TOKYO -- Campaigning officially kicked off on Tuesday ahead of Japan's lower house election on Oct. 31. Although the race will feature the perennial calls for reform, an examination of the data on the candidates so far shows there are still significant barriers to entry for newcomers to politics in the nation.

Out of the 8,803 candidates who have run in the country's eight lower house elections since 1996, only about 20% of first-time candidates were elected,

TAIPEI -- Google has asked suppliers to produce more than 7 million of its upcoming Pixel 6 smartphones -- double its entire phone shipments last year -- as the U.S. software giant attempts to grab market share from Huawei Technologies and ride a post-pandemic recovery in demand.

Sources told Nikkei Asia that Google is attempting to capitalize on its position as the only U.S. maker of smartphones running on the Android operating system. The company has also asked suppliers to build over 5 million of its budget

TOKYO -- Tokio Marine and Nichido Fire Insurance will launch as early as fiscal 2022 a service that calculates the financial risks companies could face from environmental regulations abroad, helping businesses better plan their strategies amid a growing global push to fight climate change.

While there already are services that predict losses from floods and other natural disasters triggered by climate change, one that accounts for government regulation is rare. The Japanese insurer will partner with Risilience, a British risk assessment firm specializing in climate change, on the endeavor.

TOKYO -- Sony Group is selling its mobile gaming subsidiary to U.S. mobile game developer Scopely for about $1 billion, the company announced on Monday.

Sony's mobile gaming unit, GSN Games, is a division of Game Show Network, which creates game shows and is a subsidiary of Sony Pictures Entertainment. The company started providing online games in 2007, in genres including bingo and card games. Its Solitaire TriPeaks game is played 100 million times per week.

SPE made Game

BANGKOK/YANGON -- Foreign investment in Myanmar, first depressed by the COVID-19 pandemic and then by the political unrest that spread after the February military takeover, has fallen to an eight-year low, official numbers show.

And amid the country's streams of foreign currency drying up, the International Monetary Fund expects the economy to post negative growth next year.

The total amount of foreign investment permitted in Myanmar in the year through September dropped 22% to $3.8 billion, according to

TOKYO -- VLP Therapeutics Japan has begun a clinical trial of a new coronavirus vaccine that would require a far smaller dosage than those of Pfizer and Moderna, and could dramatically shorten production time, the company said Monday.

The company, a subsidiary of a U.S. drug startup founded by Japanese researchers, has developed the vaccine in partnership with six Japanese research institutes, including Oita University, Hokkaido University and the National Center for Global Health and Medicine.

The vaccine is a messenger RNA-type shot, similar to

SEOUL/TOKYO (Kyodo) -- North Korea fired two ballistic missiles on Tuesday with no reports of casualties or damage, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said.

A Japanese government spokesman said the missiles appear to have already splashed down and ships in the area have been told to be on the alert.

South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff said one of the missiles was launched from Sinpo on North Korea's eastern coast toward the Sea of Japan at around 10:17 a.m. The JoongAng

TOKYO -- The 12-day campaign for control of Japan's government got underway on Tuesday, with some 1040 candidates vying for 465 seats in the Oct. 31 lower house election.

The ruling coalition, led by the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) under new Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, has set a target of keeping its majority. The bloc faces a test from the main opposition Constitutional Democratic Party (CDP), which is largely putting up a unified front with the smaller