TOKYO -- With the protracted pandemic forcing businesses to embrace telecommuting and other flexible arrangements, more Japanese employers are scrapping geographical requirements for workers, particularly in hotly competitive fields like engineering and online sales.

Recruitment agency BizReach says this June's proportion of such job listings was 13.2 times that in February 2020, the month before COVID-19 cases began to rise sharply in Japan. Most of the listings are for full-time positions with the option of going remote.

BizReach serves mainly

TOKYO -- The U.S., China, Japan and Russia are among the countries planning to conduct joint research on fishing in the Arctic Ocean in a step toward setting forth international rules, Nikkei has learned.

Representatives from nine countries and the European Union are planning to meet in South Korea early next year to discuss fishing quotas based on similar treaties covering other regions. Starting with the quotas, which could take effect as early as 2022, the group intends to gradually expand guidelines to enforce sustainable fishing

Rupa Subramanya is a researcher and commentator. She is a distinguished fellow of the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada and the co-author of " Indianomix: Making Sense of Modern India."

On July 20, Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon and at present the richest person on the planet, briefly left Earth, with his foray into space on Blue Origin, a space capsule underwritten by his fortune.

Nine days earlier, fellow billionaire Richard Branson blasted into space on his own vehicle, Virgin Galactic. Meanwhile, SpaceX

Nikkei Asia is tracking the spread of the coronavirus that was first detected in the central Chinese city of Wuhan.

Cumulative global cases have reached 197,270,918, according to Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. The worldwide death toll has hit 4,207,124.

For more information about the spread of COVID-19 and the progress of vaccination around the world, please see our interactive charts and maps.

-- Global coronavirus tracker charts

-- Status of

MANILA/BANGKOK -- Southeast Asian medalists at the Tokyo Olympics are receiving lavish rewards for their accomplishments, in addition to a hero's welcome when they return home.

Philippine weightlifter Hidilyn Diaz, who won her country's first-ever Olympic gold medal, will receive one or more homes and other prizes, on top of cash payments much larger than the official prize money on offer.

Diaz completed a total lift of 224 kg, a new Olympic record, in the women's 55 kg

TOKYO -- The Tokyo Olympics are well underway after a long journey filled with controversy, and an unprecedented one-year postponement because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The proceedings officially began with the opening ceremony at the National Stadium , a mostly subdued affair mixed with joyous moments like a high-tech drone show, and capped by tennis star Naomi Osaka lighting the Olympic cauldron.

We're tracking the latest medal count .

Read our breakdown of the events to watch .

Here are the latest developments:

Saturday,

TOKYO -- The Tokyo Olympics are well underway after a long journey filled with controversy, and an unprecedented one-year postponement because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The proceedings officially began with the opening ceremony at the National Stadium , a mostly subdued affair mixed with joyous moments like a high-tech drone show, and capped by tennis star Naomi Osaka lighting the Olympic cauldron.

We're tracking the latest medal count .

Read our breakdown of the events to watch .

Here are the latest developments:

Saturday,

TOKYO -- With the coronavirus's delta variant ripping through the capital amid the Tokyo Olympics, Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga's political prospects look increasingly precarious.

If history is any guide, Suga may suffer an insurmountable post-Olympics jinx that has felled three past prime ministers.

Citing the people's safety as his top priority, Suga opted to ban spectators at most Olympic venues. Still, rising infections forced the government on Friday to expand the state-of-emergency declaration to six prefectures.

In this dire

Nikkei Asia is tracking the spread of the coronavirus that was first detected in the central Chinese city of Wuhan.

Cumulative global cases have reached 197,270,918, according to Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. The worldwide death toll has hit 4,207,124.

For more information about the spread of COVID-19 and the progress of vaccination around the world, please see our interactive charts and maps.

-- Global coronavirus tracker charts

-- Status of