TOKYO -- Businesses and universities in Japan are renewing calls for foreign workers and students to be allowed into the country as the government prepares to lift other coronavirus-related restrictions.

States of emergency that have been in effect in Tokyo and other prefectures since April end on Thursday while the government prepares to shorten the mandatory quarantine period for citizens and resident foreign nationals returning to Japan.

The ban on new visa applicants entering the country, however, will remain in place.

"The total entry ban will stay with certain exceptions,

TOKYO -- Already behind other countries in nurturing the IT professionals indispensable to a digital transformation, Japan in 2030 is expected to have 270,000 artificial intelligence and Internet of Things jobs that it will be unable to fill.

With few graduates holding STEM degrees -- those in science, technology, engineering and mathematics -- Japan sees gloom in its future and the need to invest more in human resources.

"We cannot develop a system to forecast demand for products, though we need

TOKYO/TAIPEI -- Curbs on electricity use across China are disrupting companies' manufacturing activities, posing challenges to tech supply chains and adding risks to the country's economic growth, which already faces uncertainty from official efforts to cool the property sector.

The power cuts are the result of several factors colliding, from surging commodity prices and recovery from COVID-19 to environmental commitments made by Chinese President Xi Jinping. Here are five things to know about China's energy crunch.

Why are there electricity curbs?

Xi

JAKARTA -- Indonesia's state-owned holding entity for ultramicro businesses, Bank Rakyat Indonesia, on Wednesday said it successfully raised 95.9 trillion rupiah ($6.71 billion) from its recent rights issue -- which the Jakarta bourse called the largest such fundraising in Southeast Asia.

Inarno Djajadi, president director of the Indonesia Stock Exchange, said BRI did not just break the IDX record for the largest rights issue in its history, but also topped those of other bourses in the region. He

HONG KONG -- Shares of Dongguan Rural Commercial Bank closed higher after a volatile debut in Hong Kong thanks to a rally in the final 25 minutes of trading.

The wild start, after a series of other initial public offerings that closed below their sale prices, could dampen enthusiasm among dozens of companies preparing to list in the city where investors expect a first-day pop.

Shares in China's fifth-largest rural commercial bank fell as low as HK$6.51 in early trade, down 1

TOKYO -- One of the world's key gaming conventions is getting creative in the face of the coronavirus by offering a virtual version of the event, which kicks off in Japan on Thursday.

The Tokyo Game Show is hoping to lure gamers from around the world to its virtual venues -- a maritime fortress and a watchtower floating in the sky -- which they can access via Facebook's Oculus Quest 2 VR headset or a browser on PCs and smartphones.

The VR venues will serve as an experiment for the

HONG KONG -- Access to an online museum set up to memorialize victims of the Tiananmen Square crackdown in 1989 was restricted in Hong Kong on Wednesday.

While the city government made no statement about the move, attempts by Nikkei Asia to access the offshore-based site using several local networks failed.

The move comes two weeks after authorities forced the group that had set up a physical version of the museum in Hong Kong to remove the contents of its website and social media accounts. The authorities on Wednesday also

SEOUL/WASHINGTON -- North Korea said Wednesday that it conducted a successful test launch of a new hypersonic missile, a weapon that flies more than five times the speed of sound and makes tracking and interception far more difficult than conventional missiles.

The Hwasong-8 missile was fired by the country's Academy of Defense Science on Tuesday near the Chinese border, according to state-run Korean Central News Agency. Japanese and South Korean authorities had previously established that a missile was fired toward the Sea of Japan around 6:

TOKYO -- Japanese chipmaker Renesas Electronics on Wednesday unveiled plans to raise its capacity to supply a key component in cars and electronics more than 50% by 2023, as some industry watchers predict a global chip shortage could last into next year and beyond.

In its updated production strategy starting this year, Renesas plans to boost its capacity for high-end microcontroller units by 50% to the equivalent of 40,000 200mm wafers a month, largely by securing more lines