NAGASAKI, Japan (Kyodo) -- Nagasaki marked the 76th anniversary Monday of the U.S. atomic bombing of the city in World War II, with its mayor urging the Japanese government to take a more active role in realizing a world free of nuclear weapons.

At the annual memorial ceremony, Mayor Tomihisa Taue urged the government to sign and ratify a U.N. treaty banning nuclear weapons and join as an observer in its first meeting of state parties to the treaty, which came into effect in

Boonsithi Chokwatana is chairman of Saha Group, Thailand's leading consumer products conglomerate. This is part 16 of a 30-part series .

I should now discuss the management structure of the Saha Group.

So this is the big question: Whenever we entered a new business, why did we establish new companies one after another to handle operations?

As Saha Pathanapibul, the core of the group, gradually grew, some of the old executives' sensitivity inevitably dulled. New businesses should be left to young people with

TOKYO -- After two weeks, the sporting events of the Tokyo Olympics are over . The U.S. pipped China by 39 to 38 to win the most golds, while Japan came in third with a record 27. The closing ceremony on Sunday evening will bring the Games to a conclusion, with the Olympic flag being handed over to Paris.

Here is the final medal count .

Here are the latest developments:

Sunday, Aug. 8 (Tokyo time)

10:10 p.

TOKYO -- Tokyo Gov. Yuriko Koike passed the Olympic flag to Paris mayor Anne Hidalgo on Sunday night, as the closing ceremony drew a curtain on Japan's ill-starred Games.

With the Paralympics still to come, over 4,500 athletes and team officials marched into the National Stadium as one group, behind the flags of the 206 national Olympic committees and to the tune of the Olympic March written by Yuji Koseki for the 1964 Tokyo Games.

Several carried fans to cool

TOKYO/PALO ALTO, U.S. -- When examining Tesla's expansive portfolio of patents, it's not only the futuristic technology that stands out -- from a built-in valet feature that eliminates long walks through the parking lot or the impressive acceleration in its latest redesign -- but also the sheer volume of innovation that helps it maintain its position as the world's leading manufacturer of electric vehicles.

Tesla remains a poster child for headline-grabbing innovations. The company started delivering its fully

William Pesek is an award-winning Tokyo-based journalist and author of "Japanization: What the World Can Learn from Japan's Lost Decades."

China botched the first wave of COVID-19. First, it failed to warn the world what was coming. Next, it got defensive. Then Beijing circled the wagons in ways that wrecked the soft power its rapid growth and spending around the world had amassed.

Now, as the pandemic boomerangs back Beijing's way, President Xi Jinping's government

SEOUL/DALIAN, China -- North Korea is scrambling to resume land-based trade with China in hopes of a much-needed economic shot in the arm, having halted shipments from its northern neighbor well over a year ago to keep the coronavirus out.

The North is expanding quarantine facilities at a military airfield near the Chinese border, South Korean intelligence recently reported to National Assembly members. With large numbers of personnel deployed, North Korea aims to bring the facilities online this month, the South Korean lawmakers were told.

JAKARTA -- Investors in the booming global market for Islamic bonds, or sukuk , have little clarity on how defaults in the sector will be resolved, even as issuance tears toward an annual record.

The uncertainty has been brought to the fore in recent weeks after the airline Garuda Indonesia defaulted on a payment, while attempts to standardize the industry remain in their infancy.

With sukuk only starting to take off in recent years, there have been very few defaults to date and most, if not all, were resolved out of

TOKYO -- In the last days of the Olympics, Tokyo Gov. Yuriko Koike spent her remaining time in the international spotlight touting her city's sustainable development and potential as an Asian financial center. Had all gone according to plan, a kinder, greener Games might have been Tokyo 2020's legacy.

Japan introduced several new initiatives that future Olympic hosts could emulate. At the athletes' village, food was supplied by farmers in Fukushima Prefecture, still recovering from the 2011 earthquake and