TOKYO -- As Japanese companies increasingly embrace flexible work arrangements during the pandemic, even an operator of bullet trains is having to accommodate passengers who choose to telework during the 2.5-hour trip between Tokyo and Osaka.

Nozomi shinkansen trains connecting the two megacities will have a designated "telework" car with double the Wi-Fi capacity of other carriages, starting in October, Central Japan Railway said Thursday.

"More people are looking to work from anywhere at any time, and shinkansen trains will adapt to this demand

WASHINGTON/NEW YORK -- At least 60 Afghan citizens and 13 U.S. military members were killed Thursday as suicide bombers detonated in two locations outside Kabul's international airport.

The Pentagon said that another 15 American service members were among the injured.

"It's a hard day today," Gen. Frank McKenzie, commander of the U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM), told Pentagon reporters by video call. "Two suicide bombers, assessed to have been ISIS fighters,

TAIPEI -- The ruling parties of Taiwan and Japan will host their first ever regional security dialogue on Friday -- a meeting, already condemned by Beijing, that comes amid growing Chinese aggression in the region.

Taiwan's ruling Democratic Progress Party is sending Lo Chih-cheng and Tsai Shih-ying, members of the parliamentary foreign affairs and defense committees, respectively, and also key figures for the DPP in those fields. Japan will be represented by Masahisa Sato, a lawmaker in charge of foreign affairs for the ruling

Boonsithi Chokwatana is chairman of Saha Group, Thailand's leading consumer products conglomerate. This is part 30 of a 30-part series .

I turned 84 on July 25. All my life, I have always tried to eat and dress as simply as possible.

I have followed my morning routine for decades: I wake up at 4 o'clock, check what is going on in the world by watching the news on TV and, more recently, by scrolling through the Line app on my

SEOUL -- Announcing the arrival of 378 people from Afghanistan in South Korea, Justice Minister Park Beom-gye referred to them not as refugees but as "our Afghan friends."

In an apparent effort to stem public discontent, Park on Thursday explained that the evacuees spent years working closely with South Korea, assisting diplomats and development professionals with efforts to rebuild the country. Among them are IT professionals, interpreters and medical workers.

"They may have lived in a far-off country, but really they'

SYDNEY -- As a deadly suicide attack at Kabul's airport upends the Afghanistan evacuation drive, Australian veterans hope Canberra will not leave hundreds of former Afghan aides high and dry.

"These are people, not a piece of equipment you discard when you're finished," Jason Scanes, former Australian army captain and head of the non-profit Forsaken Fighters, told Nikkei Asia before the attack. "My interpreter Hassan has been waiting for eight years. We lodged his original application back in July 201

HO CHI MINH CITY -- Indonesian fintech platform Kredivo is expanding its online lending business to Vietnam ahead of a planned U.S. listing by its parent company, a foray that could help it tap COVID-fueled demand for credit.

Kredivo, owned by Singapore-based FinAccel, set up a joint venture with Phoenix Holdings to offer digital credit cards to Vietnamese shoppers starting Friday. Phoenix Holdings is the family office of Henry Nguyen and his wife, Nguyen Thanh Phuong, daughter of a former Vietnamese prime minister.

The

WELLINGTON -- New Zealand prided itself on being a model for beating COVID-19 but is now grappling with a new delta-variant-fueled outbreak that has prompted a return to some of the world's strictest lockdown rules, shuttering swaths of the economy.

By Friday, the number of community cases in the outbreak had risen to 347, up a record 70 from a day earlier -- modest numbers by global standards, but alarming for New Zealand. Apart from 14 infections in the

BANGKOK -- In recent weeks, hard-core protesters have been clashing with riot police on an almost daily basis under an overpass at Din Daeng, a major intersection area 10 minutes north of central Bangkok.

The clashes erupted after police erected roadblocks to prevent protesters from reaching an army compound that contains Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha's residence.

Political agitation resumed in June, and the violence has mounted steadily with fireworks and other small explosive devices being thrown at police lines. The police have responded with water cannons