TOKYO -- Uber Technologies is planning to expand its grocery and non-food delivery business in Japan as the company looks to tighten its grip on a key Asian market.

By increasing the range of items offered through its Uber Eats app, the company hopes to become a one-stop shop for grocery, alcohol and more, and deliver them in 30 minutes or less.

The value of supermarket orders on the Uber Eats app in the first half of this year was already 2.5 times higher than a year

TOKYO -- Taro Kono, Japan's regulatory reform minister and also minister in charge of vaccinations, ranked first in a Nikkei poll as "a person suited to be the next president of the Liberal Democratic Party." The answer was chosen by about 16% of respondents in an opinion poll conducted from Aug. 27 to 29 by Nikkei.

Shigeru Ishiba, former secretary-general of the ruling party, almost tied for first place, with just a fraction of a percentage point below Kono. Fumio

Brahma Chellaney is a geostrategist and author of nine books, including "Asian Juggernaut: The Rise of China, India and Japan."

The Kabul Airport massacre is a reminder that the geopolitical consequences of America's Afghanistan fiasco -- one of the biggest foreign policy failures under any U.S. president since World War II -- will likely play out for years.

According to German Chancellor Angela Merkel's potential successor Armin Laschet, this is the "biggest debacle that NATO has suffered since its founding, and

MUMBAI -- India's No. 2 wireless telecom operator, Bharti Airtel, has said it will raise 210 billion rupees ($2.85 billion) via a rights issue, as it builds up its war chest to strengthen its network and prepare for the rollout of 5G technology.

On Aug. 29, the board of Bharti Airtel approved the rights issue, under which eligible shareholders will receive one share for every 14 shares they hold. The price is set at 535

TOKYO -- One of China's biggest wind turbine makers plans to tackle the country's chronic shortage of electric vehicle charging points: mobile robots that bring the juice to the car.

Envision Group plans to start testing its Mochi robot -- so named because it provides mobile charging services -- in Shanghai this year. The robot is also being shipped to Singapore.

The company aims to make the robot available through a smartphone app-based membership service that will allow drivers to leave their cars for Mochi to find

SEOUL -- South Korea's three biggest department store operators have recently opened massive new shopping complexes, complete with indoor parks and scores of restaurants, in a last-ditch bid to win back customers from online retailers.

Shinsegae opened its newest location, the Shinsegae Art & Science, in the city of Daejeon on Friday. At the cost of 650 billion won ($555 million), it is the first mega development for the company in five years.

With 92,900

TOKYO -- Japan's health minister pledged Sunday to investigate what caused the deaths of two people injected with coronavirus vaccine from a batch later taken out of circulation due to contamination concerns.

"We're still not clear about the causal relationship" between the deaths and the vaccine contamination, said Norihisa Tamura, the minister of health, labor and welfare. "I wish to conduct a thorough investigation."

Tamura made his comments on a program that aired on NHK, Japan's national broadcaster.

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TOKYO -- Some of Japan's leading food brands are putting their money where Americans' mouths are with big investments in U.S. production.

The company behind Maruchan instant ramen, Toyo Suisan, will invest 3 billion yen ($27.3 million) by fiscal 2022 to add new lines at a Texas plant. This comes on the heels of a roughly 5 billion yen expansion there just completed in May.

Driving such capital outlays is robust U.S. consumer spending, which

TOKYO -- Mounting public criticism of Japan's handling of COVID-19 has kept Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga's approval rating languishing at an all-time low, a recent opinion poll shows.

Disapproval of the government's handling of the coronavirus crisis rose 6 percentage points to 64%, according to the weekend Nikkei/TV Tokyo poll. The result comes within a hair of the 65% disapproval recorded in April, the highest since the question started being posed in February of last year.