HONG KONG -- Chinese oil majors have unveiled plans to invest billions of dollars in clean energy through to 2025 to comply with President Xi Jinping's carbon neutrality targets even as oil demand drove their profit recovery in the first half.

The state-owned trio -- China Petroleum & Chemical (Sinopec), PetroChina and CNOOC -- vowed to continue increasing the production and import of natural gas to reduce reliance on oil and cut coal consumption across the world's second largest economy. They also pledged

GUANGZHOU -- Chinese gamers under the age of 18 will be allowed to play online for just an hour a day and only on weekends, authorities announced Monday, as the government increases its involvement not only in schools but on how youth spend time at home.

Underage video game players will be restricted to 8 p.m. to 9 p.m. on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays, as well as on public holidays, according to the National Press and Publication Administration. The agency, which issued the rules

JAKARTA/MANILA -- Law enforcement agencies in multiple Southeast Asian nations are on high alert against terrorist groups potentially emboldened by the Taliban's takeover of Afghanistan and a deadly Islamic State attack at the Kabul airport.

In Indonesia, the national police's counterterrorism detachment known as Densus 88 began monitoring social media and other sources for Taliban sympathizers.

Indonesia, home to the world's largest Muslim population, has a constitutional guarantee of religious freedom for minority faiths. But the country is no stranger to terrorism, with

TOKYO -- Ad agency Hakuhodo DY Holdings will partner with Tokyo Electric Power Co. Holdings and others to launch Japan's first online advertising service driven by electricity consumption trends, getting a head start in the field before Japan eases restrictions on such data in April 2022.

Targeted advertising so far has largely been dominated by tech-first companies. But Tepco and other Japanese utilities are now wading into the field armed with real-time data from smart meters, opening the door for new services while also fueling

TOKYO -- Japan's safeguards against money laundering contain holes that can be exploited by criminal organizations and terrorist groups, an international watchdog warned Monday.

The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) has placed Japan in the "enhanced follow-up" classification, which essentially denotes a failing grade.

Although large Japanese financial institutions have a "reasonable understanding" of their money laundering and terror financing risks, some smaller ones only have a "limited understanding," the task force reported.

While Japanese financial institutions have made improvements

Tobias Harris is a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, an independent nonpartisan policy institute. He is the author of "The Iconoclast: Shinzo Abe and the New Japan."

National politics rarely turn on a local government election in a single metropolis -- but the defeat of a ruling Liberal Democratic Party candidate in the Yokohama mayoral race on Aug. 22 may prove to be the rare exception.

The most immediate issue is how the loss by Hachiro Okonogi will affect Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga's chances in

TOKYO -- Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga is considering replacing the ruling party's longtime second in command as Japan's leader struggles with low approval ratings amid surging coronavirus cases.

Toshihiro Nikai, secretary-general of the Liberal Democratic Party, met with Suga on Monday and told him that he was ready to give up his post.

"A personnel reshuffling is the only way to get out of this tough situation," Nikai told Suga, urging him to revamp the LDP's leadership. Nikai has long wielded enormous

TOKYO -- Mitsubishi Electric will make outside directors a majority of its board and set up a team to reform its corporate culture in response to a slew of quality control scandals, President and CEO Kei Uruma told Nikkei on Monday.

Uruma was tapped to lead the company in late July, after predecessor Takeshi Sugiyama resigned over news that inspection results for train equipment had been faked as far back as the 1980s. This was only one in a string of similar revelations in recent years, and the list has

WASHINGTON/NEW YORK -- The U.S. has completed the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan, officially bringing to a close a nearly 20-year military operation that began shortly after the 9/11 attacks in 2001.

"I'm here to announce the completion of our withdrawal from Afghanistan and the end of the military mission to evacuate American citizens, our country nationals, and vulnerable Afghans," Gen. Frank McKenzie, the head of the U.S. Central Command,