Toyota Motor Corp moved into damage control mode on Friday after its new communications chief Julie Hamp, an American and its first senior woman executive, was arrested on suspicion of illegally bringing pain killers into Japan just two months after her appointment.
A raging battle over President Barack Obama's request for "fast-track" authority central to improving U.S. ties with Asia resumes in the House of Representatives next week when lawmakers are expected to try to reverse Friday's defeat of linchpin trade legislation.
Group of Seven leaders will express their concern over any unilateral action to change the status quo in the East and South China Seas amid tensions between China and a number of Asian countries, Japan's Yomiuri newspaper said on Saturday.
The United States will extend its cyber defense umbrella over Japan, helping its Asian ally cope with the growing threat of online attacks against military bases and infrastructure such as power grids, the two nations said in a joint statement on Saturday.
The United States and two key Asian allies discussed how to increase pressure on North Korea to halt its nuclear program and will urge China to help bring Pyongyang back to the negotiating table, officials said.
Japan will join a major U.S.-Australian military exercise for the first time in a sign of growing security links between the three countries as tensions fester over China's island building in the South China Sea.
A Japanese town notorious for killing dolphins may set up a dolphin breeding farm after zoos and aquariums decided to stop buying their animals caught in the wild, but it has no plans to halt the controversial hunt, its mayor said on Thursday.
Japan launched a trade complaint at the World Trade Organization on Thursday to challenge South Korea's import bans and additional testing requirements for Japanese food after the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster.
More than 450 mostly Western scholars have urged Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to confront boldly Japan's wartime past, the latest sign that the conservative leader has not erased concern that he wants to dilute past apologies.
Japan's cabinet approved on Thursday bills to implement a drastic shift in security policy allowing the military to fight abroad for the first time since World War Two, although the public is divided and wary over the changes.
U.S. President Barack Obama's push for a pan-Pacific trade pact, a key part of his strategic pivot to Asia, suffered a major blow at the hands of Senate Democrats on Tuesday when they blocked debate on a bill that would have smoothed the path for the deal.
Japanese ruling party officials signed off on Monday on bills to implement a drastic change in security policy that would expand the role of the nation's military in the U.S.-Japan alliance and allow it to fight abroad for the first time since World War Two.
North Korea said on Saturday it had successfully conducted an underwater test-fire of a submarine-launched ballistic missile, which, if true, would indicate progress in the secretive state's pursuit of building missile-equipped submarines.
China's military warned on Saturday of the need for a high degree of vigilance against attempts in Japan to deny its history of aggression, ahead of President Xi Jinping's attendance at World War Two commemorations in Moscow.
Japan and the Philippines will hold their first joint naval drill this month in the South China Sea near a disputed shoal claimed by Beijing, sources in Tokyo and the Philippines said.
South Korea on Thursday condemned as "historic distortion" an effort by Japan to register 19th century industrial facilities as U.N. World Heritage sites, urging full disclosure of Japan's use of Korean forced labor.
North Korea condemned on Friday plans by Japan to hold a summit in New York on the abduction of Japanese citizens by Pyongyang decades ago, saying the issue had been resolved and accusing Tokyo of escalating a human rights campaign against North Korea.
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's ruling party wants to revise Japan's constitution by late 2018 to remove constraints on his defense strategy, a key party lawmaker said, an ambitious target since the charter has not been changed since Americans drafted it after World War Two.
The Japanese military could expand its role and missions around the world under new U.S.-Japan defense guidelines that are expected to be released on Monday and may cause unease in China.
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's plans to expand Japan's non-combat role in armed conflicts beyond "areas around Japan" could see Tokyo becoming dragged into action in the South China Sea in support of U.S. forces, government and ruling party sources say.
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and the governor of the southern island of Okinawa clashed on Friday over the relocation of a contentious U.S. air base, an irritant in U.S.-Japan ties, a week before Abe's high-profile visit to the United States.
