TOKYO -- Japan's Digital Agency has picked Amazon Web Services and Google Cloud Platform as the first service providers for its nationwide cloud computing project, giving the U.S. tech groups a foothold in an industry dominated by domestic service providers.

The two services were chosen because they met about 350 requirements across security, data management and legal issues, among others, a Digital Agency official said on Tuesday. They will initially be used to run the agency's website, as well as by eight municipalities

TOKYO -- Japanese motor maker Nidec will focus on sales of motors for smaller electric vehicles, as intensifying price competition forces more automakers to source the vital components from outside suppliers, Nidec founder and Chairman Shigenobu Nagamori said Tuesday.

"Just as in home appliances, the price competition in EVs will be more severe, with new entrants from outside the car industry coming into the market," Nagamori said.

The year 2025 will be a "turning point" in which demand for electric car motors starts to rise

DALIAN, China -- State-owned China COSCO Shipping, China's top maritime freight company, has lifted its stake in Greece's largest port to 67%, tightening control over an important link in the country's Belt and Road initiative.

An event was held Monday to mark the completion of the transfer to COSCO of an additional 16% stake in the Mediterranean Sea port of Piraeus, a container ship hub for Europe, the Middle East and North Africa.

COSCO says China's involvement

NEW YORK -- As cracks start to show in China's capital-intensive growth model, Oaktree Capital Management founder Howard Marks anticipates more opportunities for the firm's mainstay business of investing in heavily discounted distressed debt.

Developer China Evergrande Group's debt crisis is "a moment of transition to what I would call economic reality," with the "ups and downs" seen in developed economies, Marks said, and downturns will mean more nonperforming loans to invest in.

Edited excerpts from the interview follow.

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BANGKOK/YANGON -- Myanmar's military government has barred the attorneys of Aung San Suu Kyi from speaking with the media as the ousted leader made her latest court appearance Tuesday.

The appearance is believed to mark Suu Kyi's first court testimony as a criminal defendant. Myanmar's deposed state counselor denied the charge of incitement to cause alarm, local news outlets reported.

The court proceedings in the capital, Naypyitaw, have been conducted behind closed doors. Suu Kyi's lawyers previously acted as a source of

TAIPEI -- As U.S. lawmakers look to invest $52 billion in the American chip industry, the founder of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. calls the plan far too small for rebuilding a complete supply chain in the country.

Morris Chang, an American citizen who founded the company that is now the world's most valuable chipmaker, says it would be impossible for the U.S. to have a full chip supply chain onshore even if it spent far more -- and that such a move may

TOKYO -- All Nippon Airways parent ANA Holdings is expected to book an operating loss of roughly 110 billion yen ($968 million) for the April-September half, as Japan's aviation sector struggles to rebound amid the coronavirus pandemic.

Though this figure represents an improvement from the 280.9 billion yen loss a year earlier, the air transport group has been slow to recover compared with its leading U.S. rivals, which returned to profit in the July-September quarter

JAKARTA -- Top leaders from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations on Tuesday expressed dissatisfaction over the lack of progress on resolving Myanmar's political turmoil, with their virtual summit marked by the absence of any representative from Naypyitaw.

Photos from the meeting showed a screen with nine ASEAN heads of state, with the bold text "Myanmar" in the spot where the country's representative should have been.

In an official statement released late Tuesday, the bloc "reiterated that Myanmar remains a member of the ASEAN family" and

TOKYO -- A third or about 11.5 billion yen ($101 million) worth of cloth masks the Japanese government planned to distribute to the public remained in storage as of March, Nikkei learned Tuesday, raising questions over the effectiveness of Tokyo's initial response to the coronavirus pandemic.

Since March 2020, the Japanese government has procured a total of 260 million washable cloth masks -- 120 million to be distributed to households under a scheme nicknamed "Abenomask,