TOKYO -- The campaign to lead Japan's ruling Liberal Democratic Party officially kicked off on Friday. The triennial leadership election, which will effectively pick the successor to Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga, will be held on Sept. 29. What is the process? Here are five things to know.

How is the leadership election held?

The LDP was founded 65 years ago through the amalgamation of various conservative groups. In 1955, only members of the Diet and two representatives from each prefectural chapter were

WASHINGTON -- An American military commander sent shock waves around the world during his congressional testimony earlier this year when he nailed down a specific time frame on a possible Taiwan contingency.

Then-Adm. Philip Davidson, at the time commanding the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, was asked by a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee in March about a potential conflict in the Taiwan Strait.

"I think the threat is manifest during this decade -- in fact, in the next six years," Davidson

TOKYO/SEOUL -- SoftBank Group's Vision Fund sold $1.7 billion in shares of South Korean e-commerce company Coupang, cashing in on one of the fund's most lucrative investments.

SVF Investments, a unit of SoftBank, said in a filing on Thursday to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission that it had sold a total of 57 million shares in Coupang at $29.7 per share. The transaction was on Tuesday, according to the filing. But SVF

NEW DELHI -- Iran is set to join the Shanghai Cooperation Organization led by China and Russia as a full member, a move experts say will give Tehran more influence over Central Asia -- including war-torn neighbor Afghanistan.

"Today, we will launch procedures to admit Iran as a member state of the SCO, and Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Qatar as new dialogue partners," Chinese President Xi Jinping said via video link on Friday, addressing the SCO Council of Heads of State in Dushanbe, Tajikistan.

Xi

HONG KONG -- Hong Kong Exchanges & Clearing, Asia's busiest stock exchange, has outlined plans to allow the listing of blank-check shell corporations whose global popularity has soared over the past year, just two weeks after regional rival Singapore greenlit the float of such entities.

HKEX, however, proposes to take a more cautious approach than Singapore or the U.S., the main hub for special purpose acquisition companies (SPACs).

Under the proposal offer for public comment on Friday, only institutional investors or

TOKYO -- Japan's Shinsei Bank on Friday decided to introduce a defensive measure against a $1 billion unsolicited tender offer by SBI Holdings, escalating tensions between the rival financial groups in what is shaping up to be a hostile takeover.

In response, financial conglomerate SBI said it will consider seeking a court injunction to block the lender from using the defense measure. The group is seeking to acquire up to a 48% stake in Shinsei through a tender offer.

Shinsei Bank looks to allot share subscription rights to shareholders

NAGOYA, Japan -- Toyota Motor said Friday it would again temporarily suspend operations for multiple days next month across 14 plants in Japan due to a shortage of components caused by the resurgent pandemic in Southeast Asia.

The automaker said Sept. 10 it would cut production further that month and reduce output in October as well. It intends to slash global output by 40%, or 330,000 vehicles, from its initial plans in October. Of this, domestic production is to be reduced

TOKYO -- China announced Thursday that it had officially applied to join the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, 300 days after President Xi Jinping first expressed an intent to do so.

But with no concrete outlook for being accepted, why did Beijing make its move now?

Jia Qingguo, a professor and former dean at Peking University's School of International Studies, told Nikkei in November 2020 that a Chinese application would pose a challenge for Japan because "refusing the request would mean

BANGKOK -- Myanmar's pro-democracy camp opposing the military regime that took over the country has established a representative office in South Korea.

This is the National Unity Government's first representative office in Asia, having already set up in the U.S., the U.K., France, Czech Republic and Australia.

The pro-democracy camp launched its first-ever representative office in the U.S. in February, according to NUG members. This was followed by the opening of the