JAKARTA -- President Joko Widodo has extended Indonesia's coronavirus lockdown through the weekend, saying restrictions would be lifted gradually starting Monday if daily cases continue to decline.

Calling the measures a "very tough policy that the government can't avoid," Widodo said in a speech Tuesday broadcast live on YouTube that "we've now seen a downward trend for both new cases and hospital bed occupancy rates."

"If this trend continues, then the government will gradually reopen [the economy] on July 26

PALO ALTO, U.S. -- Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos, the world's richest person, traveled into space and returned safely Tuesday on the first crewed flight by the Blue Origin company he founded in 2000.

Blue Origin's New Shepard rocket lifted off from Texas around 9:10 a.m. Eastern time. The mission came on the 52nd anniversary of the 1969 lunar landing by Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin.

Bezos called it the "

TOKYO -- The U.K. will permanently deploy two patrol vessels to the Indo-Pacific following the deployment of a carrier strike group led by the HMS Queen Elizabeth, Defense Secretary Ben Wallace told Japanese counterpart Nobuo Kishi here Tuesday.

The announcement highlights the expanding defense cooperation between the two countries in the face of Chinese activity around Taiwan and the nearby Japan-administered Senkaku Islands, which China claims as the Diaoyu.

The defense chiefs confirmed that the aircraft carrier will dock at the U.S. naval base in

DALIAN, China -- China unveiled on Tuesday a homegrown magnetic levitation train capable of reaching 600 kph, the fastest train ever built by the country.

"Chinese high-speed maglev trains can become a viable industry," Sun Yongcai, chairman of CRRC, the state-owned developer of the train, said in a statement.

The new train's speed approaches the 603 kph world record set by a Japanese maglev built by Central Japan Railway, ushering in an intense competition for technical supremacy in

TOKYO -- Materials maker AGC is expected to have earned roughly 90 billion yen ($822 million) in group operating profit in the January-June half, logging around a 340% jump on the year largely driven by a rush of infrastructure projects in Southeast Asia.

Sales likely rose 24% to about 810 billion yen. The Tokyo-based company would outperform its profit and sales forecast, which was just upgraded in April, by 5 billion yen and 10 billion yen

TOKYO -- Sumitomo Corp. has invested in a trio of Israeli tech-sector startups, including a company developing monitoring technology for autonomous cars, joining the growing ranks of Japanese companies targeting a hub of high-tech entrepreneurship.

IN Venture, Sumitomo's Israel-based venture capital arm, has reportedly invested millions of dollars each in three companies, including Ottopia, which develops teleoperation systems to assist autonomous vehicles. Its technology uses artificial intelligence to predict wireless network conditions and compress video data to provide a steady real-

NEW YORK -- Gone are the plum flowers and image of Mount Fuji on a sedate pink background of last year. A fully armored samurai warrior mounted on a charging steed is emblazoned on the cover of Japan's defense white paper this year, and people are taking notice of the shift in direction.

The annual "Defense of Japan" white paper is compiled by a team of six under the Ministry of Defense. Four of this year's staffers were women in their 30s, including the team leader

OSAKA -- Japan-based manufacturers Sharp and Nikon have partnered to develop home appliances with features that take a page from the biological world, starting with an energy-efficient air conditioner inspired by shark skin.

The tie-up announced Tuesday combines Sharp's appliance expertise with Nikon's microfabrication techniques, including the use of a laser on resin or metal surfaces. The companies aim to explore biomimicry, creating components with new features such as antifouling or water-repellency. They look to commercialize the technology by fiscal 2

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."

Yoshihide Suga may have just had the worst stretch of his brief tenure as Japan's prime minister.

On July 4, the ruling Liberal Democratic Party not only fell short of a majority in the Tokyo metropolitan elections, it actually delivered one of its worst results ever.

Meanwhile, a spike in COVID-19 cases in the