COLOMBO -- Sri Lanka's west coast fishermen and women, who have been battered by the pandemic and lockdowns for more than a year now, can no longer look forward to the bountiful catches that the annual rainy season promises. Their customers, said Aruna Roshantha, president of the All Ceylon Fisher Folk Trade Union, are too scared to eat seafood.

The fear stems from a catastrophe that began to unfold on May 20, when a ship laden with 1,486 containers and 25 tons of

OSAKA -- Daikin Industries, Japan's leading manufacturer of air conditioners, remains resilient amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

The company reported its first sales and profit declines in 11 years in the year ended March, but results were much better than initial forecasts and it expects a 13% jump in operating profit this year. Analysts attribute the company's strength to its ability to recognize its own weaknesses and quickly rectify them.

Daikin's group operating profit fell 10% on year to 2

TOKYO -- The Tokyo Stock Exchange wants to make Japan's blue chip companies more like their socially conscious and diverse U.S. and European counterparts under an upgraded corporate governance code that took effect Friday.

The latest change in the code, originally adopted in 2015, encourages Japan's biggest corporations to bring in more women and independent directors and squarely face human rights and climate issues ahead of an organizational overhaul at the TSE.

The hope is that companies more in line with global governance standards would

TOKYO -- Japan Airlines is scrambling to turn around its air transportation operations hit hard by the novel coronavirus pandemic.

The major Japanese airline is promoting the structural reform of its full service carrier business as it cannot expect a full recovery in the number of business travelers, even in the post-coronavirus period.

Meanwhile, JAL is staying ahead of the curve. It is taking measures to cash in on the expected recovery in tourism demand in the post-coronavirus period, including additional investments in affiliated low-cost carriers.

HONG KONG -- Agnes Chow Ting, one of the most prominent Hong Kong democracy activists, was released from prison on Saturday after serving about six months over her role in an illegal demonstration outside the city's police headquarters two years ago.

Chow, 24, walked out of the Tai Lam Centre for Women, a correctional facility in northern Hong Kong, at about 10 a.m. local time, greeted by her family and a swarm of media. She did not speak to reporters on exiting the

PHNOM PENH -- The U.S. defense attache to Cambodia abruptly ended a tour of Ream Naval Base on Friday after being denied "full access" to the site, which is undergoing Beijing-backed expansion.

Col. Marcus M. Ferrara canceled the inspection after a "brief visit" to the base, situated on Cambodia's coast on the Gulf of Thailand, according to a statement from the U.S. Embassy in the country.

"Cambodian military officials refused to allow the defense attache full access

TAIPEI --Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. is considering building another advanced plant in the U.S., Nikkei Asia has learned, as the world's biggest contract semiconductor supplier responds to Washington's desire to bring more of the tech supply chain onto home turf.

The new plant would carry out chip packaging, using advanced technology to integrate different types of semiconductors onto wafers. Innovation in packaging chips is emerging as an industry battleground for TSMC and rivals including Intel and Samsung, and this would be TSMC's

HONG KONG -- Hong Kong authorities on Friday empowered official film censors to ban the showing of movies which could be perceived as threatening China's national security.

According to newly published guidelines, censors should be "vigilant to the portrayal, depiction or treatment of any act or activity which may amount to an offense endangering national security ... [or] any content of a film which is objectively and reasonably capable of being perceived as endorsing, supporting, promoting, glorifying, encouraging or inciting such act or activity.

TOKYO -- Japan's real gross domestic product contracted 0.3% in April from the previous month, according to data released on Friday by the Japan Center for Economic Research.

The decline was driven by external factors: while the country's exports increased only 2.1%, imports grew 7.1%, creating a downward pressure on the monthly economic growth rate.

The robust growth in imports reflected relatively healthier domestic components of the economy. Companies' capital investment jumped by 3.4%,