TOKYO -- Australia wants to hash out its disputes with China through dialogue, but is willing to be "patient," Canberra's trade minister said in an exclusive interview.

"What I'd like to do is be able to sit down and work through these issues," said Dan Tehan, who took on the trade, tourism and investment portfolio late last year as China-Australia ties swiftly deteriorated.

Tehan was visiting Japan as part of a tour including Singapore, Vietnam, South Korea and the U

NISEKO, Japan -- Moving his company from the bustling capital Tokyo to the mountainous views of Niseko, Hokkaido, Hiroki Mizuguchi, chairman and president of tea store chain Lupicia is confident that the new environment will bring out the creativity of his staff.

"I should have come here earlier," he said, a year after submitting the paperwork to relocate the company's headquarters. "With artificial intelligence coming, we are only going to be able to survive if we are creative. An environment like this is likely

OSAKA -- It has been nearly half a year since the military seized control in Myanmar. Many foreign companies, including Norwegian telecom operator Telenor and Japanese brewer Kirin Holdings, have decided to sell their businesses or end joint ventures in the country.

If a foreign company leaves Myanmar, it runs the risk of losing the business franchise it has built up in the country and wasting its investment. On the other hand, continuing to do business in the country may be regarded by the international community and pro-democracy citizens as

TOKYO -- International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach, at a news conference in Tokyo on Saturday, expressed confidence that the COVID-19 countermeasures the Games' organizers have designed will be sufficient to prevent mass infection at the first Olympics held during a pandemic.

Fourteen people involved in the Games tested positive for COVID-19 on Saturday, bringing the total number of Olympic-related infections to 44 since July 1.

"I think this shows that the measures are not only in place but that they are working

SEOUL(Kyodo) -- Japanese Ambassador to South Korea Koichi Aiboshi has reprimanded his deputy for making an "extremely inappropriate remark" during a conversation with a local media reporter, the Japanese Embassy in Seoul said Saturday.

The announcement came after South Korean broadcaster JTBC reported the previous day that Hirohisa Soma, deputy chief of mission at the embassy, told one of its reporters that South Korean President Moon Jae-in is in a tug-of-war only with himself over frayed ties between Japan and South Korea, using

KYOTO -- Japan's Shimadzu has started selling a PCR testing reagent to detect the coronavirus's highly contagious delta variant, which has driven a resurgence in COVID-19 cases around the world.

The company plans to produce enough for 10,000 tests a month. The reagent is for research use only and will not be covered by insurance. It detects the L452R mutation found in delta, which was first reported in India.

Shimadzu has also begun full-scale sales

TOKYO -- He leads a team of 150,000. He is tasked with defending Japan from foreign invasion, at a time when tensions are rising in the Indo-Pacific in unprecedented ways.

He is also the first chief of staff of Japan's Ground Self-Defense Force not to have graduated the National Defense Academy of Japan, a school that specifically prepares students to serve in the three services -- ground, maritime and air -- of the SDF.

Instead, Gen. Yoshihide

TOKYO -- As the U.S. and Europe ready robust spending plans to transform their economies in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, Japan is instead taking a far more modest approach that lacks a blueprint for the future, an approach that possibly threatens its global competitiveness.

The American Jobs Plan proposed by President Joe Biden calls for spending $2 trillion over eight years to build infrastructure and combat climate change, though any such legislation remains under negotiation in Congress. The European Union looks to spend 1.8 trillion euros

BEIJING -- China's digital yuan trials racked up 34.5 billion yuan ($5.34 billion) in transactions by the end of June, according to a white paper released Friday by the People's Bank of China.

The currency has been used in 70.75 million payments so far across more than 1.32 million "scenarios" -- not only in retail settings like stores and restaurants, but also for public transportation, utility bills and government services. The