news publishers for articles shared on their platforms. It's expected to set the stage for similar legislative changes in other parts of the world....

Toyota Motor says its global production rose 4 percent in January from a year earlier. The increase was largely due to record overseas output for the month....